dude

Meanings

Noun

Verb

Related

Similar words

Origin

  • Origin uncertain, though likely derived from doodle, perhaps with reference to the fashionable “Yankee Doodle dandy” in the 18th-century lyrics of the song “Yankee Doodle”; the word is first attested in 1883 as a New York City slang term of contempt for a “fastidious man, fop”.
  • It has also been suggested that the word is derived from dudes (“old rags”; compare duds) and dudesman, or possibly related to dawdle; to German Low German Dudeldop, Dudendop, from Middle Low German dudendop ("cuckold; simpleton"); or to Saterland Frisian Duddigegen ("idiot"). It has also been suggested the word derives from the Irish dúid.
  • The common claim that the term derives from (or is) a word for a camel's foreskin (or some other vulgar thing, like a hair on a cow, horse, donkey, or elephant's bottom) is false.

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