black hand

English - English

Definition of black hand in English English dictionary

A secret society organized for acts of terrorism and blackmail that was active in the United States in the early 20th century. Secret Serbian society formed in 1911 primarily by army officers, which used terrorist methods to promote the liberation of Serbs outside Serbia from Habsburg or Ottoman rule. It conducted propaganda campaigns, organized armed bands in Macedonia, and established revolutionary cells throughout Bosnia. Within Serbia it dominated the army and wielded tremendous influence over the government. It gained its greatest notoriety with the assassination of Archduke Francis Ferdinand in 1914. After a trial in 1917, three leaders were executed and more than 200 were imprisoned. The name also referred to several extortion rackets run by immigrant Sicilian and Italian gangsters in the Italian communities of many large U.S. cities 1890-1920. Local merchants and wealthy individuals would receive threatening notes printed with black hands, daggers, or other menacing symbols that demanded money on pain of death or destruction of property. It declined with the beginning of Prohibition and large-scale bootlegging

19th-20th century criminal secret society in America which committed acts of blackmail and terrorism

A lawless or blackmailing secret society, esp

among Italians

a secret terrorist society in the United States early in the 20th century

A Spanish anarchistic society, many of the members of which were imprisoned in 1883

Hyphenation

black Hand

Turkish pronunciation

bläk händ

Pronunciation

/ˈblak ˈhand/ /ˈblæk ˈhænd/

Etymology

[ 'blak ] (adjective.) before 12th century. Middle English blak, from Old English blæc; akin to Old High German blah black, and probably to Latin flagrare to burn, Greek phlegein.