Meanings
plural mankurts
- derogatoryuncommonA person with a lost or degraded cultural and ethnic identity or awareness about his or her ancestry, especially due to being affected by a dominant culture.
A mankurt differs from a renegade in that a renegade primarily betrays their community, while a mankurt primarily betrays themself. The mankurt's lost identity is a de-centering problem, […]
2023, Stephen W. Hiemstra, Image and Illumination: A Study of Christian Anthropology
Origin
- Russianманкурт
- Englishmankurt
Borrowed from Russian манкурт (mankurt). Coined by the Kyrgyz author Chinghiz Aitmatov in his novel The Day Lasts More Than a Hundred Years (1980), in which people are turned into docile servants (mankurts) by exposing camel skin wrapped around their heads to the heat of the sun; the skins tighten as they dry, causing brain damage, such that the mankurts no longer recognize their name, family, or tribe—"a mankurt did not recognise himself as a human being". However, this term quickly became popular in the sense of "rootless person who forgot their cultural and ethnic identity," in the languages of Central Asia and Eastern Europe.
More words from Russian
Full word history & related roots →Translations
Latvian mankurts
- mankurtsAn individual with a lost or degraded cultural and ethnic identity or awareness about his ancestry
Lithuanian mankurtas
- mankurtasAn individual with a lost or degraded cultural and ethnic identity or awareness about his ancestry
Polish mankurt
- mankurtAn individual with a lost or degraded cultural and ethnic identity or awareness about his ancestry
Romanian mancurt
- mancurtAn individual with a lost or degraded cultural and ethnic identity or awareness about his ancestry
Russian манкурт
- манкурт (mankurt)An individual with a lost or degraded cultural and ethnic identity or awareness about his ancestry
Ukrainian манку́рт
- манку́рт (mankúrt)An individual with a lost or degraded cultural and ethnic identity or awareness about his ancestry
Rhymes & wordplay
Anagrams
Cite this entry
mankurt. (n.d.). In WatkinsX Dictionary. Retrieved November 3, 2026, from https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/mankurt
“mankurt.” WatkinsX Dictionary, https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/mankurt. Accessed November 3, 2026.
WatkinsX Dictionary, s.v. “mankurt,” accessed November 3, 2026, https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/mankurt.
Source: mankurt on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.