kike

Etymology

Thought to be from Yiddish קײַקל (kaykl, “circle”). In the early 20th century, Non-English-speaking Jews that immigrated to the United States would sign papers with a circle as opposed to a more common X. The latter symbol was associated by these Jews with the Christian cross, a symbol that represented to them millennia of persecution. This is the dominant etymological theory, but there are others, in particular a contraction from the documented phrase ‘Ikey-Kikey’, an American-origin reduplication of Ikey, British-English pejorative for Jews after the prevalence of the name Isaac.

noun

1. (US, offensive, ethnic slur, religious slur) A Jew.
   "Now you quit kidding me! What's the nice little name?" "Oh, it ain't so darn nice. I guess it's kind of kike. But my folks ain't kikes. My papa's papa was a nobleman in Poland, and there was a gentleman in here one day, he was kind of a count or something--" 1922, Sinclair Lewis, “24”, in Babbitt
2. (US, offensive) A miser; a contemptible, stingy person, particularly a well-endowed one.
   That greedy kike would not give me any money when I was starving and needed food.