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puke

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Pronunciation

puke1 woollen cloth

Etymology

The cloth is inherited from Middle English pewke, also puke,[2] borrowed from Middle Dutch puuc (“the best sort of cloth; the best kind”), also puyc,[3][2][4] related to Dutch puik (“choicest; excellent”) and West Frisian pûk.[3][2] Its further origin is unknown.[3][4] The OED compares Middle Low German pūk (“the best cloth”), probably from Dutch, and notes that early Dutch sources connect the making of the cloth with Delft.[3]

Earliest recorded meaning

A superior woollen cloth used for gowns, hose and other garments: 1465, in a household account.[3]

Semantic evolution

From 1510 puke, or puke colour, was also a dye for woollen goods, probably a very deep bluish black or dark brown;[3][4] the OED finds nothing like this sense in Dutch, and no link with puce, though that word named a similar range of colours.[3] In the 16th and early 17th centuries the word was also used as an adjective, "made of puke".[4] The cloth is not recorded after 1612 and the colour after 1725.[3]

Timeline

  • 1465 – a fine woollen cloth (to 1612).[3]
  • 1510 – a dark colour or dye for woollens (to 1725).[3][4]

Meanings

Noun

  1. (obsolete, 1465–1612) A fine woollen cloth used for gowns and hose.[3][4][2]
  2. (obsolete, 1510–1725) A dark bluish-black or brown colour or dye used for woollen goods.[3][4]

puke2 vomit

Etymology

The word for vomiting is of uncertain origin, probably imitative of the sound.[3][5][6][7][8][9] Several dictionaries compare German spucken (“to spit”),[10][11][12][4][9] originally a regional word of the 16th century and related to speien (“to spew”),[3] and the OED and Word Origins also compare Dutch spugen (“to spit, vomit”), at first a regional variant of spuwen.[3][13] Klein and Weekley take it as standing for a form with initial s-, related to spew;[12][14] Weekley relates it ultimately to Latin spuō (“to spit”).[14] Partridge too thinks it is perhaps an altered derivative of spew, or simply echoic.[15] The derivative pukishness is recorded slightly earlier than the verb.[3]

Earliest recorded meaning

Of a hawk, to pass food from the crop to the stomach: 1586, in a book on hawking, hunting and fishing.[3] The sense "to vomit" is first found in 1600, in the "Seven Ages of Man" speech of Shakespeare's As You Like It: "Mewling and puking in the nurse's arms".[16][9][8][6]

Semantic evolution

The falconry sense died out by 1688.[3] The OED's first quotations for vomiting are from Holland's Pliny (1601, transitive) and Dekker and Webster (1607, intransitive).[3] From 1717 the verb also meant to give someone an emetic.[3] Johnson (1755) defined the verb as "to spew; to vomit" and the noun as vomit or a medicine causing it.[17] The noun is recorded from 1612 for an act of vomiting, from 1705 for the matter vomited,[3] and since 1729 for an emetic, a sense Etymonline dates to 1737.[3][16] In the United States from 1834 puke was a contemptuous word for a person and a nickname for a Missourian;[3][16] the OED and Etymonline think the nickname may have been a different word at first, and its motivation is unclear.[3][16] Later American military slang used it for a soldier, especially a career soldier (before 1966).[3] The SOED labels the word colloquial now.[4] It was also used in Scottish, Irish and northern English dialects.[18]

Timeline

  • 1586 – of a hawk, to pass food from the crop to the stomach (to 1688).[3]
  • 1600 – to vomit, in Shakespeare's As You Like It.[16][9][6]
  • 1601 – to bring up by vomiting.[3]
  • 1612 – noun, an act of vomiting.[3]
  • 1705 – vomit, the matter thrown up.[3]
  • 1717 – to give someone an emetic.[3]
  • 1729 – an emetic (to 1897).[3] Etymonline dates it to 1737.[16]
  • 1834 – a Missourian; a disgusting person.[3]

Meanings

Verb

  1. (informal) To vomit: The seasick passenger puked over the rail.[10][2][3]
  2. (informal) To bring up food by vomiting, often with up.[2][3]

Noun

  1. (informal) Vomit.[10][2][3]
  2. (informal) An act of vomiting.[10][3]
  3. (slang) A disgusting or contemptible person.[2][3]
  4. (US, historical) A Missourian, used as a nickname.[2][3]
  5. (archaic) An emetic.[2][3][17]

Word family

  • pukey
  • spew

References

  1. ^ Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
  2. ^ a b c d e f g h i j Merriam-Webster Unabridged Dictionary (2024), online ed., Springfield, Mass.: Merriam-Webster
  3. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o p q r s t u v w x y z 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 36 37 38 39 Oxford English Dictionary Online (accessed March 2026), Oxford: Oxford University Press
  4. ^ a b c d e f g h i Shorter Oxford English Dictionary on Historical Principles (2002), 5th ed., ed. William R. Trumble and Angus Stevenson, Oxford: Oxford University Press
  5. ^ The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language (online 2024), 5th ed., Boston: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt
  6. ^ a b c Barnhart, Robert K., ed. (1995), The Barnhart Concise Dictionary of Etymology, New York: HarperCollins
  7. ^ Hoad, T. F., ed. (1986), The Concise Oxford Dictionary of English Etymology, Oxford: Clarendon Press
  8. ^ a b Stevenson, Angus, ed. (2010), Oxford Dictionary of English, 3rd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press
  9. ^ a b c d Ayto, John (2005), Word Origins: The Secret Histories of English Words from A to Z, 2nd ed., London: A & C Black
  10. ^ a b c d Collins English Dictionary (2023), Glasgow: HarperCollins
  11. ^ Skeat, Walter W. (1911), A Concise Etymological Dictionary of the English Language, new ed., Oxford: Clarendon Press
  12. ^ a b Klein, Ernest. A Comprehensive Etymological Dictionary of the English Language. 2 vols. Amsterdam: Elsevier, 1966–1967.
  13. ^ Cresswell, Julia (2021), Oxford Dictionary of Word Origins, 3rd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press
  14. ^ a b Weekley, Ernest (1921), An Etymological Dictionary of Modern English, London: John Murray
  15. ^ Partridge, Eric (1966), Origins: A Short Etymological Dictionary of Modern English, 4th ed., London: Routledge & Kegan Paul
  16. ^ a b c d e f Harper, Douglas. Online Etymology Dictionary, https://www.etymonline.com
  17. ^ a b Johnson, Samuel (1755), A Dictionary of the English Language, London; 4th ed. 1773; Johnson's Dictionary Online, ed. Beth Rapp Young et al.
  18. ^ Wright, Joseph, ed. (1898–1905), The English Dialect Dictionary, 6 vols., Oxford: Henry Frowde; via EDD Online 4.0, University of Innsbruck (CC BY 4.0)