Kike

Kike (), also known as the K-word, is an ethnic slur directed at Jews. The etymological origin comes from the Yiddish word for circle, (kaykl), itself a derivation of the Ancient Greek word .

==Etymology== 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. 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."