Definitions

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 5th Edition.

  • noun The intelligence and internal security agency of the former Soviet Union.

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.

  • initialism electronics Known good board.
  • proper noun the former Soviet State Security Committee.

from WordNet 3.0 Copyright 2006 by Princeton University. All rights reserved.

  • noun formerly the predominant security police organization of Soviet Russia

Etymologies

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 4th Edition

[Russian, from K(omitet) G(osudarstvennoĭ) B(ezopasnosti) : komitet, committee + gosudarstvennoĭ : genitive of gosudarstvennyĭ, of the state + bezopasnosti, genitive of bezopasnost', security.]

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License

From Russian КГБ, through phonetic spelling of Комитет государственной безопасности (Komitét gosudárstvennoj bezopásnosti, "State Security Committee") and acronymization.

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