bloke

Noun

bloke (plural blokes)

1. (Commonwealth, Ireland, UK, informal) A fellow, a man; especially an ordinary man, a man on the street.
   • He accordingly opened it [a letter], and read as follows:–
     "Tim put on the tats yesterday and went out a durry-nakin on the shadows, gadding a hoof. He buzzed a bloak and a shakester of a yack and a skin. […]"
     […] we will lay before our readers a translation of the slang document:–
     "Tim dressed...1847, George W[illiam] M[acArthur] Reynolds, “Old Death”, in The Mysteries of London, volume III (volume I, Second Series), London: G. Vickers, […], →OCLC, page 66, column 1
   • Now I tell yer straight, I don't call it square for two big bloaks like us to tackle [i.e., steal from] one poor woman, and she a widder, and p'raps as 'ard up as us; it isn't English.1892, John Pennington Marsden, “A Professional Secret”, in Job Lot: Sketches and Stories, Philadelphia, Pa.: Hallowell & Co., […], →OCLC, page 177

   Synonyms:

   boy, bro, broski, bruh, cat, chap, chappy, chield, cove, covey

2. (Australia, Commonwealth, New Zealand, especially) An exemplar of a certain masculine, independent male archetype.
   • ‘The Bloke’ is a certain kind of Australian or New Zealand male. […] The Classic Bloke is not a voluble beast. His speech patterns are best described as infrequent but colorful. […] The Bloke is pragmatic rather than classy. […] Most of all, the Bloke does not whinge.2000 May 5, Belinda Luscombe, “Cinema: Of Mad Max and Madder Maximus”, in Time, New York, N.Y.: Time Warner Publishing, →ISSN, →OCLC, archived from the original on 27 Nov 2010
   • Strong, bronzed, attractive, and, above all, incredibly Australian, Bloke’s Blokes bestride the world like colossi, less men than living gods, stepping from the pages of mythology into our hearts, and guiding us like mighty beacons upon the right and proper path of Blokedom.2012, Ben Pobjie, “Bloke’s Blokes”, in The Book of Bloke, Sydney, N.S.W.: Pan Macmillan, →ISBN
3. (Commonwealth, Ireland, UK, especially, informal) A man who behaves in a particularly laddish or overtly heterosexual manner.
   • Even now he's like this weird guy who comes into my life occasionally and asks me bloke questions. Sport, girls, your future. Even superannuation. Once he even started telling me how important superannuation was. What a dickhead.1996, Nick Earls, chapter 31, in After January (UQP Young Adult Fiction), St. Lucia, Qld.: University of Queensland Press, published 2006, →ISBN, page 127
   • […] Pakeha, and colonial, masculinity is situated in a homosocial environment. This homosociality is both gendered and ethnicized. The kiwi bloke is a Pakeha working man, at home on the football field, in the sands of North Africa, at the pub (but in the public bar). He is a loner, hard, resolute...1999, Malcolm MacLean, “Of Warriors and Blokes: The Problem of Maori Rugby for Pakeha Masculinity in New Zealand”, in Timothy J[ohn] L[indsay] Chandler, John Nauright, editors, Making the Rugby...
4. (Commonwealth, Ireland, UK, slang) (A lower deck term for) the captain or executive officer of a warship, especially one regarded as tough on discipline and punishment.
   • A second green chit and then you get your hat for a talk with the bloke.1989, Rick Jolly, Trugg Willson, Jackspeak: The Pusser’s Rum: Guide to Royal Navy Slanguage […], Torpoint, Cornwall: Palamanando Publ., →ISBN
5. (Quebec, colloquial) An anglophone (English-speaking) man.
   • [A]n organization called "Bloke Quebecois" ("bloke" being a French slang term for Anglophone as well as a reference to the newly formed federal political party, the Bloc Québécois) sold T-shirts that sported the phrase "It's Hip to be Square" (derived from the popular term for an Anglophone...2017, Dany Fougères, Valérie Shaffer, “An Undivided Island: Domination at the Dawn of a New Era”, in Dany Fougères, Roderick MacLeod, editors, Montreal: The History of a North American City, volume...
   • One cartoon from the period depicted a muscular French Canadian worker being replaced by an effeminate looking English Canadian man on the job. The caption warned, "When we are gone their blokes will come to take our place, to take our homes, and to take our women."2017, Jeffery Vacante, “War and Manhood”, in National Manhood and the Creation of Modern Quebec, Vancouver, B.C.; Toronto, Ont.: UBC Press, →ISBN, page 107