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Topic: Fifth column

The Spanish Civil began on this date in 1936 with an army insurgency on the beach in Morocco. By the time the war ended three years later, an estimated half million people had died as a result, and Generalissimo Francisco Franco's grasp on the reins of power was firm.

We've talked before about how the Spanish Civil War gave our lexicon the term fifth column. As four army columns marched toward Madrid, Nationalist General Mola predicted a fifth column, militant supporters waiting within the capital, would help him take the city. That took some time to pass, but in the meantime fifth column entered the lexicon as a term for "a group of secret sympathizers or supporters of an enemy that engage in espionage or sabotage within defense lines or national borders."

Fifth column wasn't the only war-related term to enter our lexicon in 1936. That was also the birth year of Falangist, a member of the Spanish fascist organization whose name translates as "Spanish Phalanx" (and which was the party of Franco). And it was the first year the adjectives anti-intellectual ("opposing or hostile to intellectuals or to an intellectual view or approach") and good-neighbor (meaning "marked by principles of friendship, cooperation, and non-interference in the internal affairs of another country") and the nouns noninvolvement and self-determinism appeared in print.

Questions or comments? Write us at wftw@aol.com Production and research support for Word for the Wise comes from Merriam-Webster, publisher of language reference books and Web sites including Merriam-Webster's Collegiate Dictionary, Eleventh Edition.