Kike, also known as the K-word, is an ethnic slur directed at Jews. The etymological origin comes from the Yiddish word for circle, Yiddish: קײַקל (kaykl), itself a derivation of the Ancient Greek word .
According to the Oxford English Dictionary, the word may be an alteration of the endings -ki or -ky common in the personal names of Jews in eastern Europe who immigrated to the United States in the early 20th century.[1] A variation or expansion of this theory published in Our Crowd (1967), by Stephen Birmingham, postulates that the term "kike" was coined as a put-down by the assimilated U.S. Jews from Germany to identify eastern European and Russian Jews: "Because many Russian [Jewish] names ended in 'ki', they were called 'kikes'—a German Jewish contribution to the American vernacular. The name then proceeded to be co-opted by non-Jews as it gained prominence in its usage in society, and was later used as a general derogatory slur."
The Encyclopedia of Swearing suggests that Leo Rosten's suggestion is the most likely. He stated that:
The Yiddish word Yiddish: קײַקל (kikel) probably descends from the Ancient Greek word for circle, (kyklos). Ironically, this Greek word also gave rise to the name of the Ku Klux Klan, an American hate group.[2]
Compounding the mysterious origin of this term, in 1864 in the United Kingdom the word ike or ikey was used as a derogatory term for Jews, which derived from the name "Isaac", a common Jewish name.[3] [4]
In a travel report from 1937 for the German-Jewish publication German: [[Der Morgen (magazine)|Der Morgen]], Joachim Prinz, writing of the situation of Jewish immigrants in the United States, allegedly mentioned the word as being used by Jews to denigrate other Ashkenazi Jews:
The slur has been spotted at several protests, with a Jewish woman being called that at a Biden fundraiser in 2024.[5] [6] A similar incident happened at California's Occidental College and Pomona College, against which the Anti-Defamation League (ADL) and Brandeis Center for Human Rights Under Law filed Title VI[7] complaints on behalf of the harassed Jewish students.[8] [9]
