[f. JACOBIN sb.1 + -ISM.] The doctrine or practice of the French Jacobins; ultra-democratic principles.
1793. Burke, Rem. Policy Allies, Wks. VII. 122. The true principles of legitimate government in opposition to jacobinism.
1798. Coleridge, Satyrane’s Lett., ii. in Biog. Lit. (1882), 262. The whole system of your drama is a moral and intellectual Jacobinism.
1801. M. Cutler, in Life, etc. (1888), II. 44. Jefferson’s speech,… a mixed medley of Jacobinism, Republicanism, and Federalism.
1821–30. Ld. Cockburn, Mem., 82. Jacobinism was a term denoting everything alarming and hateful, and every political objector was a Jacobin.
b. A Jacobinical trait or notion.
1888. Mrs. H. Ward, R. Elsmere, 510. A solitary eccentric life … had developed in him a good many crude Jacobinisms.
