bloke

See also: blöke and bloķē

English

Etymology

First known usage 1851. Origin unknown. Hypotheses include:

• from Celtic ploc (large, stubborn person)
• from Roma or Hindi loke (a man)

Pronunciation

• (UK) enPR: blōk, IPA^(key): /bləʊk/
• Rhymes: -əʊk

Noun

bloke ‎(plural blokes)

1. (informal) A man, a fellow; an ordinary man, a man on the street. [From 1851.]
   • 1930, P. G. Wodehouse, Very Good, Jeeves, 2006, Overlook Press, page 235,

     The door flew open, and there was a bloke with spectacles on his face and all round the spectacles an expression of strained anguish. A bloke with a secret sorrow.

   • 1931, Cab Calloway, Irving Mills, Minnie the Moocher, lyrics of 1930, 31 and 33 versions,

     She messed around with a bloke named Smoky.

   • 1958, Brendan Behan, Borstal Boy, page 281,

     It was a Cockney bloke who had never seen a cow till he came inside. Cragg said it took some blokes like that, and city fellows are the worse.

   • 2000, Elizabeth Young, Asking for Trouble, page 19,

     As her current bloke was turning out better than expected, I didn't see much of her lately.

2. (Britain) a man who behaves in a particularly laddish or overtly heterosexual manner.
3. (now chiefly Quebec, colloquial) An anglophone man.
4. (Australia) An exemplar of a certain masculine, independent male archetype.
   • 2000 May 5, Belinda Luscombe, “Cinema: Of Mad Max and Madder Maximus”, Time:

     ‘The Bloke’ is a certain kind of Australian or New Zealand male. […] The Classic Bloke is not a voluble beast. His speech patterns are best described as infrequent but colorful. […] ¶ The Bloke is pragmatic rather than classy. […] ¶ Most of all, the Bloke does not whinge.

Synonyms

• See also Wikisaurus:man

Coordinate terms

• (ordinary man): sheila (New Zealand)

Derived terms

• blokey, blokeish

Translations

man

• Afrikaans: kêrel
• Arabic: رَجُل (ar) ‎(rajul)
• Danish: fyr (da) m
• Finnish: tyyppi (fi), heppu (fi), jätkä (fi), veikko (fi)
• French: gars (fr) m, type (fr) m, mec (fr) m
• German: Kerl (de) m
• Ido: kerlo (io)
• Maori: autaia

• Norwegian: fyr (no) m
• Polish: facet (pl) m, koleś (pl) m
• Portuguese: cara (pt) m, tipo (pt) m
• Romanian: tip (ro) m
• Russian: мужи́к (ru) ‎(mužík), челове́к (ru) ‎(čelovék), тип (ru) ‎(tip)
• Spanish: tío (es) m, tipo (es) m

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Cebuano

Etymology

Borrowing from Spanish bloque, from French bloc, from Middle French bloc ‎(“a considerable piece of something heavy, block”), from Old French bloc ‎(“log, block”), from Middle Dutch blok ‎(“treetrunk”), from Old Saxon *blok ‎(“log”), from Proto-Germanic *blukką ‎(“beam, log”), from Proto-Indo-European *bhulg'-, from *bhelg'- ‎(“thick plank, beam, pile, prop”).

Noun

bloke

1. block; a substantial, often approximately cuboid, piece of any substance.