maquis: [20] The French word maquis literally means ‘undergrowth, scrub’, and its use for the resistance fighters who opposed German occupation during World War II is an allusion to their hide-outs in scrubby country. It is a borrowing, via Corsica, of Italian macchia. This originally meant ‘spot’ (it came from Latin macula ‘spot, stain’, source of English immaculate and mail ‘a(chǎn)rmour’), but was transferred metaphorically to a ‘bush or thicket seen from the distance as a spot on a hillside’. => immaculate, mail
maquis (n.)
1858, from French maquis "undergrowth, shrub," especially in reference to the dense scrub of certain Mediterranean coastal regions, long the haunts of outlaws and fugitives, from Corsican Italian macchia "spot," from Latin macula "spot, stain;" the landscapes so called from their mottled appearance. Used figuratively of French resistance in World War II (1943). A member is a maquisard.