OK
Language: English
Part of speech: adj
Pronunciation: ipa: /ˌəʊˈkeɪ/
ipa: /ˌoʊˈkeɪ/
ipa: /əˈkeɪ/
rhymes: -eɪ
Forms: form: more OK
form: OKer
form: most OK
form: OKest
form: O.K.
form: o.k.
form: ok
form: okay
form: O. K.
form: o. k.
form: okeh
form: okey
form: okie
Etymology: Origin disputed. Wikipedia lists many possible etymologies, of which the most widely accepted is that it is an abbreviation of oll/orl korrect, a comical spelling of all correct, which first appeared in print in The Boston Morning Post on March 23, 1839, as part of a fad for similar fanciful abbreviations in the United States during the late 1830s. The expression became popular through its use in the presidential campaign of Martin Van Buren in 1840, who was nicknamed Old Kinderhook, and then slowly acquired other meanings.
The Choctaw word oke, okeh (“it is so”), common in Choctaw translations of the Bible, could also explain OK's variety of affirmative definitions. Additionally, okeh was the most common etymology of okay in dictionaries until the 1960s, and linguistically predates Boston's O.K.. However, this theory suffers from the fact that the Choctaw language was relatively obscure and generally spoken (sometimes in a pidgin form) mainly with African-American slaves.
Senses: examples: text: Is it OK if I spend the night?
text: “A Summer Places”s simple thesis is that sexual promiscuity among the young is OK in general but it’s even more OK if the adults have a record of adultery and it’s even OKer than that if everybody has lots of money. But who wants to go slumming (even morally) in an armchair?
ref: 1967 August 19, Judith Crist, “This Week’s Movies”, in Merrill Panitt, editor, TV Guide, volume 15, number 33, Radnor, Pa.: Triangle Publications, →ISSN, →OCLC, page A-5, column 2:
glosses: All right, acceptable, permitted.
examples: text: The soup was OK, but the dessert was excellent.
text: I watched her pale complexion and her creaseless school uniform as she shyly introduced herself in front of the class, and decided she was no different from all the others in Saginomiya Girls’ High School: rather smart, from an OK family, at any rate OKer than mine, with enough time and money to allow her to muse over where to get the latest version of tamagochi or that tartan dress with an above-knee hemline advertised in Seventeen.
ref: 2004, Chu-Ching Chen, “The Returnee”, in Tony Bradman, editor, Skin Deep, London: Puffin Books, →ISBN, page 222:
glosses: Satisfactory, reasonably good; not exceptional.
examples: text: If you leave the kids in the creche for one morning on your week's holiday, and they are OK with that, then it's fine.
ref: 2012, Roni Jay, The 10 Most Important Things You Can Do For Your Children:
glosses: Satisfied (with); willing to accept a state of affairs.
examples: text: He's not feeling well now, but he should be OK after some rest.
text: Are you OK?
text: ‘Are we OK? Is this—?’ She made a gesture to include their two bodies. / ‘This is the OKest I’ve been in years.’
ref: 2014, Sue Moorcroft, chapter 18, in The Wedding Proosal, Camberley, Surrey: Choc Lit, →ISBN, page 200:
text: In France, the French postal service La Poste provides a subscription service in which postal workers visit elderly subscribers to make sure they are okay, do not need anything, and provide brief social interaction.
ref: 2022 October 25, L. J. Shrum, Elena Fumagalli, Tina M. Lowrey, “Coping with loneliness through consumption”, in Journal of Consumer Psychology, volume 33, number 2, →DOI, page 452:
glosses: In good health or a good emotional state.
Synonyms: sense: all right, permissible
word: allowed
sense: all right, permissible
word: all right
sense: all right, permissible
word: permissible
sense: satisfactory
word: adequate
sense: satisfactory
word: all right
sense: satisfactory
word: not bad
sense: satisfactory
word: satisfactory
sense: in good health or a good emotional state
word: fine
sense: in good health or a good emotional state
word: well