night of the long knives

Meaning

Noun

• A purge, in which opponents of a regime or political party are killed or removed.

Origin

• , name for the 1934 Night of the Long Knives in which the Nazis murdered various opponents. Reinforced by earlier English uses of the motif of long knives, as in phrases like the Treachery of the Long Knives (a pseudohistorical massacre of Celts by Anglo-Saxons), used since at least the 1800s.