"night of the long knives" meaning in All languages combined

See night of the long knives on Wiktionary

Noun [English]

Forms: nights of the long knives [plural]
Etymology: Calque of German Nacht der langen Messer, name for the 1934 Night of the Long Knives in which the Nazis murdered various opponents. Reinforced by earlier English uses of the motif of long knives, as in phrases like the Treachery of the Long Knives (a pseudohistorical massacre of Celts by Anglo-Saxons), used since at least the 1800s. Etymology templates: {{calque|en|de|Nacht der langen Messer}} Calque of German Nacht der langen Messer Head templates: {{en-noun|nights of the long knives}} night of the long knives (plural nights of the long knives)
  1. A purge, in which opponents of a regime or political party are killed or removed. Wikipedia link: Night of the Long Knives, Treachery of the Long Knives Synonyms: night of long knives, Night of Long Knives, Night of the Long Knives Translations (purge): Nacht der langen Messer [feminine] (German), noc długich noży [feminine] (Polish)

Inflected forms

Alternative forms

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  "etymology_text": "Calque of German Nacht der langen Messer, name for the 1934 Night of the Long Knives in which the Nazis murdered various opponents. Reinforced by earlier English uses of the motif of long knives, as in phrases like the Treachery of the Long Knives (a pseudohistorical massacre of Celts by Anglo-Saxons), used since at least the 1800s.",
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          "ref": "1961, William Smith White, Majesty & mischief: a mixed tribute to F.D.R., page 77:",
          "text": "(It was to precede yet another night of the long knives—this one of Republican knives honed up for Truman and the new Truman-Democratic Party. But this latter would in some ways be actually a manifestation of secondary importance.)",
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        {
          "ref": "1970, Investors Chronicle and Stock Exchange Gazette, volume 13, page 11:",
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          "ref": "1971, United States Dept. of Defense, United States House Committee on Armed Services, United States-Vietnam relations, 1945-1967: study, page 29:",
          "text": "[…] was unable to fight, Americans didn't understand the Vietnamese, all whites must encourage only selected Vietnamese loyal to the French because the remainder would turn against all whites in another \"night of the long knives\" similar to that of 1946.",
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          "ref": "1988, Arthur Agwuncha Nwankwo, The power dynamics of the Nigerian society: people, politics and power, page 17:",
          "text": "[…] while the architects watched hopelessly and helplessly. Again, it was a group of young Nigerian revolutionaries in military uniform who rushed to the rescue and tried to save the country from the experience of another night of the long knives.",
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This page is a part of the kaikki.org machine-readable All languages combined dictionary. This dictionary is based on structured data extracted on 2024-12-21 from the enwiktionary dump dated 2024-12-04 using wiktextract (d8cb2f3 and 4e554ae). The data shown on this site has been post-processed and various details (e.g., extra categories) removed, some information disambiguated, and additional data merged from other sources. See the raw data download page for the unprocessed wiktextract data.

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