''Dude'' is
American slang for an individual, typically
male
Male (Planet symbols, symbol: ♂) is the sex of an organism that produces the gamete (sex cell) known as sperm, which fuses with the larger female gamete, or Egg cell, ovum, in the process of fertilisation. A male organism cannot sexual repro ...
.
[ From the 1870s to the 1960s, dude primarily meant a male person who dressed in an extremely fashionable manner (a ]dandy
A dandy is a man who places particular importance upon physical appearance and personal grooming, refined language and leisurely hobbies. A dandy could be a self-made man both in person and ''persona'', who emulated the aristocratic style of l ...
) or a conspicuous citified person who was visiting a rural location, a "city slicker". In the 1960s, dude evolved to mean any male person, a meaning that slipped into mainstream American slang in the 1970s. Current slang retains at least some use of all three of these common meanings.
History
The etymology of the term "dude" is obscure. "Dude" may have derived from the 18th-century word "doodle", as in "Yankee Doodle Dandy".
In the popular press of the 1880s and 1890s, "dude" was a new word for "dandy
A dandy is a man who places particular importance upon physical appearance and personal grooming, refined language and leisurely hobbies. A dandy could be a self-made man both in person and ''persona'', who emulated the aristocratic style of l ...
"—an "extremely well-dressed male", a man who assigned particular importance to his appearance. The café society
Café society was the description of the "Beautiful People" and " Bright Young Things" who gathered in fashionable cafés and restaurants in New York, Paris and London beginning in the late 19th century. Maury Henry Biddle Paul is credited wi ...
and Bright Young Things of the late 1800s and early 1900s were populated with dudes. Young men of leisure vied to display their wardrobes. The best known of this type is probably Evander Berry Wall, who was dubbed "King of the Dudes" in 1880s New York and maintained a reputation for sartorial splendor all his life. This meaning of the word, though rarely consciously known today, remains occasionally in some American slang, as in the phrase "all duded up" for getting dressed in fancy clothes.
The word was used to refer to American Easterners, specifically referring to a man with "store-bought clothes". The word was used by cowboys to unfavorably refer to the city dwellers.
A variation of this was a "well-dressed man who is unfamiliar with life outside a large city". In ''The Home and Farm Manual'' (1883), author Jonathan Periam used the term "dude" several times to denote an ill-bred and ignorant but ostentatious man from the city.
The implication of an individual who is unfamiliar with the demands of life outside of urban settings gave rise to the definition of dude as a "city slicker", or "an Easterner in the mericanWest". Thus "dude" was used to describe the wealthy men of the expansion of the United States during the 19th century by ranch-and-homestead-bound settlers of the American Old West
The American frontier, also known as the Old West, and popularly known as the Wild West, encompasses the geography, history, folklore, and culture associated with the forward wave of American expansion in mainland North America that bega ...
. This use is reflected in the ''dude ranch'', a guest ranch
A guest ranch, also known as a dude ranch, is a type of ranch oriented towards visitors or tourism. It is considered a form of agrotourism.
History
Guest ranches arose in response to the romanticization of the American West that began to occur ...
catering to urbanites seeking more rural experiences. Dude ranches began to appear in the American West in the early 20th century, for wealthy Easterners who came to experience the "cowboy
A cowboy is an animal herder who tends cattle on ranches in North America, traditionally on horseback, and often performs a multitude of other ranch-related tasks. The historic American cowboy of the late 19th century arose from the ''vaquero'' ...
life". The implicit contrast is with those persons accustomed to a given frontier, agricultural, mining, or other rural setting. This usage of "dude" was still in use in the 1950s in America, as a word for a tourist—of either sex—who attempts to dress like the local culture but fails. An inverse of these uses of "dude" would be the term "redneck
''Redneck'' is a derogatory term mainly applied to white Americans perceived to be crass and unsophisticated, closely associated with rural whites of the southern United States.Harold Wentworth, and Stuart Berg Flexner, ''Dictionary of American ...
