wog

Meanings

Noun

• Any dark-skinned person. It originally referred specifically to Indians, but later also applied to people of North African, Mediterranean, or Middle Eastern ancestry.
• A person of Southern European, Mediterranean, Middle Eastern, or Southeastern European ancestry.
• Abbreviation of polliwog
• A pollywog, or sailor who has never crossed the Equator. Often referred to as either filthy, slimy, or even dirty wogs
• A bug, an insect.
• A minor illness caused by bacteria, virus, intestinal parasite, etc.
• A toy insect in parts that can be assembled, used in fund-raising games.
• A person who is not a Scientologist.

Verb

• (Of soldiers stationed abroad) to sell something, especially illicit or stolen goods, to the local inhabitants.
• To steal.

Related

Similar words

• dago, Eyetie, goombah, greaseball, guido, guinea, wop

Origin

• An abbreviation of golliwog, which was first used as the name of a black-faced doll in Florence Upton’s 1895 book The Adventures of Two Dutch Dolls and a Golliwogg. A variety of erroneous folk etymologies exist, with the most common claiming that the word is an acronym for one of either westernized, worthy, wily, or wonderful preceding “Oriental gentlemen”. Another erroneous claim is that it was used in the mid 1800s, with WOGS (meaning Working On Government Service) stencilled on the shirts of Indian workers in Egypt.
• Abbreviation of polliwog.
• Unknown. Probably an abbreviation of polliwog.
• Following the usage of L. Ron Hubbard, who held that wog was originally an acronym of Worthy oriental gentleman, but employed it in the specific sense of 'common ordinary run-of-the-mill garden-variety humanoid'.