BLOKE

[Q] From Sid Crawford, UK: “I hope you can help me discover where the word bloke comes from. We all know it but does anyone know anything about it?”

[A] In British slang a bloke is a male person, a term known from the middle of the nineteenth century. Interestingly, it turns up slightly earlier in Australia, where it referred to the boss or the man in charge (also as big bloke). It’s still common in the UK, where it has much of the sense of the American guy (“There was this bloke down the pub ...”) and where to say “He’s a good bloke” is to give high praise. Americans often think of it as British slang, but in the nineteenth century it was common in the USA and is still to be found. However, at one time, Americans also used it in the sense of a stupid person.

For a long time, the experts were unsure where it came from. Some, especially in the United States, suggested it derived from the Celtic word ploc, a large, bull-headed person. Others have suggested that the “stupid person” sense may be from the Dutch blok, a fool, which is where we get blockhead from.

This “stupid person” derivation is probably correct, but we’re now fairly sure that the word in the sense of a man derives either from Romany, the language of the Rom or gypsies, or more probably from Shelta, an ancient secret language used by Irish and Welsh tinkers and Gypsies. It may ultimately derive from Hindi loke, a man.

A slightly earlier word of the same sense, gloak, may come from the same source (in the slang of the early nineteenth century, a buzz-gloak was a pickpocket, where to buzz was to pick a pocket).

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