Meaning

noun a political theory advocating an authoritarian hierarchical government (as opposed to democracy or liberalism)

originFrom Italian fascismo, from fascio (“fasces, bundle, group”) + -ismo (“-ism”) with direct reference to Benito Mussolini's fasci di combattimento ("fight clubs"), from Latin fasces, bundles of axes and rods carried before the magistrates of the ancient Roman Republic as representative of their power of life and death. Originally with exclusive reference to Fascist Italy which used the fasces as an…

Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 3.0