kulak

Alternative forms

• koulak
• Kulak

Etymology

1877. From Russian кула́к (kulák, “wealthy peasant; fist; tight-fisted person”), plural кулаки́ (kulakí). Compare also Russian раскула́чивание (raskuláčivanije, “dekulakization”), подкула́чник (podkuláčnik, “subkulak”).

Pronunciation

• (UK) IPA^(key): /ˈkuːlak/

Noun

kulak (plural kulaks or kulaki)

1. (historical) A prosperous peasant in the Russian Empire or the Soviet Union, who owned land and could hire workers.
   • 2002, Christopher Hitchens, "Martin Amis: Lightness at Midnight", The Atlantic, Sep 2002:

     The “internal organs,” as the CHEKA and the GPU and the KGB used to style themselves, were asked to police the mind for heresy as much as to torture kulaks to relinquish the food they withheld from the cities.

   • 2015 February 6, Nick Gillespie, “To the Barricades, Brooklyn Yuppies!”, in The Dailey Beast‎, retrieved 20150206:

     We are the “upper middle class”, the new kulaks whose antisocial self-interest and lack of submission to the aims of the revolutionary vanguard must be extinguished.

Quotations

• For quotations of use of this term, see Citations:kulak.

References

Merriam-Webster's Collegiate Dictionary: Tenth Edition 1997

Anagrams

• Kukla, Kulka

Etymology

From Russian кула́к (kulák, “wealthy peasant; fist; tight-fisted person”).

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): [ˈkulak]
• Rhymes: -ulak
• Hyphenation: ku‧lak

Noun

kulak m anim

1. (historical, pejorative) kulak, a prosperous peasant marked as an enemy of the people by the communist regime, especially in the time of forced collectivization (e. g. in Czechoslovakia 1948–cca 1960)
   • 2003, Jaroslav Čejka, Lidé, čas a zvířata‎, Praha: Baronet, →ISBN, page 144:

     Pan Kubrycht byl prý původně bohatý sedlák, čili – jak se v padesátých letech říkalo – kulak, kterého vyhnali z jeho statku.

     People say that Mr. Kubrycht was originally a rich farmer, or – as it was said in 1950s – a kulak, who was forced to leave his farm.

Further reading

• kulak in Příruční slovník jazyka českého, 1935–1957
• kulak in Slovník spisovného jazyka českého, 1960–1971, 1989

Anagrams

• klaku
• kluka
• kukal
• kukla
• kulka

Noun

kulak m (plural kulaks)

1. (historical) kulak (prosperous peasant in Russia)

Etymology

From Ottoman Turkish قولاق‎ (qulaq, “ear”), from Proto-Turkic *kulkak (“ear”). Cognate with Old Turkic 𐰸𐰆𐰞𐰴𐰴‎ (qulqaq).

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /ku.ˈɫɑk/

• audio:

  (file)

• Hyphenation: ku‧lak

Noun

kulak (definite accusative kulağı, plural kulaklar)

1. ear