boko

See also: Boko, bòkò, and bōkō

English

Etymology

Circa 1820. Multiple potential origins:

  1. From beak (“nose”)[1][2]
  2. From French beaucoup (“very much”)[1][2]
  3. Blend of beak (“nose”) +‎ coconut[1]
  4. From boke (“point; thrust”)[2]
  5. From poke, as in poke one's nose into[2]

Pronunciation

Noun

boko (plural bokos)

  1. (dated, West Midlands, originally boxing) the nose.
    • 1943, Johns, W[illiam] E[arl], Biggles Fails to Return, page 115:
      […] the way he hid the Pernod card and bumped me on the boko when I tried to have a dekko at it proves that.
    • 1965, The Illustrated Weekly of India, volume 86, number 1, page 41:
      He sang Landor's lines in a quavering falsetto, then broke raucously into the schoolboy battle-cry of "Hit him on the boko, hit him on the boko, Jericho!"
    • 2012, Wood, Mary Dobbs, A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to Inventing My Childhood, page 45:
      He let out a yell, his eyes watering from the punch on the boko.

Synonyms

References
  1. Eric Partridge (2003) Routledge Dictionary of Historical Slang‎, Routledge, →ISBN, page 474
  2. David Crystal (2014) Words in Time and Place‎, Oxford University Press, →ISBN, page 26

Anagrams

Esperanto

Pronunciation
  • IPA(key): /ˈboko/
  • Hyphenation: bo‧ko
  • Rhymes: -oko

Noun

boko (accusative singular bokon, plural bokoj, accusative plural bokojn)

  1. (neologism) buck (male deer, goat, or other ruminant)[1]

References
  1. Sennacieca Asocio Tutmonda (1970) Plena Ilustrita Vortaro de Esperanto (in Esperanto), 3 edition, Paris, published 1987, →ISBN, page 116: “bok/o Ⓝ Virseksulo de remaĉuloj, precipe de kaproj aŭ cervoj.”

French

Etymology

From a word in the Boko language.

Noun

boko m (uncountable)

  1. Boko language

Synonyms

Gothic

Romanization

bōkō

  1. Romanization of 𐌱𐍉𐌺𐍉

Hausa

Etymology

Often stated to be borrowed from English book, but Paul Newman disputes this, stating "boko is an indigenous Hausa word originally connoting sham, fraud, deceit, or lack of authenticity. When the British colonial government imposed secular schools in northern Nigeria at the beginning of the 20th century, boko was applied in a pejorative sense to this new system. By semantic extension, boko came to acquire its current meaning of Hausa written in Roman script and Western education in general.".[1]

Noun

bōkṑ m (possessed form bōkòn)

  1. fraud, deceit, trick
  2. a mock or imitation version of something real
  3. Western education
  4. Boko alphabet (Latin script used to write Hausa)

References
  1. Newman, Paul. 2013. The etymology of Hausa boko. Mega-Chad Miscellaneous Publications, pp. 1-13.http://hdl.handle.net/2022/20965

Ido

Etymology

Borrowed from Italian bocca, Spanish boca, from Latin bucca.

Pronunciation
  • IPA(key): /ˈbo.ko/

Noun

boko (plural boki)

  1. (anatomy) mouth
  2. opening, entrance
  3. (geography) mouth (of a river or stream)

Synonyms
  • (2) enireyo
  • (3) fluvioboko

Derived terms

Japanese

Romanization

boko

  1. Rōmaji transcription of ぼこ
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