What does o.k. mean and where did it come from

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Log in Sign Up. OK adverb or adjective. Save Word. Definition of OK Entry 1 of 4. OK noun. Definition of OK Entry 2 of 4. OK verb. OK'd or okayed ; OK'ing or okaying. Definition of OK Entry 3 of 4. OK abbreviation. Definition of OK Entry 4 of 4. The boss gave his okay. Verb The boss needs to OK this before we place the order. Here's the next thing we need to do , or a number of other really useful things.

It's amazing that we ever got along without it at all. But we did. Until There may be more stories about the origin of "OK" than there are uses for it: it comes from the Haitian port "Aux Cayes," from Louisiana French au quai , from a Puerto Rican rum labeled "Aux Quais," from German alles korrekt or Ober-Kommando , from Chocktaw okeh , from Scots och aye , from Wolof waw kay , from Greek olla kalla , from Latin omnes korrecta.

Other stories attribute it to bakers stamping their initials on biscuits, or shipbuilders marking wood for "outer keel," or Civil War soldiers carrying signs for "zero killed. His book is based in the thorough scholarship of Allen Walker Read, a Columbia professor who for years scoured historical sources for evidence about OK, and published his findings in a series of journal articles in to OK, here's the story. On Saturday, March 23, , the editor of the Boston Morning Post published a humorous article about a satirical organization called the "Anti-Bell Ringing Society " in which he wrote:.

The "Chairman of the Committee on Charity Lecture Bells," is one of the deputation, and perhaps if he should return to Boston, via Providence, he of the Journal, and his train-band, would have his "contribution box," et ceteras, o. It wasn't as strange as it might seem for the author to coin OK as an abbreviation for "all correct.

A twist on the trend was to base the abbreviations on alternate spellings or misspellings, so "no go" was k.