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Definitions

American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition

  1. n. A heavy shoe of untanned leather, formerly worn in Scotland and Ireland.
  2. n. A strong oxford shoe, usually with ornamental perforations and wing tips.
  3. n. A strong dialectal accent, especially a strong Irish or Scottish accent when speaking English.

Century Dictionary and Cyclopedia

  1. n. Formerly, in Ireland, a shoe made of rawhide, with the hair outward, reaching as far as the ankle and tied by thongs.
  2. n. A similar foot-covering worn by the Scotch Highlanders, but commonly made of deer-hide, either freshly stripped off or half dried, and having holes to allow water to escape.
  3. n. A smooth piece of wood worn on the foot in the operation of washing tin, when the ore is in fine particles.
  4. n. A dialectal manner of pronunciation: especially used of the mode of pronouncing English peculiar to the Irish.
  5. n. A variant of brog.

Wiktionary

  1. n. A strong dialectal accent. In Ireland it used to be a term for Irish spoken with a strong English accent, but gradually changed to mean English spoken with a strong Irish accent as English control of Ireland gradually increased and Irish waned as the standard language.
  2. n. A strong Oxford shoe, with ornamental perforations and wing tips.
  3. n. A heavy shoe of untanned leather. Also: Brogan.

GNU Webster's 1913

  1. n. A stout, coarse shoe; a brogan.
  2. n. A dialectic pronunciation; esp. the Irish manner of pronouncing English.

WordNet 3.0

  1. n. a thick and heavy shoe

Etymologies

  1. Irish and Scottish Gaelic bróg, from Old Irish bróc, shoe, possibly from Old Norse brōk, legging, or from Old English brōc; see breech.Probably from the brogues worn by peasants.

Examples

  • “Mickey's gently lifting Irish brogue is enough to call a storm .....”

    Heroes or Villains?

  • “His brogue is pretty clear (he enunicates better that Craig Ferguson) so that would be fun.”

    David Tennant gets a pilot: If anyone can save NBC, it's The Doctor, right? | EW.com

  • “Fun fact: the word brogue is derived from the Gaelic word, bróg, which means "shoe.”

    Outblush

  • “It was scarcely definite enough to be called brogue, yet there was a trick in the turning of the sentence, the wrong sound of a letter here and there, that was almost irresistible to McLean, and presaged a misuse of infinitives and possessives with which he w as very familiar and which touched him nearly.”

    Freckles

  • “It was scarcely definite enough to be called brogue, yet there was a trick in the turning of the sentence, the wrong sound of a letter here and there, that was almost irresistible to McLean, and presaged a misuse of infinitives and possessives with which he was very familiar and which touched him nearly.”

    Freckles

  • “His hair was short, and stuck up aggressively; his brogue was the strongest in the regiment; his blunders were innumerable, and his look of amazement at the laughter they called forth was admirably feigned, save that the twinkle of his eye induced a suspicion that he himself enjoyed the joke as well as anyone.”

    With Moore at Corunna

  • “Simon Pegg plays Scotty as Simon Pegg with a brogue, which is exactly what I wanted to see.”

    Ain't It Cool News - The best in movie, TV, DVD, and comic book news.

  • “Cousin Mary was the very type of the beautiful old lady, with her silver hair and her sweet Southern Irish voice; foreigners must be warned that this resembles what they call a "brogue" about as little as the speech of a Highland gentleman resembles the jargon of the Glasgow slums.”

    Surprised by Joy

  • “But she did not give her "brogue" the inimitable twist she had given it in the practices, and her readings lacked their usual fire and appeal.”

    Rilla of Ingleside

  • “His face relaxes: he turns quietly, and gravely takes off his hat to the tuft, addressing the insect in a brogue which is the jocular assumption of a gentleman and not the natural speech of a peasant.”

    John Bull's Other Island

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Lists

These user-created lists contain the word ‘brogue’.

Comments

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  • trivet I can't think of this word without remembering my grandmother. She had long, narrow feet that were hard to fit, especially back in the twenties when she was a bright young thing. When recalling shopping for dancing shoes in her youth (size 11), "All they ever had were brogues!" Oct 23, 2008

  • john Better known as wingtips in the U.S. Oct 23, 2008

  • milosrdenstvi Isn't this also a sort of an accent? Aug 18, 2008

  • jinglebelljosie also, brogan Aug 18, 2008

‘brogue’ has been looked up 2143 times, loved by 4 people, added to 28 lists, commented on 4 times, and has a Scrabble score of 9.