Reds

See also: reds and rēds

English

Etymology

In reference to the ancient Roman and medieval Byzantine racing faction, a calque of Latin russātī (“Reddish-Brown-Clads”) or factio russata (“the reddish-brown-clad faction”) and Byzantine Greek Ῥούσιοι (Rhoúsioi, “Reds”).

Noun

Reds

1. plural of Red

Proper noun

Reds pl (plural only)

1. (informal, politics) Synonym of Communist Party in various contexts.
2. (informal, sports) Any of several sports teams whose uniform is predominantly red, particularly
   1. (historical) The chariot-racing faction of the Roman circus and Constantinopolitan hippodrome that wore red.
      • 2002, James Allan Stewart Evans, The Age of Justinian..., p. 38:

        Gibbon's successors had alternative suggestions, the most persistent of which has been that the Blues were supporters of religious orthodoxy and the Greens of Monophysitism. According to this view, the emperor Anastasius, whose Monophysitism was notorious, should have been a Green, though contemporary evidence makes him a Red.

   2. (baseball) Cincinnati Reds.
   3. (soccer) Liverpool FC.

Coordinate terms

• (Roman charioteering factions): Blues, Greens, Whites; Golds, Purples (rare)

Anagrams

• DREs, Ders, ERDs, ESRD, der's