June 21, 2001

dude

What is the origin and history of the word dude?

The original meaning of this American-born word is still its first definition today, 'a man excessively concerned with his clothes, grooming and manners'. I thought that dude was an old word, but I thought wrong. I guess it's because the word sounds vaguely like duke, and all those titles of royalty are fairly ancient. But dude first appeared in print in 1878. The Random House Historical Dictionary of American Slang cites an 1877 reference in a letter--not published, however, until 1988--from the painter and sculptor Frederick Remington: "Don't send me any more [drawings of] women or any more dudes." By 1883, dude was in wider circulation. In June of that year, its popularity was noted by Massachusetts’ North Adams Transcript: "The new coined word 'dude'...has travelled over the country with a great deal of rapidity since but two months ago it grew into general use in New York." By 1885, it had established a strong enough foothold to appear in Ulysses S. Grant's Personal Memoirs: "Before the car I was in had started, a dapper little fellow--he would be called a dude at this day--stepped in."

Fairly soon, a dude came to mean an Easterner or a city slicker, and especially someone who vacations on a ranch--thus dude ranch.

Dude also spawned quite a few odd derivatives, such as dudedom, dudeness, dudery, dudism, dudish, dudess and dudine--the last two meaning 'female dudes'. None of these is in general use today. I thought dudess might have had a revival as part of the surfer culture; however, Malia Alani of Surfer Magazine said no. She e-mailed me that "I don't think there is a feminine word for dude. A traditional Hawaiian word used commonly for women surfers is wahine." (Note: following the appearance of the column, several readers have informed me that dudette is the feminine form of dude. A quick search of Nexis confirms the word is, in fact, current. Thanks, everyone.)

The meaning of the word as 'a male person' has been in wide use since the 1960's. This is from a 1968 book called College Drug Scene: "And I got into symbolic logic and semantics with a cat who had studied with Korzybski and electronics from a dude who had an Associate of Arts degree in anthropology from 1941." The use of dude in direct address to a male began much earlier. This is from a 1945 book called Silversides: "Hey, dude, there's a ship out here!"

The origin of dude is uncertain. There are a few speculations, the most interesting of which, to my mind, is from A Dictionary of Slang by Eric Partridge. He says that it may have come from the word dud--which, at the time, meant 'a delicate weakling'--"influenced by attitude."

Awesome, Dude.

Richard