English Explanatory Dictionary

night of the long knives

English dictionary entry

Meanings

noun
  1. A purge, in which opponents of a regime or political party are killed or removed.
noun
  1. Alternative letter-case form of night of the long knives (“purge”)
  2. The violent purge against the Sturmabteilung ordered by the leadership of Nazi Party in 1934.

Word forms

night of the long knives nights of the long knives night of long knives

Etymology

Calque of German Nacht der langen Messer, which see for more. In English it tied in with earlier 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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