1. A member of a pastoral Muslim people inhabiting Kazakhstan and parts of Xinjiang Uygur in China.
2. The Turkic language of this people.

[Russian kazakh, from Kazakh qazaq, from Old Turkic *qazghaq, a profiteer, from qazqhanmaq, to acquire, from qazmaq, to dig out.]

The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition Copyright © 2007, 2000 by Houghton Mifflin Company. Updated in 2009. Published by Houghton Mifflin Company. All rights reserved.