So I started to watch that new show on AMC, Turn, about America's first spy ring. During the first episode, they are discussing a tavern owner known to be against the British Crown. The Redcoats keep calling him and his cohorts "patriots" in a disdainful tone.

Is this just bad screen writing, or was this actually a term used back then that has come to mean something slightly different now? Looking back we would naturally call those men patriots, but somehow I always attributed it as a term given after the fact.