galoot - Wiktionary, the free dictionary (original) (raw)

From Wiktionary, the free dictionary

From Quranic Arabic جالُوت (jālūt, pronounced galūt in Egyptian Arabic), proper name equivalent to English Goliath, giant warrior of the ancient Philistine ethnicity; cf. connotations of derogatory uses of English Philistine. Doublet of goliath.

galoot (plural galoots)

  1. (derogatory) A clumsy or uncouth person.
    Synonyms: clodhopper, lout, lummox, oaf
    • 1901, Frank Norris, The Octopus, published 2008, page 293:
      “I talk like a galoot when I get talking to feemale[_sic_] girls and I can’t lay my tongue to anything that sounds right.”
    • 1993, Time, volume 141, numbers 18–26, page 53:
      On TV and in movies and magazine ads, the image of fathers over the past generation evolved from the stern, sturdy father who knew best to a helpless Homer Simpson, or some ham-handed galoot confounded by the prospect of changing a diaper.
    • 2012, John C. Gallagher, The Blood-Dimmed Tide Is Loosed, page 113:
      “So if someone does something I do not agree with, I could call him a galoot and it would be okay?”
      “Something like that, if you were friends.”
      “Are galoots always men?”

clumsy or uncouth person