A Dictionary of Epithets and Terms of Address
An extremely offensive way of referring to or addressing a Jew. The term is used far more in the USA than Britain, and is of obscure origin. Leo Rosten, in The Joys of Yiddish, derives it from Yiddish kikel, ‘circle’. because illiterate Jewish immigrants signed their name with a circle instead of a cross.
Any kind of cross would have been abhorrent to them because of its associations with the crucifixion. In Portnoy’s Complaint, by Philip Roth, a girl tells a Jewish boy that he is a son of a ‘bitch kike’. ‘Don’t you say kike to me, you,’ he tells her. ‘You are a kike, Kike,’ is the reply. In Moviola, by Garson Kanin, ‘you fatheaded kike’ is addressed to a Jewish man, but it is an insult between friends and no offence is taken.
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