1. Dude - Miriam Webster Dictionary
noun ˈdüd also ˈdyüd\
Definition of DUDE
1. a man extremely fastidious in dress and manner : dandy.
2. a city dweller unfamiliar with life on the range; especially : an Easterner in the West.
3. fellow, guy — sometimes used informally as a term of address (hey, dude, what's up).
— dud·ish adjective
— dud·ish·ly adverb
2. Dude - Urban Dictionary
1) n. a name for anyone (stereotypically used by male surfters/skaters but now accepted by any race, sex, religion, and wealth).
2) n. something that's just so awesomly cool, amazingly kick ass.
3) ?. a way to start a conversation.
4) replacing "um" or "like" in any sentence.
1) Dude, that guy is soo sexy!
2) Omg! That teacher was so stoned, me and Hil were both like "Duuuude."
3) Dude you have no idea!
4) And then...dude...dude...dude, shit I forgot.
Jeff Bridges as Jeff "The Dude" Lebowski in The Big Lebowski. He is a "single, unemployed slacker living in Venice, California, who enjoys marijuana, White Russians, and bowling."
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From the 'Only in America' file from way back in 2004 comes the following bit of news
Dude, you've got to read this.
A linguist from the University of Pittsburgh has published a scholarly paper deconstructing and deciphering the word "dude," contending it is much more than a catchall for lazy, inarticulate surfers, skaters, slackers and teenagers...
Kiesling says in the fall edition of the journal American Speech that the word derives its power from something he calls cool solidarity -- an effortless kinship that's not too intimate. Cool solidarity is especially important to young men who are under social pressure to be close with other young men but not enough to be suspected as gay.
In other words: Close, dude, but not that close.
According to the author Scott Kiesling, there are multiple uses for the four-letter word:
- in greetings ("What's up, dude?").
- as an exclamation ("Whoa, Dude!").
- commiseration ("Dude, I'm so sorry.").
- to one-up someone ("That's so lame, dude.").
- as well as agreement, surprise and disgust ("Dude.").
What did "Dude" mean in historical terms? Kiesling writes
- "old rags" - a "dudesman" was a scarecrow.
- In the late 1800s, a "dude" was akin to a "dandy," a meticulously dressed man, especially out West.
- It became "cool" in the 1930s and 1940s.
- Dude began its rise in the teenage lexicon with the 1981 movie Fast Times at Ridgemont High.
It is said that America is in decline. Wrong, wrong, wrong!
We can not only invade other countries when we feel like it but also, as a means of exhibiting our intellectual superiority, can expound at length and decipher uses of obscure words like "dude."
We might be a lot of things but "declinists" we are not. Who said American "soft power" can't transform the world?