'Poilu'.
Translated, it literally means 'hairy one'.
'Poilu' is one of those wonderful French words, like jolie-laide ('ugly-beautiful'), that is nuanced, encompassing several meanings, some divergent, but on the whole somehow 'right'. It was a common nickname given to the French infantrymen of the Great War, simultaneously describing a sense of affection, derision and fierce pride for those rustic, bearded, and fatalistically stoic soldiers of France.
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