NKVD
Americanabbreviation
Etymology
Origin of NKVD
From Russian N(aródnyĭ) K(omissariát) V(nútrennikh) D(el) “People's Commissariat of Internal Affairs”
Example Sentences
Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.
An agent for the NKVD, the Soviet Union’s secret police, arranged an introduction between Mercader and Sylvia Ageloff, a left-wing social worker from Brooklyn, N.Y., whose sister had once been Trotsky’s secretary.
From The Wall Street Journal • Feb. 27, 2026
They were sent by the NKVD, the secret police, to their boss, Lavrentiy Beria, in late 1944.
From BBC • Apr. 30, 2015
In this he is similar to Stalin, whose security commissariat, the NKVD, moved against whole swaths of Soviet society that might oppose him, particularly pre-revolutionary elites.
From Time • May 27, 2011
Two years ago, Wajda took on another giant historical subject, the Katyn massacre of the Polish officer corps in 1940 by the Soviet NKVD, who blamed it on the Nazis.
From The Guardian • Apr. 4, 2011
In addition to bricks and wood, we carried barrels of kerosene, flour, and even small fishing boats, all for the NKVD.
From "Between Shades of Gray" by Ruta Sepetys
Definitions and idiom definitions from Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023
Idioms from The American Heritage® Idioms Dictionary copyright © 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.
