Speakur

Word Pronunciation & Dictionary

wog

/wɔɡ/

Word Rarity Very rare

Frequency: Zipf frequency 2.08 in modern English

Syllables
wog
IPA
/wɔɡ/
7
Scrabble Score
3
Letters
1
Syllables
3
Unique Chars

Meaning

noun

A non-white person, especially one of South Asian, Middle Eastern, or African descent.

British usage; Dated

noun

Someone of Mediterranean descent, such as an Italian, Spanish, Portuguese, Lebanese, Greek, or Maltese person.

Australian usage

noun

A person who is not a Scientologist.

verb

(Of soldiers stationed abroad) to sell something, especially illicit or stolen goods, to the local inhabitants.

Australian usage; Obsolete

verb

To steal.

Australian usage; British usage; Dated

noun

Clipping of polliwog.

noun

A pollywog, or sailor who has never crossed the Equator.

Slang

noun

A bug, an insect.

Australian usage; Slang

Example Sentences

Etymology

The origins are not entirely clear. The term was first noted by the lexicographer F.C. Bowen in 1929, in his Sea Slang: a dictionary of the old-timers’ expressions and epithets, where he defines wogs as "lower class Babu shipping clerks on the Indian coast." The most common theory is that it is a clipping of golliwog, which was first used as the name of a black-faced doll in Florence Upton’s 1895 book The Adventures of Two Dutch Dolls and a Golliwogg. A variety of folk etymologies exist, with the most common claiming that the word is an acronym for one of either westernized, worthy, wily, or wonderful preceding “Oriental gentlemen”. Another erroneous claim is that it was used in the mid 1800s, with WOGS (meaning Working On Government Service) stencilled on the shirts of Indian workers in Egypt. The Scientologist sense is from the usage of L. Ron Hubbard, who apparently accepted the folk etymology from “worthy Oriental gentleman” but employed the term to mean “common ordinary run-of-the-mill garden-variety humanoid”.

Regional Pronunciation

  • American English: /wɔɡ/
  • British English: /wɒɡ/

Usage

Inflected Forms

wogs (plural) wogs (present, singular) wogging (participle, present) wogged (participle, past) wogged (past) more WoG (comparative) most WoG (superlative)

Derived Forms

wogball woggish woggy wogspeak

Phrases

clog wog wog box

Frequently Paired Words

SOG OG IOC NOC

Synonyms

wop dago Eyetie goombah greaseball guido guinea

Rhymes With

dog blog log fog frog blue frog tree frog og hog bog jog prog

Questions

How do you pronounce wog?
The recorded pronunciation is /wɔɡ/.
What does wog mean?
A non-white person, especially one of South Asian, Middle Eastern, or African descent.
Where does wog come from?
The origins are not entirely clear. The term was first noted by the lexicographer F.C. Bowen in 1929, in his Sea Slang: a dictionary of the old-timers’ expressions and epithets, where he defines wogs as "lower class Babu shipping clerks on the Indian coast." The most common theory is that it is a clipping of golliwog, which was first used as the name of a black-faced doll in Florence Upton’s 1895 book The Adventures of Two Dutch Dolls and a Golliwogg. A variety of folk etymologies exist, with the most common claiming that the word is an acronym for one of either westernized, worthy, wily, or wonderful preceding “Oriental gentlemen”. Another erroneous claim is that it was used in the mid 1800s, with WOGS (meaning Working On Government Service) stencilled on the shirts of Indian workers in Egypt. The Scientologist sense is from the usage of L. Ron Hubbard, who apparently accepted the folk etymology from “worthy Oriental gentleman” but employed the term to mean “common ordinary run-of-the-mill garden-variety humanoid”.

How to pronounce wog

  1. Open the pronunciation page — Open the Speakur entry for “wog”.
  2. Read the phonetic spelling — Read the IPA spelling (/wɔɡ/) so you know which sounds to aim for.
  3. Play the audio — Click Play to hear reference audio for “wog”.
  4. Repeat and practice — Say “wog” aloud, matching stress and vowels until it feels natural.