/kluks" klan"/
1. a secret organization in the southern U.S., active for several years after the Civil War, which aimed to suppress the newly acquired powers of blacks and to oppose carpetbaggers from the North, and which was responsible for many lawless and violent proceedings.
2. Official name, Knights of the Ku Klux Klan . a secret organization inspired by the former, founded in 1915 and active in the southern and other parts of the U.S., directed against blacks, Catholics, Jews, and the foreign-born. Also called Ku Klux .
[ Ku Klux (perh. kýklos circle, assembly) + Klan, sp. var. of CLAN ]