Word.ws English Dictionary

zek

UK/zɛk/

zek noun: a prisoner at a Russian prison, especially (historical) at a Soviet labour camp.

Noun

zek (plural zeks)

  1. A prisoner at a Russian prison, especially (historical) at a Soviet labour camp.
    • Every prisoner who recants is a potential influence on other zeks to do likewise.1988, Natan Sharansky, translated by Stefani Hoffman, Fear No Evil, page 235
    • There are the zeks, the survivors of the gulags, some honest about their experiences, others still deluded or traumatised decades later.2004 February 8, Jason Burke, The Observer

Forms of zek

pluralzeks

Origin of zek

From Russian зэ́к (zɛ́k), probably representing a pronunciation of з/к (z/k), Soviet abbreviation of заключённый каналоармеец (zaključónnyj kanaloarmejec, “prisoner member of the [White Sea–Baltic] Canal army”).

Words that rhyme with zek

44 more rhymesFewer rhymes

Questions about zek

What does zek mean?
Zek means a prisoner at a Russian prison, especially (historical) at a Soviet labour camp.
What part of speech is zek?
Zek is a noun.
How do you pronounce zek?
Zek is pronounced /zɛk/ (UK).
What is the plural of zek?
The plural of zek is zeks.

Words near zek in the dictionary

  1. Zeitz
  2. Zeitzes
  3. Zeizoun
  4. zejel
  5. zejelesque
  6. zek
  7. Zeke
  8. Zekiel
  9. Zekoslav
  10. zeks
  11. zektzerite

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: zek (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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