English

Alternative forms

• khakhol, Khakhol
• Khokhol

Noun

khokhol ‎(plural khokhols or khokhly or khakhly)

1. (pejorative, in a Russian context) A Ukrainian.
   • 1935, A.A. Mossolov, At the Court of the Last Tsar: Beeing the Memoirs of A. A. Mossolov, head of the court chancellery, 1900–1916, London: Methuen, p 142:

     These Khokhols (the familiar term used, rather slightingly by the Great Russians for the Ukrainians) were drawn up in serried ranks in a public square.

   • 1881, Fyodor Dostoyevsky, transl. Marie von Thilo, Buried Alive: Or, Ten Years Penal Servitude in Siberia, London: Longmans, Green and Co.:

     [p 145] His parents were Russians, but he had been born on his master’s estate in Little Russia, and prided himself on being a Khókhol, i.e. Little Russian.

     [p 146] I found good company there, I can tell you—twelve Khokhly,¹ all fine fellows and every one of them as strong as a horse. [footnote] 1 Plural of Khókhol.

   • 1875, “Russian Proverbs” in London Quarterly Review, v 138 (Jan–Apr), New York: Leonard Scott Publishing, p 264B:

     Specially characteristic of Russia, as of a land abounding in endless plains, are two jocular allusions to the inhabitants of the Steppes—‘I can’t bear this crowding,’ a Khokhol, or Little-Russian, is supposed to say, as he upsets a kettle which he finds suspended over a camp-fire in the open plain; and ‘These accursed Muscovites! there’s no driving-room left!’ cries another, as he runs into a verst-post (anwering to our milestone) in the midst of the boundless waste.

   • 1854, Ivan Golovin, The Nations of Russia and Turkey and Their Destiny, part II, London: Trübner & Co., p 3:

     The Great Russians ought to be carefully distinguished from “the Malo-Russians” or the “Little Russians.” The inhabitants of the Ukraine, or of the governments Tchernigof, Poltava, Kharkof, call the great Russians or the Muscovites “kazaps, goats,” from their wearing beards, and are in their turn termed by the Great Russians khokhols, “hair tufts,” which they themselves call tchub, tchupran, a tuft of the same kind as that which the Chinese wear on the top of the head; this is an old Slavonian custom, as appears from history, which mentions such a one being worn by the Russian Prince Sviatoslav, when carrying on war in Bulgaria.

Related terms

• khokhlushka
• khakhlushka
• khokhluchka