|1.||(originally) a group of Falangist sympathizers in Madrid
during the Spanish Civil War who were prepared to join the four
columns of insurgents marching on the city| |2.||any group of
hostile or subversive infiltrators; an enemy in one's midst| |an
arrangement of five objects, as trees, in a square or rectangle,
one at each corner and one in the middle.| |a chattering or
flighty, light-headed person.| People willing to cooperate with
an aggressor against their own country. The term originated in a
remark by Francisco Franco, the Spanish dictator, that he was
marching on Madrid with four columns of troops, and that there
was a “fifth column” of sympathizers within the city ready to
help. A secret subversive group that works against a country or
organization from the inside, as in The right-to-life movement
has established a fifth column among freedom-of-choice
activists. This term was invented by General Emilio Mola during
the Spanish Civil War in a radio broadcast on October 16, 1936,
in which he said tha