Wetwork () is a
euphemism
A euphemism ( ) is when an expression that could offend or imply something unpleasant is replaced with one that is agreeable or inoffensive. Some euphemisms are intended to amuse, while others use bland, inoffensive terms for concepts that the u ...
for
murder
Murder is the unlawful killing of another human without justification (jurisprudence), justification or valid excuse (legal), excuse committed with the necessary Intention (criminal law), intention as defined by the law in a specific jurisd ...
or
assassination
Assassination is the willful killing, by a sudden, secret, or planned attack, of a personespecially if prominent or important. It may be prompted by political, ideological, religious, financial, or military motives.
Assassinations are orde ...
that alludes to spilling blood. The expression and the similar ''wet job'', ''wet affair'', or ''wet operation'' are all
calque
In linguistics, a calque () or loan translation is a word or phrase borrowed from another language by literal word-for-word or root-for-root translation. When used as a verb, "to calque" means to borrow a word or phrase from another language ...
s of
Russian
Russian(s) may refer to:
*Russians (), an ethnic group of the East Slavic peoples, primarily living in Russia and neighboring countries
*A citizen of Russia
*Russian language, the most widely spoken of the Slavic languages
*''The Russians'', a b ...
terms for such activities and can be traced to
criminal slang from at least the 19th century and originally meant
robbery
Robbery is the crime of taking or attempting to take anything of value by force, threat of force, or use of fear. According to common law, robbery is defined as taking the property of another, with the intent to permanently deprive the person o ...
that involved murder or the spilling of blood.
The operations are reputed to have been handled by the
CIA
The Central Intelligence Agency (CIA; ) is a civilian foreign intelligence service of the federal government of the United States tasked with advancing national security through collecting and analyzing intelligence from around the world and ...
and by the
KGB
The Committee for State Security (, ), abbreviated as KGB (, ; ) was the main security agency of the Soviet Union from 1954 to 1991. It was the direct successor of preceding Soviet secret police agencies including the Cheka, Joint State Polit ...
's SpecBureau 13 (Spets Byuro 13), known as the "Department of Wet Affairs" (').
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See also
*
Black operation
A covert operation or undercover operation is a military or police operation involving a covert agent or troops acting under an assumed cover to conceal the identity of the party responsible.
US law
Under US law, the Central Intelligence Ag ...
* ''
I Heard You Paint Houses'' (the titular euphemism similarly refers to a hitman)
** According to
Frank Sheeran, the first conversation he had with
Jimmy Hoffa over the phone, where Hoffa started by saying, "I heard you paint houses"—a mob code meaning: I heard you kill people, the "paint" being the blood spatter from the gunshot.
References
External links
*
{{Espionage
Assassinations
Murder-for-hire cases
Euphemisms