A.Word.A.Day --dekko

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Today's Word

dekko

PRONUNCIATION:

(DEK-oh)

MEANING:

noun: A look.

ETYMOLOGY:

From Hindi dekho (look), imperative of dekhna (to look). Earliest documented use: 1855.

NOTES:

The word dekko slipped into English during the days of British colonial India, when officers and merchants picked up bits of Hindi. Someone would say “Dekho!” (look), and soon the word was anglicized into dekko, proof that languages are always eyeing each other. Another imperative from Hindi that has turned into a noun in English is toco.

USAGE:

“Just take a dekko at his snazzy exterior.”
Gary Smith; “The Master Plan” Makes for Masterful Theatre at Aquarius; The Spectator (Hamilton, Canada); Nov 2, 2024.

See more usage examples of dekko in Vocabulary.com’s dictionary.

A THOUGHT FOR TODAY:

We must learn to honor excellence in every socially accepted human activity, however humble the activity, and to scorn shoddiness, however exalted the activity. An excellent plumber is infinitely more admirable than an incompetent philosopher. The society that scorns excellence in plumbing because plumbing is a humble activity and tolerates shoddiness in philosophy because it is an exalted activity will have neither good plumbing nor good philosophy. Neither its pipes nor its theories will hold water. -John W. Gardner, author and leader (8 Oct 1912-2002)

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