kleft
kleft noun: a type of brigand operating in the mountains of pre-Revolutionary Greece.
Noun
kleft (plural klefts)
- A type of brigand operating in the mountains of pre-Revolutionary Greece.
- True, the klefts often mulcted the villages, but at least they were Greeks, and they reduced considerably the marauding activities of the Albanians who in the second half of the eighteenth century were expanding westwards.1972, Douglas Dakin, The Unification of Greece, 1770-1923, page 18
- The fear Greek peasants had of the klefts is commented upon by the evidence of an English traveller, Leake, who was impressed by a monument he saw raised in honour of a local leader who had been killed in a fight against the klefts.1988, Niki Watts, The Greek Folk Songs, page 60
Forms of kleft
| plural | klefts |
|---|---|
| alternative form | klepht |
Origin of kleft
Ultimately from Greek κλέφτης (kléftis, “thief”).
Questions about kleft
- What does kleft mean?
- Kleft means a type of brigand operating in the mountains of pre-Revolutionary Greece.
- What part of speech is kleft?
- Kleft is a noun.
- What is the plural of kleft?
- The plural of kleft is klefts.
Words near kleft in the dictionary
Source and license
Adapted from Wiktionary: kleft (page history and authors). Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws reformatted the entry and added links. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.
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Cite this entry: “kleft.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/kleft. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.