Establishment, a French word that is being used as an epithet by a billionaire from a rich family acting as an anti-establishment rabble rouser in the GOP primaries, seemed like a good word to examine today, using the first real dictionary of the English language.
Of course, though Samuel Johnson included six definitions of the word, he didn't include the meaning the word took on in the 1960s -- a meaning that is also being revived in this year's Democratic primaries.
[Today's dictionary entry comes from A dictionary of the English language : in which the words are deduced from their originals, and illustrated in their different significations by examples from the best writers : to which are prefixed, a history of the language, and an English grammar by Samuel Johnson, 1785, available online at The Internet Archive.]
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