gook

CEFRC2

/ɡuːk/

noun

Türkçe translations

Translating…

In plain English

  1. 01

    noun

    An offensive word for a person from East or Southeast Asia.

  2. 02

    noun

    Extra detail

    A foreigner (to the speaker), especially the (enemy) natives of a place the speaker's military is at war with or in.

Examples

  • Clean the sticky gook off the kitchen counter.

  • The gook was a thick and sticky substance.

At a glance

Sits at C2 on the CEFR scale

Senses
5
Parts of speech
1
Citations
5
Synonyms
2

Also pronounced

  • /ɡʊk/

Deep Dive

noun

Extra meanings

  1. 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:

  2. A black insurgent in the Rhodesian Bush War.

  3. A Korean person (especially the North Koreans during the Korean War).

More examples

In context

  • The mechanic had to clean the gook off the engine.

  • Of course, I've got so many confirmed kills I lost count. Nobody believes me because the gooks drag off their dead.

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

Synonyms

Quick test

Two questions on this entry. Nothing is scored.

Question 1 · Quick check

The mechanic wiped the thick blank off his greasy hands.

Practise this properly in the app, where the word comes back before you forget it.

Nearby

Origin

noun

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...