zekhttp://www.oed.com/dictionary/zek_n%3Ftab%3Dmeaning_and_usezek, n.
Revised 2018

zeknoun

  1. 1968–
    Originally and chiefly in Russian-speaking contexts: a prisoner; a convict; (in early use) esp. a person held in a forced labour camp in the U.S.S.R.
    1. 1968
      All the zeks at the Mavrino sharashka belonged, though they were not at the time in hard-labor camps, to the realm of GULAG.
      T. P. Whitney, translation of A. Solzhenitsyn, First Circle p. x
    2. 1982
      They got him for parasitism and a few other offences. Now he was presumably..east of the Urals and taking the zeks for their bread ration.
      T. J. Binyon, Swan Song viii. 58
    3. 1998
      I came here to repay a debt to a close friend, a fellow zek.
      M. Booth, Industry of Souls xi. 239
    4. 2017
      Some contributors insist that..bringing a child into the world whose father is a zek is to cast ‘a cloud over its childhood’.
      J. Pallot & E. Katz, Waiting at Prison Gate vii. 135

zek, n. was revised in June 2018.

zek, n. was last modified in July 2023.