," a contemporary American colloquialism referring to poor farmers and uneducated persons, which itself became pejorative, and is also still in use.
As the word gained popularity and reached the coasts of the U.S. and traveled between borders, variations of the slang began to pop up such as the female versions of ''dudette'' and ''dudines''; however, they were short lived due to dude also gaining a neutral gender connotation and some linguists see the female versions as more artificial slang. The slang eventually had gradual decline in usage until the early to mid 20th century when other subcultures of the U.S. began using it more frequently while again deriving it from the type of dress and eventually using it as a descriptor for common male and sometimes female companions. Eventually, lower class schools with a greater mix of subcultures allowed the word to spread to almost all cultures and eventually up the class ladders to become common use in the U.S. By the late 20th to early 21st century, dude had gained the ability to be used in the form of expression, whether that be disappointment, excitement, or loving and it also widened to be able to refer to any general person no matter race, sex, or culture
Culture ( ) is a concept that encompasses the social behavior, institutions, and Social norm, norms found in human societies, as well as the knowledge, beliefs, arts, laws, Social norm, customs, capabilities, Attitude (psychology), attitudes ...
.
The term was also used as a "job description", such as "bush hook dude" as a position on a railroad in the 1880s. For an example, see the Stampede Tunnel.
In the early 1960s, dude became prominent in surfer culture as a synonym of ''guy'' or ''fella''. The female equivalent was "dudette" or "dudess", but these have both fallen into disuse and "dude" is now also used as a unisex
Unisex is an adjective indicating something is not sex-specific, i.e. is suitable for any type of sex. The term can also mean gender-blindness or gender neutrality.
The term 'unisex' was coined in the 1960s and was used fairly informally. The co ...
term. This more general meaning of "dude" started creeping into the mainstream in the mid-1970s. "Dude", particularly in surfer and " bro" culture, is generally used informally to address someone ("Dude, I'm glad you finally called") or refer to another person ("I've seen that dude around here before").
One of the first known references to the word in American film was in the 1969 movie ''Easy Rider
''Easy Rider'' is a 1969 American road drama film written by Peter Fonda, Dennis Hopper, and Terry Southern. It was produced by Fonda and directed by Hopper. Fonda and Hopper play two bikers who travel through the American Southwest and the S ...
'' where Wyatt (portrayed by Peter Fonda
Peter Henry Fonda (February 23, 1940 – August 16, 2019) was an American actor, film director, and screenwriter. He was a two-time Academy Award nominee, both for acting and screenwriting, and a two-time Golden Globe Award winner for his a ...
) explains to his cellmate lawyer (portrayed by Jack Nicholson
John Joseph Nicholson (born April 22, 1937) is an American retired actor and filmmaker. Nicholson is widely regarded as one of the greatest actors of the 20th century, often playing rebels fighting against the social structure. Over his five-de ...
) the definition of "dude": "Dude means nice guy; Dude means regular sort of person." Mark Farner of Grand Funk Railroad
Grand Funk Railroad (often shortened to Grand Funk) is an American rock band formed in Flint, Michigan, in 1969 by Mark Farner (vocals, guitar, keyboards, harmonica), Don Brewer (drums, vocals) and Mel Schacher (bass). The band achieved pea ...
claims that drummer Don Brewer popularized the word dude with the song " We're an American Band" which was released in 1973. The usage of the word to mean a " cool person" was further popularized in American films of the 1980s and 1990s such as ''Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles
''Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles'' (''TMNT'') is an American media franchise created by comic book artists Kevin Eastman and Peter Laird. It follows Leonardo (Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles), Leonardo, Donatello (Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles), D ...
'', '' Fast Times at Ridgemont High'', '' Bill and Ted's Excellent Adventure'', ''Wayne's World
"Wayne's World" was originally a recurring sketch from the NBC television series ''Saturday Night Live''. The first "Wayne's World" sketch appeared in the 13th ''Saturday Night Live'' episode of the Saturday Night Live season 14, 1988–1989 seas ...
