Huguenot

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Huguenot a French Protestant of the 16th–17th centuries. Largely Calvinist, the Huguenots suffered severe persecution at the hands of the Catholic majority, and many thousands emigrated from France.

The name is French, an alteration (by association with the name of a Geneva burgomaster, Besançon Hugues) of eiguenot, from Dutch eedgenot, from Swiss German Eidgenoss ‘confederate’, from Eid ‘oath’ + Genoss ‘associate’.

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