This week (26 June 2025) in the NSW parliament, Premier Chris Minns called former Labor MLC Mark Latham “Australia’s biggest bigot.” The accusation was part of a fiery speech from the lower house about hate speech laws and their blockage in the upper house.
Bigot origins
The origin of “bigot” is not entirely clear. The modern meaning—a person who is obstinately or unreasonably attached to a belief, especially in a prejudiced or intolerant way—has developed over centuries.
The first English use of bigot appears in the late 16th century, where it described a religious hypocrite, often a woman. Earlier still, in 12th-century French, bigot was an insult thought to target the Normans.
The folk etymology theory (that is, an invented story created to explain word history) suggests that the French used it about the Normans’ because of their overuse of the oath “by God” (bi God).
There are more contemporary examples from the French who seem to have a low tolerance for the profanity-ridden speech of the Anglo-Saxons. They called the English “les goddamns” during the Hundred Years’ War (1337–1453) and American soldiers “les sommobiches” during WWI (1914-18) for their use of “sons of bitches”.
The “by God” theory is a great story but not entirely supportable (the Oxford English Dictionary calls the by-God theory “absurdly incongruous with facts”).
Some etymologists have tried to link it to the Visigoths—notable Germanic barbarians. Others have even pointed in the direction of “bigote”, the Spanish word for moustache, and as the Online Etymological Dictionary points out its real claim is only the lack of evidence against it.
Bigots and beguines
There is a possible link between “bigot” and the Beguine—members of a pious women’s movement from 12th-century Belgium. The Beguines lived semi-monastic lives of poverty and self-denial without taking religious vows. The movement’s name is thought to come from Lambert le Bègue—“Lambert the Stammerer”—a priest from Liège.
Although the Beguines were at first admired for their religious lifestyle they eventually drew suspicion and eventually condemnation. They may have lost their gloss from the behaviour of their male counterparts, called Beghards, that wandered about in the guise of religious devotion and may have given us the words beg and beggar.
Some scholars think the early meaning of “bigot” as a sanctimonious, overzealous woman might have evolved from the fallen reputation of the Beguine. What began as a criticism of intense female piety morphed into a general-purpose insult for any sort of ideological rigidity.
Modern bigots
By the 17th century, “bigot” had lost its gendered overtone and expanded to anyone who was intolerant of others’ differing ideas, races, genders, religions, or politics, etc. So Mark Latham being named as Australia’s biggest bigot does not give him much reason to celebrate, but perhaps like many bigots he may not care.