Word.ws English Dictionary

kurkul

kurkul noun: a rich or supposedly rich peasant, targeted during Soviet collectivization, especially in the context of Ukraine or Ukrainians; a kulak.

Noun

kurkul (plural kurkuls or kurkuli)

  1. (historical) A rich or supposedly rich peasant, targeted during Soviet collectivization, especially in the context of Ukraine or Ukrainians; a kulak.
    • “Kurkuls are our enemy,” he shouted, “and we must exterminate them as a social class. There should be no place for the sharks among the harmless fish,” he added. Then he described the kurkuls as an evil tool of capitalists who were preparing an attack on the Soviet Union.1985, Miron Dolot, Execution by Hunger: The Hidden Holocaust, New York: W.W. Norton, →ISBN
    • [p 308] The kulaks (in Ukraine we called them “kurkuls”) had been beaten and kicked out.
      [p 310] We were not afraid, however. We went after the “kurkuls,” who were strong and ruthless in their hatred of everything new.2000, Pasha Angelina, “The Most Important Thing”, in Sheila Fritzpatrick, Yuri Slezkine, editors, In the Shadow of Revolution: Life Stories of Russian Women from 1917 to the Second World War...

Examples of kurkul in a sentence

  • But you still have grain hidden from when you were a kurkul,” Fedir insisted.2011, Mila Komarnisky, Wretched Land, Honolulu: Savant Books, →ISBN, page 120:
  • His collectivization of the farms was intended to eliminate the “Kurkuli” as a class (Kurkul means rich peasant).2013, George Tkachyk, Dream to Reality, Trafford, →ISBN, page 33:

Forms of kurkul

pluralkurkuls
pluralkurkuli

Origin of kurkul

From Ukrainian куркуль (kurkulʹ, “frightening and dangerous one”), куркулі pl (kurkuli).

Questions about kurkul

What does kurkul mean?
Kurkul means a rich or supposedly rich peasant, targeted during Soviet collectivization, especially in the context of Ukraine or Ukrainians; a kulak.
How do you use kurkul in a sentence?
But you still have grain hidden from when you were a kurkul,” Fedir insisted.
What part of speech is kurkul?
Kurkul is a noun.
What is the plural of kurkul?
The plural of kurkul is kurkuls.

Words near kurkul in the dictionary

  1. kurkars
  2. Kurkov
  3. Kurkowski
  4. Kurkowskis
  5. Kurku
  6. kurkul
  7. kurkuli
  8. kurkuls
  9. Kurla
  10. Kurlandic
  11. Kurlansky

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: kurkul (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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