wog
UK/wɒɡ/US/wɔɡ/
wog noun: a non-white person, especially one of South Asian, Middle Eastern, or African descent. Also the clipping of polliwog.
Noun (1)
wog (plural wogs)
- A non-white person, especially one of South Asian, Middle Eastern, or African descent.
- 'One of the little Indian girls whose name is Polly has just come in to ask, " Miss D., what is a wog? One white boy called me a polliwog, and I thought a wog must be something bad."'1889, The American Missionary Volume 43 p. 81
- "The King Edward's Horse called the Indian Cavalry 'The Wogs'—which is the diminutive of 'Golliwogs',—a description that was very apt of these dark apparitions in khaki and tin-hats."1921, Lionel James, chapter 18, in The History of King Edward's Horse, page 188
- Someone of Mediterranean descent, such as an Italian, Spanish, Portuguese, Lebanese, Greek, or Maltese person.
- 'Every fucking aussie. Go to Cronulla Beach Sunday for some Leb and wog bashing Aussie Pride ok.'2015, Johnny Lieu, “Cronulla Riots: What happened on one of Australia's darkest days”, in Mashable
- A person who is not a Scientologist.
- So yes, they do keep records, but no they are not 'accurate' in the wog world meaning of the word.1998 December 31, Hartley Patterson, “Documented Membership??”, in alt.religion.scientology (Usenet), message-ID <76gomd$tae$1@news4.svr.pol.co.uk>
- I'm of course talking about Hubbard's books (including Book One) being extensively rewritten, and Scn's decision to remove any mention of LRH from materials intended for wogs.2007 June 21, Dave Touretzky, “date correction for DM's big revelation”, in alt.religion.scientology (Usenet), message-ID <467ab5da$1@news2.lightlink.com>
Verb
wog (third-person singular simple present wogs, present participle wogging, simple past and past participle wogged)
- (Of soldiers stationed abroad) to sell something, especially illicit or stolen goods, to the local inhabitants.
- To steal.
Noun (2)
wog (plural wogs)
- A pollywog, or sailor who has never crossed the Equator.
Noun (3)
wog (plural wogs)
- A bug, an insect.
- A minor illness caused by bacteria, virus, intestinal parasite, etc.
- A toy insect in parts that can be assembled, used in fund-raising games.
Proper noun (1) capitalized: WOG
WOG (plural WOGs)
- Abbreviation of Winter Olympic Games.
Noun (4) capitalized: WOG
WOG (uncountable)
Adjective capitalized: WoG
WoG (comparative more WoG, superlative most WoG)
- Abbreviation of whole-of-government.
Proper noun (2) capitalized: Wog
Wog (plural Wogs)
- A surname.
Also used as
wog is also the clipping of polliwog.
Synonyms of wog
Forms of wog
| Noun | |
|---|---|
| plural | wogs |
| Verb | |
| third-person singular present | wogs |
| present participle | wogging |
| past participle | wogged |
| past | wogged |
| Proper noun | |
| plural | WOGs |
| plural | Wogs |
| Adjective | |
| comparative | more WoG |
| superlative | most WoG |
Origin of wog
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”.
Clipping of polliwog (“a tadpole”).
Unknown. Probably from Etymology 2, a clipping of polliwog (“a tadpole”).
Words formed from wog
Phrases with wog
Words that rhyme with wog
Questions about wog
- What does wog mean?
- Wog means a non-white person, especially one of South Asian, Middle Eastern, or African descent.
- What part of speech is wog?
- Wog can be a noun, a verb, a proper noun or an adjective.
- How do you pronounce wog?
- Wog is pronounced /wɒɡ/ (UK).
- What is the plural of wog?
- The plural of wog is wogs.
Words near wog in the dictionary
Source and license
Adapted from Wiktionary: wog (page history and authors); WOG (page history and authors); WoG (page history and authors); Wog (page history and authors). Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws reformatted the entry and added links. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.
Last updated:
Pronunciation audio from Wikimedia Commons, each file under its own free license: en-au-wog.ogg.
Cite this entry: “wog.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/wog. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.