boko

See also: Boko, bòkò, bōkō, and bɔkɔ

English

Etymology

Circa 1820. Multiple potential origins:

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

Pronunciation

• (Received Pronunciation) IPA^(key): /ˈbəʊ.kəʊ/
• (US) enPR: bōʹkō, IPA^(key): /ˈboʊ.koʊ/
• Rhymes: -əʊkəʊ

Noun

boko (plural bokos)

1. (dated, West Midlands, originally boxing) The nose.
   • 1943, W[illiam] E[arl] Johns, 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, Mary Dobbs Wood, 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

• See Thesaurus:nose

See also

• Boko Haram

Anagrams

• kobo, Book, Koob, book

Esperanto

Etymology

From German Bock, English buck. Doublet of buĉi.

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): [ˈboko]
• Rhymes: -oko
• Hyphenation: bo‧ko

Noun

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

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

Farefare

Etymology

Compare Moore boko (“hole”)

Pronunciation

IPA^(key): /bò.kò/

Noun

boko (plural bogro)

1. hole

French

Etymology

From a word in the Boko language.

Noun

boko m (uncountable)

1. Boko language

   Synonym: boo

Gothic

Romanization

bōkō

1. Romanization of 𐌱𐍉𐌺𐍉

Hausa

Etymology

Often stated to be borrowed from English book, but Paul Newman disputes this, stating that "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."

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /bóː.kòː/
  • (Standard Kano Hausa) IPA^(key): [bóː.kʷòː]

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)

Ido

Etymology

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

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /ˈboko/

Noun

boko (plural boki)

1. (anatomy) mouth
2. opening, entrance

   Synonym: enireyo

3. (geography) mouth (of a river or stream)

   Synonym: fluvioboko

Derived terms

• bokedo (“mouthful”)
• boketo

 

Japanese

Romanization

boko

1. Rōmaji transcription of ぼこ

Mansaka

Etymology

From buku, from Proto-Malayo-Polynesian *buku.

Noun

boko

1. knot

Moore

Etymology

Compare Farefare boko (“hole”)

Pronunciation

IPA^(key): /bò.kó/

Noun

boko (plural bogdo)

1. hole
2. pothole

Ternate

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): [ˈbo.ko]

Noun

boko

1. a kind of large drum

References

• Rika Hayami-Allen (2001) A descriptive study of the language of Ternate, the northern Moluccas, Indonesia, University of Pittsburgh