Webster's Revised Unabridged Dictionary · 1913

Carbonaro

Carbonaro , noun

[Italian, a coal man.]

A member of a secret political association in Italy, organized in the early part of the nineteenth century for the purpose of changing the government into a republic.

The origin of the Carbonari is uncertain, but the society is said to have first met, in 1808, among the charcoal burners of the mountains, whose phraseology they adopted.