Czech

• (abbreviation): Cz.

Unadapted borrowing from Polish Czech, from Old Polish Czech, from Old Czech Čech, ultimately a variation and contraction of Proto-Slavic *čelověkъ (“human”).

• enPR: chĕk, IPA^(key): /t͡ʃɛk/

• Audio (US):

  (file)

• Homophones: check, cheque
• Rhymes: -ɛk

Czech (not comparable)

1. Of, from, or pertaining to the Czech Republic (Czechia), the Czech people, culture, or language.
   • 2012 June 28, Jamie Jackson, “Wimbledon 2012: Lukas Rosol shocked by miracle win over Rafael Nadal”, in The Guardian‎^[1]:

     A big beast of the men's field was put through the mangle then dumped out of Wimbledon as Rafael Nadal fell at around 10.06pm to Lukas Rosol, a Czech debutant who will never forget this Thursday evening in south-west London.

• Czechian
• Czechic
• Czechish

• Czech Silesia
• Czech Socialist Republic
• Czechness
• Czechoslovak

• → Burmese: ချက် (hkyak)

Czech (countable and uncountable, plural Czechs)

1. (countable) A person from the Czech Republic (Czechia) or of Czech descent.
   • 1964, John F. Kennedy, “Immigration Policy”, in A Nation of Immigrants‎^[2], Revised and Enlarged edition, Harper & Row, →LCCN, →OCLC, page 61:

     By 1963, almost 130,000 Czechs had migrated to this country. They tended to gravitate to the farming communities.

Czech

2. (uncountable) A Slavic language primarily spoken in the Czech Republic.
   • 2001 December 2, Giles Milton, “'The Riddle and the Knight'”, in The New York Times‎^[3], archived from the original on 19 April 2022:

     By the time this mysterious knight died in the 1360s, his book was available in every European language, including Dutch, Gaelic, Czech, Catalan, and Walloon.

3. (nonstandard) The Czech Republic (Czechia).
   • 2008, George Stowers, Straight Up, No Sippin': Memoirs of Life and Work Onboard Mega Cruise Ships, →ISBN, page 325:

     She's from Czech, Croatia, or somewhere over there. The ill thing is that we always come together when we're drunk, but half way through our drunken talks, she always gets mad at something and leaves.

   • 2009, Jennifer Lees-Marshment, Political Marketing: Principles and Applications, Routledge, →ISBN, page 237:

     A whole array of companies and consultants are found travelling to Croatia or Czech or China, to extol the latest virtues of electioneering, perhaps via the UK Westminster Foundation for Democracy, […]

(language):

• Early Modern Czech
• Middle Czech
• Old Czech
• Proto-Czech

• Bohemian
• Wiktionary’s coverage of Czech terms
• Appendix:Czech Swadesh list for a Swadesh list of basic vocabulary words in Czech

• ISO 639-1 code cs, ISO 639-3 code ces (SIL)
• Ethnologue entry for Czech, ces ⁠
• Czech language on Wikipedia.Wikipedia

Borrowed from Old Czech Čech. First attested in 1440.

• IPA^(key): (10^th–15^th CE) /t͡ʃʲɛx/
• IPA^(key): (15^th CE) /t͡ʃʲɛx/

Czech m animacy unattested

1. (attested in Greater Poland) Czech (person from Czechia)
   • c. 1500, Wokabularz lubiński, Lubiń: inkunabuł Archiwum Archidiecezjalnego w Gnieźnie, sygn. Inc. 78d., page 19v:

     Bohemus est aliquis de Bohemia Czech

     [Bohemus est aliquis de Bohemia Czech]

2. a male surname

• Polish: Czech
  • → English: Czech
    • → Burmese: ချက် (hkyak)
• Silesian: Czech

• Witold Taszycki, editor (1965-1967), “Czech”, in Słownik staropolskich nazw osobowych (in Polish), volume 1, Wrocław: Zakład Narodowy im. Ossolińskich Wydawnictwo Polskiej Akademii Nauk, page 412
• Ewa Deptuchowa, Mariusz Frodyma, Katarzyna Jasińska, Magdalena Klapper, Dorota Kołodziej, Mariusz Leńczuk, Ludwika Szelachowska-Winiarzowa, Zofia Wanicowa, editors (2023), “Czech”, in Rozariusze z polskimi glosami. Internetowa baza danych [Dictionaries of Polish glosses, an Internet database] (in Polish), Kraków: Pracownia Języka Staropolskiego Instytut Języka Polskiego Polskiej Akademii Nauk

• IPA^(key): /ˈt͡ʂɛx/

• Audio:

  (file)

• Rhymes: -ɛx
• Syllabification: Czech

Inherited from Old Polish Czech.

Czech m pers (female equivalent Czeszka)

1. Czech; Bohemian

Czech m pers

1. a male surname

Czech f (indeclinable)

1. a female surname

• → English: Czech
  • → Burmese: ချက် (hkyak)

See the etymology of the corresponding lemma form.

Czech pl

1. genitive of Czechy

• “Czech”, in Wielki słownik języka polskiego‎^[4] (in Polish), Instytut Języka Polskiego PAN
• “Czech”, in Polish dictionaries at PWN‎^[5] (in Polish)
• “Czech”, in Internetowy słownik nazwisk w Polsce [Internet dictionary of surnames in Poland], 2025–2030