Green’s Dictionary of Slang

1. (orig. US) a derog. name for a Jew, esp. an East European late 19C immigrant to US rather than the older, German immigrants of earlier decades; also attrib.

1903		Chicago Trib. 12 Sept. 4/1: The Kike. The kike is a more or less human animal of predatory instincts. His lair is the sweat shop.
1904		R. McCardell Show Girl and Her Friends 49: And what do you think? He had the impudence to tell me that Louie Zinsheimer was a kike!
1911		G. Bronson-Howard Enemy to Society 290: ‘You keep yer tongue for them as needs it, you kike!’ he finished, turning suddenly to Morgenstein.
1922		T. Dreiser letter 5 Nov. in Harap Creative Awakening 128: New York is to me a scream — a kyke’s dream of a ghetto. The lost tribe has taken over the island.
1924		P. Marks Plastic Age 201: You could be as popular as the devil if you wanted to, but you go chasing around with kikes and micks.
1932		(con. 1919) Dos Passos Nineteen Nineteen in USA (1966) 383: The doc, who was a little kike with a goatee.
1942		E.L. Adams Dark Symphony (1997) 93: A little Jewish girl screamed and screamed until a teacher hurried across the yard and took her in her arms. Somebody had called her a ‘kyke’.
1946		Mezzrow & Wolfe Really the Blues 6: It took just a whispered ‘kike’ or ‘Jew bastard’ from a member of some rival [...] gang, and fists were flying.
1952		J. Jones From Here to Eternity (1998) 157: He aint no frigging kike, thats sure.
1959		G.P. Morrill Dark Sea Running 72: He was a Kyke and this was his way to get back for all those Nazi concentration camps.
1967		L. Bruce Essential Lenny Bruce 15: That’s two kikes, and three niggers, and one spic.
1971		R.D. Pharr S.R.O. (1998) 79: ‘You’re a goddam refugee.’ ‘Why the hell can’t you say kike? Or sheeny? Or Jew bastard?’.
1977		S. Berkoff East in Decadence and Other Plays (1985) 55: Those evil-smelling greasy kikes had barricades up.
1988		M. Atwood Cat’s Eye (1989) 134: ‘Jews are kikes,’ says Carol [...] Don’t be vulgar,’ says Cordelia, in her adult voice. ‘Kike is not a word we use.’.
1993		S. King Dolores Claiborne 164: That goddam Catholic kike-lover in the White House.
1995		S. Klein Through a Ruby Window 101: I saw clearly that if I was branded as a Nazi, then I was also a Nigger, a Wop, a Spic, a Jap, a Kyke.
1997		T. Fontana ‘God's Chillin’ Oz ser. 1 ep. 3 [TV script] Interesting place, Oz. I haven’t been called ‘kike’ this much since prep school .
2001		G. Hinton Cathedral City 96: You have a big nose, maybe you’re a Jew. You a Jew, Mister Big Nose? You a Kike.
2005		M.B. ‘Chopper’ Read Chopper 4 n.p.: ‘No-one calls me a kike!’ yells Dave.
2011		in D. Tel. 11 May 🌐 Anyway, I don’t give a damn whether you are a kike or not.
2016		Twitter 18 Sept. 🌐 You are not an American and never can be, you kike nation-wrecking genetically foreign parasite [...] Better go to Israel where you belong. That or the oven.
2021		F. Raphael in Critic Mar. 🌐 If Epstein were not a Jew, he would be charged with antisemitism; as a Jew, with being a kike.

2. (US Und.) a Jewish thief.

1924

G. Henderson Keys to Crookdom 169: But the ‘kikes’ as these swindlers are called, do not stop there.

3. (orig. US) a grasping, dishonest if also shrewd person (irrespective of race).

1911

S. Ford Torchy 160: G’wan, you’re a lot of flossy kikes!