<SpanishZapatista (1926–8 or earlier) < the name of Emiliano Zapata (1879–1919), Mexican revolutionary + ‑ista‑istsuffix.Compare Zapatistn.
Meaning & use
noun
1.
1911–
A supporter of Emiliano Zapata (see etymology); a member of the revolutionary guerrilla movement which was founded c1910 by Zapata and which fought during the Mexican Revolution to achieve the redistribution of agricultural land. Cf. Zapatistn. A.1. Now historical.
1911
Thirteen out of a party of twenty rurales were killed in a fight with Zapatistas near San Maria, Mex., Sunday.
Thomas County (Nebraska) Herald 5 January
1981
Pancho Villa had gained significant advantages: he had acquired an aura of legitimacy, and he had made an important alliance with the Zapatistas.
L. B. Hall, Álvaro Obregón vii. 95
2014
Zapata lost patience with Madero, and in November 1911 the Zapatistas proclaimed their radical program the Plan de Ayala.
A member or supporter of a revolutionary force espousing ideals for social and agrarian reform similar to those of Zapata, which launched a popular uprising in the southern Mexican state of Chiapas in January 1994. Cf. Zapatistn. A.2.
1994
The Zapatistas announced in June that their supporters had overwhelmingly rejected the peace proposal.
Associated Press Worldstream (Nexis) 1 January
2001
The Zapatistas understood the link between international trade and their own security.
J. A. Tickner, Gendering World Politics v. 138
2022
As I was finishing the first draft of this book in August of 2019, a new letter arrived..addressed, as the Zapatistas' letters always are, to anyone open to receiving it.
J. Sarbanes, Letters on Autonomy Project 170
adjective
1912–
Of, relating to, or designating the Zapatistas (in either sense). Cf. Zapatistadj.
1912
Bands which appear to be not closely connected with the Zapatista movement.
Washington Post 19 February 1/3
1950
He..placed a Zapatista general in charge of troops in Morelos.
F. Tannenbaum, Mexico iv. 64
1994
In a statement faxed to the news media, the Zapatista Army..said thousands of armed men and women seized San Cristobal de las Casas.
Coloradoan (Fort Collins) 2 January a8/2
2016
Many catechists and deacons trained under Ruiz reportedly joined the 1994 Zapatista rebellion.
Some consonants can take the function of the vowel in unstressed syllables. Where necessary, a syllabic marker diacritic is used, hence /ˈpɛtl/ but /ˈpɛtl̩i/.
Vowels
iːfleece
ihappy
ɪkit
ɛdress
atrap, bath
ɑːstart, palm, bath
ɒlot
ɔːthought, force
ʌstrut
ʊfoot
uːgoose
əletter
əːnurse
ɪənear
ɛːsquare
ʊəcure
eɪface
ʌɪpride
aʊmouth
əʊgoat
ɔɪvoice
ãgratin
ɒ̃salon
ᵻ(/ɪ/-/ə/)
ᵿ(/ʊ/-/ə/)
Other symbols
The symbol ˈ at the beginning of a syllable indicates that that syllable is pronounced with primary stress.
The symbol ˌ at the beginning of a syllable indicates that that syllable is pronounced with secondary stress.
Round brackets ( ) in a transcription indicate that the symbol within the brackets is optional.
Some consonants can take the function of the vowel in unstressed syllables. Where necessary, a syllabic marker diacritic is used, hence /ˈpɛd(ə)l/ but /ˈpɛdl̩i/.
Vowels
ifleece, happy
ɪkit
ɛdress
ætrap, bath
ɑlot, palm, cloth, thought
ɑrstart
ɔcloth, thought
ɔrnorth, force
ʊfoot
ugoose
əstrut, comma
ərnurse, letter
ɪ(ə)rnear
ɛ(ə)rsquare
ʊ(ə)rcure
eɪface
aɪpride
aʊmouth
oʊgoat
ɔɪvoice
ɑ̃gratin
æ̃salon
ᵻ(/ɪ/-/ə/)
ᵿ(/ʊ/-/ə/)
Other symbols
The symbol ˈ at the beginning of a syllable indicates that that syllable is pronounced with primary stress.
The symbol ˌ at the beginning of a syllable indicates that that syllable is pronounced with secondary stress.
Round brackets ( ) in a transcription indicate that the symbol within the brackets is optional.
Simple text respell breaks words into syllables, separated by a hyphen. The syllable which carries the primary stress is written in capital letters. This key covers both British and U.S. English Simple Text Respell.
Consonants
b, d, f, h, k, l, m, n, p, r, s, t, v, w and z have their standard English values
gguy
jjay
yyore
chchore
khloch
shshore
ththaw
dhthee
zhbeige
Vowels
atrap
ahpalm
airsquare
arstart
arrcarry (British only)
awthought
ayface
a(ng)gratin
edress
eefleece
eerdeer
errmerry
ikit
ighpride
irrmirror
olot (British only)
ohgoat
oogoose
oorcure
orforce
orrsorry (British only)
owmouth
oyvoice
o(ng)salon
ustrut
uhletter
urnurse
urrhurry
uufoot
Forms
Variant forms
Also with lower-case initial.
Frequency
Zapatista typically occurs about 0.5 times per million words in modern written English.
Zapatista is in frequency band 4, which contains words occurring between 0.1 and 1 times per million words in modern written English. More about OED's frequency bands
Frequency data is computed programmatically, and should be regarded as an estimate.
Frequency of Zapatista, n. & adj., 1910–2010
* Occurrences per million words in written English
Historical frequency series are derived from Google Books Ngrams (version 2), a data set based on the Google Books corpus of several million books printed in English between 1500 and 2010.
The overall frequency for a given word is calculated by summing frequencies for the main form of the word, any plural or inflected forms, and any major spelling variations.
For sets of homographs (distinct entries that share the same word-form, e.g. mole, n.¹, mole, n.², mole, n.³, etc.), we have estimated the frequency of each homograph entry as a fraction of the total Ngrams frequency for the word-form. This may result in inaccuracies.
Smoothing has been applied to series for lower-frequency words, using a moving-average algorithm. This reduces short-term fluctuations, which may be produced by variability in the content of the Google Books corpus.
Decade
Frequency per million words
1910
0.094
1920
0.085
1930
0.079
1940
0.12
1950
0.15
1960
0.13
1970
0.2
1980
0.36
1990
0.47
2000
0.55
2010
0.7
Zapatista, n. & adj. was first published in September 2004.