A suffragette was a woman who campaigned for women's right to vote, especially in Britain in the years around 1903-1918. The word points at a particular kind of campaigner: the militant ones. Suffragettes chained themselves to railings, smashed windows, went to prison, refused food in prison and were force-fed. Emmeline Pankhurst and her daughters led the most famous group.

Here is the part most people miss. The word began as an insult. A London newspaper, the Daily Mail, made it in 1906 by sticking '-ette' — the ending that means small or lesser, as in kitchenette — onto 'suffrage', to make these women sound like silly little girls. The women then took the name and used it proudly, which is why it survives as a word of honour today.

It is also worth knowing that not all campaigners were suffragettes. The larger, older, law-abiding groups called themselves suffragists, and many of them disliked the window-smashing. In the US, 'suffragist' is the usual word and 'suffragette' is less used. So the two words split along the line of tactics, and along the Atlantic.