gloak

English

Etymology

Origin unknown.

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /ɡləʊk/

  • Audio (Southern England):

    (file)

• Rhymes: -əʊk

Noun

gloak (plural gloaks)

1. (UK, slang) A man, a guy.

   Synonyms: see Thesaurus:man

   • 1956, Frank Clune, Martin Cash: The Last of the Tasmanian Bushrangers, page 149:

     You're a prime gloak, an out-and-outer, to get as far as you did before they grabbed you.

   • 1997, Thomas Pynchon, Mason & Dixon, New York: Henry Holt and Company, →ISBN, →OCLC, page 401:

     ‘Brit, by the look of him,’ cries a short, freckl’d seaman in whom Stature and Pugnacity enjoy an inverse relation. ‘– long way from home ain’t you old Gloak?’

   • quoted in 2013, Nicola Phillips, The Profligate Son (page 133)

     […] both toby-gills [highwaymen], buz-gloaks [pickpockets], cracksmen [housebreakers], &c., but from their good address and respectable appearance nobody would suspect their real vocation.

References

• John Camden Hotten (1873) The Slang Dictionary

Anagrams

• kogal