kike
From Wiktionary, the free dictionary
Etymology
Thought to be from Yiddish קײַקל (kaykl, “circle”). In the early 20th century, non-English-speaking Jews that immigrated to the United States would sign papers with a circle as opposed to a more common X. The latter symbol was associated by these Jews with the Christian cross, a symbol that represented to them millennia of persecution.[1] This is the dominant etymological theory, but there are others, in particular a contraction from the documented phrase ‘Ikey-Kikey’, an American-origin reduplication of Ikey, British-English pejorative for Jews after the prevalence of the name Isaac.[2]
Pronunciation
- IPA(key): /kaɪk/
Audio (Southern England): (file)
- Rhymes: -aɪk
Noun
kike (plural kikes)
- (US, offensive, ethnic slur, religious slur) A Jew.
- 1922, Sinclair Lewis, “24”, in Babbitt:
- "Now you quit kidding me! What's the nice little name?" "Oh, it ain't so darn nice. I guess it's kind of kike. But my folks ain't kikes. My papa's papa was a nobleman in Poland, and there was a gentleman in here one day, he was kind of a count or something--"
- (US, offensive) A miser; a contemptible, stingy person, particularly a well-endowed one.
- Synonym: see Thesaurus:miser
- That greedy kike would not give me any money when I was starving and needed food.
Verb
kike (third-person singular simple present kikes, present participle kiking, simple past and past participle kiked)
- (transitive, offensive, uncommon) To render something more Jewish.
- (transitive, offensive, uncommon) To haggle or swindle in order to obtain a better deal from.
Derived terms
Translations
offensive: Jewish person
|
contemptible, stingy person — see miser
References
- Rosten, Leo (1968) The Joys of Yiddish, New York: Pocket Books Cited in Kim Pearson (2003) “kike”, in kpearson.faculty.tcnj.edu, (A rare usage is "kyke".), archived from the original on 2 June 2008
- Kim Pearson (2003) “kike”, in kpearson.faculty.tcnj.edu, (A rare usage is "kyke".), archived from the original on 2 June 2008
Further reading
Anagrams
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