bigot: [16] According to the 12th-century Anglo- Norman chronicler Wace, bigot was a contemptuous term applied by the French to the Normans, but it is far from clear where this came from, whether it is the same word as present-day bigot, and, if it is, how it came to mean ‘narrowminded person’. All that can be said for certain is that the word first turned up in its modern form in the 15th century as French bigot, from which English borrowed it.