'', and ''Clerks
A clerk is someone who works in an office. A retail clerk works in a store.
Office holder
Clerk(s) may also refer to a person who holds an office, most commonly in a local unit of government, or a court.
*Barristers' clerk, a manager and administ ...
''.
The 1998 film ''The Big Lebowski
''The Big Lebowski'' () is a 1998 crime comedy film written, directed, produced and co-edited by Joel and Ethan Coen. It follows the life of Jeffrey "The Dude" Lebowski (Jeff Bridges), a Los Angeles slacker and avid bowler. He is assaulted ...
'' featured Jeff Bridges
Jeffrey Leon Bridges (born December 4, 1949) is an American actor. He is known for his Leading actor, leading man roles in film and television. In a career spanning over seven decades, he has received List of awards and nominations received by ...
as "The Dude", described as a "lazy deadbeat". The character was largely inspired by activist and producer Jeff Dowd who has been called "Dude" since childhood. The film's central character inspired the creation of Dudeism, a neoreligion
A new religious movement (NRM), also known as a new religion, is a religious or spiritual group that has modern origins and is peripheral to its society's dominant religious culture. NRMs can be novel in origin, or they can be part of a wider re ...
.
In 2008, Bud Light
Anheuser-Busch, a wholly owned subsidiary of Anheuser-Busch InBev SA/NV, is the largest brewing company in the United States, with a market share of 45 percent in 2016.
The company operates 12 breweries in the United States and nearly 20 in oth ...
aired an advertising campaign
An advertising campaign or marketing campaign is a series of advertisement messages that share a single idea and theme which make up an integrated marketing communication (IMC). An IMC is a platform in which a group of people can group their ide ...
in which the dialogue consists entirely of different inflections of "Dude!" and does not mention the product by name. It was a followup to their near-identical and more widely noted " Whassup?" campaign.
On July 23, 2019, Boris Johnson
Alexander Boris de Pfeffel Johnson (born 19 June 1964) is a British politician and writer who served as Prime Minister of the United Kingdom and Leader of the Conservative Party (UK), Leader of the Conservative Party from 2019 to 2022. He wa ...
used the word "dude" as an acronym
An acronym is a type of abbreviation consisting of a phrase whose only pronounced elements are the initial letters or initial sounds of words inside that phrase. Acronyms are often spelled with the initial Letter (alphabet), letter of each wor ...
for his Conservative Party leadership campaign platform. In his leadership speech he explained it: Deliver Brexit – Unite the country – Defeat Jeremy Corbyn
Jeremy Bernard Corbyn (; born 26 May 1949) is a British politician who has been Member of Parliament (United Kingdom), Member of Parliament (MP) for Islington North (UK Parliament constituency), Islington North since 1983. Now an Independent ...
– Energize the country.
References
Further reading
Dude
– By Kiesling, Scott F., Published in ''American Speech'', Vol. 79, No. 3, Fall 2004, pp. 281–305
Dude, Where's My Dude?
– Dudelicious Dissection, From Sontag to Spicoli, ''The New York Observer
''The New York Observer'' was a weekly newspaper established in 1987. In 2016, it ceased print publication and became the online-only newspaper ''Observer''. The media site focuses on culture, real estate, media, politics and the entertainment ...
''
Words@random:
"dude"
Material for the Study of Dude
– The etymological origin of the word "dude" by Barry Popik, David Shulman, and Gerald Cohen. Originally published in ''Comments on Etymology'', October 1993, Vol. 23, No. 1
*
* {{cite web, url=https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2013/11/dude-transcends/309528/, title=A Brief History of ''Dude'', last=Gould, first=J. J., work=The Atlantic
''The Atlantic'' is an American magazine and multi-platform publisher based in Washington, D.C. It features articles on politics, foreign affairs, business and the economy, culture and the arts, technology, and science.
It was founded in 185 ...
, date=November 2013, access-date=May 21, 2017
19th-century fashion
20th-century fashion
Slang terms for men
Stereotypes of urban people
American slang