gook

Valid in Scrabble

Scrabble points: 9
Words With Friends: 10
Letters: 4

Pronunciation

/ɡuːk/

See all 2 pronunciations

/ɡuːk/ · /ɡʊk/

Definition of gook

8 senses · 2 parts of speech · etymology included

noun

(US, derogatory, ethnic, offensive, slang, slur, vulgar)A person of (South) East Asian descent (originally revolutionaries of the Katipunan then generally to any native of the Philippines, after the enemy and collaborators hid amongst them), but now especially:

“A few days later he had a 'damned good party' at NORMASH, drinking brandy, and he then 'beat up a Gook [Korean] village.' This resulted in an 'awful hangover all day', […] Later, he walked back to his unit, alone at three o'clock in the morning, having 'swiped a Gook torch.'”

See all 8 definitions

noun

(US, derogatory, ethnic, offensive, slang, slur, vulgar)A person of (South) East Asian descent (originally revolutionaries of the Katipunan then generally to any native of the Philippines, after the enemy and collaborators hid amongst them), but now especially:

“A few days later he had a 'damned good party' at NORMASH, drinking brandy, and he then 'beat up a Gook [Korean] village.' This resulted in an 'awful hangover all day', […] Later, he walked back to his unit, alone at three o'clock in the morning, having 'swiped a Gook torch.'”
(US, derogatory, ethnic, offensive, slang, slur, vulgar)A person of (South) East Asian descent (originally revolutionaries of the Katipunan then generally to any native of the Philippines, after the enemy and collaborators hid amongst them), but now especially:

“Of course, I've got so many confirmed kills I lost count. Nobody believes me because the gooks drag off their dead.”
(dated, derogatory)A foreigner (to the speaker), especially the (enemy) natives of a place the speaker's military is at war with or in.

“"Haiti is a country with a history, […]" "but how about the Marines, and the gendarmerie; aren't they on the job?" […] "You know darn well a civilian can't get away with handling a gook like a Marine can; […]"”
“In scenes [in Flight, 1929] based on the Marines' slaughter of several hundred Nicaraguan rebels at the Battle of Ocotal in July 1927, the two heroes, who are rivals for the hand of a vivacious nurse (Lila Lee), repeatedly attack the "gooks" in support of their comrades on the ground.”
(Rhodesia, dated, derogatory)A foreigner (to the speaker), especially the (enemy) natives of a place the speaker's military is at war with or in.

“"But shit, man, don't we do a fucking good job of it. Jesus, we slew long gooks this last trip," quipped Mark.”
(countable, informal, uncountable)Grime or mud.

“"Roost No More" was a yellow gook that Joe's people would spread around, for a fee, on the ledges of houses and commercial buildings plagued by pigeons.”
(slang)A dull or hapless person.

“the poor old gook was spitting blood”
(Cornwall)A bonnet (headwear).

“Some say 'Mar Teazer do live in pattens and gook; must go to bed in 'em I'm thinking!”

verb

(ambitransitive, childish)Synonym of look.

Definitions from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA.

Etymology

First attested in the 1890s, US military slang in reference to Filipinos (in particular, it is defined in an 1893 citation in Slang and Its Analogues as referring to prostitutes…

See full etymology

First attested in the 1890s, US military slang in reference to Filipinos (in particular, it is defined in an 1893 citation in Slang and Its Analogues as referring to prostitutes who followed army camps; it is defined similarly in a 1914 work). The word was used for Nicaraguans during the US military occupation there in the 1910s, and for Haitians during the US invasion there, when Herbert Seligman noted in 1920 that "The Haitians … are nicknamed 'Gooks'". Other early uses in the 1920 and 30s still refer to people from the Philippines (a 1921 work refers to the Philippines as "Gook Land"), and the term also resembles goo-goo (“a Filipino person”), for which a variety of etymologies have been proposed; see that entry for more. (A later folk etymology suggests that during the Korean War, North Korean soldiers would shout Korean 美國 (Miguk, “America”) at Americans, who interpreted it as "me gook", as if identifying themselves as "gooks"; this ignores the many earlier examples of the word outside Korea.) Gook was used of Pacific Islanders by World War II, and Koreans and Vietnamese people by the time of the 1950s and 60s US military interventions there, which cemented the shift to meaning "Asian".