''Dude'' is American slang for an individual, typically male. From the 1870s to the 1960s, dude primarily meant a male person who dressed in an extremely

fashionable Fashion is a form of self-expression and autonomy at a particular period and place and in a specific context, of clothing, footwear, lifestyle, accessories, makeup, hairstyle, and body posture. The term implies a look defined by the fashion ind ...

manner (a dandy) or a conspicuous citified person who was visiting a rural location, a "

city slicker {{wiktionarypar, city slicker City slicker is an idiomatic expression for someone accustomed to a city or urban lifestyle and unsuited to life in the country. The term was typically used as a term of derision by rural Americans and Canadians who ...

". 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 term "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"—an "extremely well-dressed male", a man who paid particular importance to his appearance. The café society and Bright Young Things of the late 1800s and early 1900s were populated with dudes. Young men of leisure vied to show off 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. 1883 - origin of dude - Chicago Tribune - 25 Feb 1883

1883 - origin of dude - Chicago Tribune - 25 Feb 1883

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 "

", 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 or the Wild West, encompasses the geography, history, folklore, and culture associated with the forward wave of American expansion in mainland North America that began with European colonial ...

. This use is reflected in the ''dude ranch'', a guest ranch 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 '' vaquer ...

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 gender—who attempts to dress like the local culture but fails. An inverse of these uses of "dude" would be the term " redneck," 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, gender, or culture. 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 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'' where Wyatt (portrayed by

Peter Fonda Peter Henry Fonda (February 23, 1940 – August 16, 2019) was an American actor. He was the son of Henry Fonda, younger brother of Jane Fonda, and father of Bridget Fonda. He was a prominent figure in the counterculture of the 1960s. Fond ...

) explains to his cellmate lawyer (portrayed by Jack Nicholson) the definition of "dude": "Dude means nice guy; Dude means regular sort of person." The usage of the word to mean a "

cool Cool commonly refers to: * Cool, a moderately low temperature * Cool (aesthetic), an aesthetic of attitude, behavior, and style Cool or COOL may also refer to: Economics * Country of origin labelling * mCOOL - US consumer legislation to enforc ...

person" was further popularized in American films of the 1980s and 1990s such as '' Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles'', '' Fast Times at Ridgemont High'', '' Bill and Ted's Excellent Adventure'', '' Wayne's World'', and '' Clerks''. The 1998 film '' The Big Lebowski'' featured Jeff Bridges as "The Dude", described as a "lazy deadbeat". The character was largely inspired by activist and producer

Jeff Dowd Jeff Dowd (born November 20, 1949) is an American film producer and political activist. Biography He was a member of the "Seattle Seven," who were jailed for contempt of court following a violent protest against the Vietnam War. He later moved ...

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 alternative spirituality or 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 th ...

. The 2000 film '' Dude, Where's My Car?'' uses the word in the title. 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 othe ...

aired an advertising campaign 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 popularized the word "dude" as an acronym for his Conservative Party leadership

campaign Campaign or The Campaign may refer to: Types of campaigns * Campaign, in agriculture, the period during which sugar beets are harvested and processed * Advertising campaign, a series of advertisement messages that share a single idea and theme * B ...

. In his leadership speech he explained it as referring to Deliver Brexit – Unite the country – Defeat Jeremy Corbyn – Energize the country.

History

References

Further reading