Ku Klux Klan

noun

ˈkü-ˈkləks-ˈklan 

 also  ˈkyü-,

 or  ˈklü-

1

: a violent secret fraternal society founded in 1915 in Georgia to maintain white Protestant cultural and political power

also : any one of more than 20 hate (see hate entry 1 sense 1c) groups that associate themselves with the Ku Klux Klan

2

: a violent post-Civil War secret society founded in Tennessee in 1866 to upend the Black political and social power that was being established during Reconstruction

Note: This Ku Klux Klan had largely dissolved by the end of the 1870s.

Examples of Ku Klux Klan in a Sentence

Recent Examples on the Web

Between 1951 and 2008, five investigations looked into the bombing, which implicated four Ku Klux Klan members, but no arrests were made. —Tracy Scott Forson, Smithsonian Magazine, 4 Nov. 2024

The president alternated between blaming both sides for the violence and condemning groups like white supremacists and the Ku Klux Klan. —David Faris, Newsweek, 3 Nov. 2024

James captioned alongside the clip, which included headlines of David Duke, the former Ku Klux Klan leader, supporting Trump, along with the former president’s racist rhetoric toward migrants and the Black community. —Tomás Mier, Rolling Stone, 31 Oct. 2024

In another interview with Tucker Carlson (at the time with Fox), Ye suggested that the Ku Klux Klan and American birth control activist Margaret Sanger had created Planned Parenthood with the goal of controlling the Jewish population. —Michael McCann, Sportico.com, 29 Oct. 2024

Word History

First Known Use

1867, in the meaning defined at sense 2