fascist: [20] The early 20th-century Italian fascisti, under Benito Mussolini, took their name from Italian fascio, literally ‘bundle’ but figuratively ‘group, association’. Its source was Latin fascis ‘bundle’, from whose diminutive form fasciculus English gets fascicle [15]. Closely related was Latin fascia ‘band, bandage, strip’, borrowed by English in the 16th century. => fascia, fascicle
1921, from Italian partito nazionale fascista, the anti-communist political movement organized 1919 under Benito Mussolini (1883-1945); from Italian fascio "group, association," literally "bundle" (see fasces). Fasci "groups of men organized for political purposes" had been a feature of Sicily since c. 1895, and the 20c. totalitarian sense probably came directly from this but was influenced by the historical Roman fasces, which became the party symbol. As a noun from 1922 in English, earlier in Italian plural fascisti (1921), and until 1923 in English it often appeared in its Italian form, as an Italian word.
[Fowler: "Whether this full anglicization of the words is worth while cannot be decided till we know whether the things are to be temporary or permanent in England" -- probably an addition to the 1930 reprint, retained in 1944 U.S. edition.] Related: Fascistic.
