1965: Swiss Endonym: eidgenosse May 2, 2020

German is spoken commonly in Switzerland, but the in name for what would go on to become the country 'Eidgenossenschaft' only exists in the political context of Swiss political history. This is often translated as 'federation' or 'confederacy' [confederation], but German has other words for those: Bundesrepublik/Verband and (Kon)Föderation. Instead, this actually means "oath fellowship", and because this term is basically exclusive to Switzerland, one old term for a Swiss citizen was Eidgenosse, or literally 'oath-fellow'.

Support Word Facts on patreon.com/wordfacts