"government by the worst element of a society," 1829, coined (by Thomas Love Peacock) on analogy of its opposite, aristocracy, from Greek kakistos "worst," superlative of kakos "bad" (which perhaps is related to PIE root *kakka- "to defecate") + -cracy. Perhaps the closest word in ancient Greek was kakonomia "a bad system of laws and government," hence kakonomos "with bad laws, ill-governed."

also kaka-, Proto-Indo-European root meaning "to defecate." According to Watkins, "imitative of glottal closure during defecation."

It forms all or part of: caca; cachexia; caco-; cacoethes; cacophony; cucking stool; kakistocracy; poppycock.

It is the hypothetical source of/evidence for its existence is provided by: Greek kakke "human excrement," Latin cacare, Irish caccaim, Serbo-Croatian kakati, Armenian k'akor; Old English cac-hus "latrine."

Etymologists dispute whether the modern Germanic words (Dutch kakken, Danish kakke, German kacken), are native cognates or student slang borrowed from Latin cacare. Caca appears in Modern English in slang c. 1870, and could have been taken from any or several of the languages that used it.

type of rifle or submachine gun, 1968, from Russian Kalashnikov, name of a weapon developed in the Soviet Union c. 1946 and named for Mikhail Kalashnikov, gun designer and part of the team that built it. In AK-47, the AK stands for Avtomat Kalashnikov.

also kail, "cabbage, any kind of greens with curled or wrinkled leaves," c. 1300, a variant of cawul (see cole (n.1)), surviving in Scottish and northern English. Slang meaning "money" is from 1902, from the notion of leaves of green.

"varying or variegated like the forms and colors in a kaleidoscope," 1820, from kaleidoscope + -ic. Figurative use by 1855.

"optical instrument creating and exhibiting, by reflection, a variety of beautiful colors and symmetrical forms," 1817, literally "observer of beautiful forms," coined by its inventor, Scottish scientist David Brewster (1781-1868), from Greek kalos "beautiful, beauteous" (see Callisto) + eidos "shape" (see -oid) + -scope, on model of telescope, etc. They sold by the thousands in the few years after their invention, but Brewster failed to secure a patent.

Figurative meaning "constantly changing pattern" is first attested 1819 in Lord Byron, whose publisher had sent him one of the toys. As a verb, from 1891. A kaleidophone (1827) was invented by English inventor Charles Wheatstone (1802-1875) to make sound waves visible.

Finnish epic compilation, first published 1835, from Finnish (Finno-Ugric), literally "place or home of a hero," from kaleva "hero" + -la "place."

a name of Devi, the Hindu mother-goddess, in her black-skinned death-aspect, 1798, from Sanskrit kali, literally "the black one," fem. of kalah "blue-black, black," a word from a Dravidian language. Also taken as the fem. of kala "time" (as destroyer).

a Greek word sometimes used in English, especially in to kalon "the (morally) beautiful, the ideal good," neuter of Greek kalos "beautiful, noble, good" (see Callisto).

also Kamasutra, 1871, from Sanskrit Kama Sutra, name of the ancient treatise on love and sexual performance, from kama "love, desire" (from PIE *ka-mo-, suffixed form of root *ka- "to like, desire") + sutra "series of aphorisms" (see sutra).