Definitions

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.

  • verb obsolete To burp.
  • verb Scotland To retch or vomit.

Etymologies

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License

From Middle English bolken ("to vomit, overflow"), from Old English bealcan ("to belch, utter, bring up, sputter out, pour out, give forth, emit, come forth"), from Proto-Germanic *belkanan (“to belch”). Cognate with Dutch balken & bulken ("to bellow"), German bölken ("to roar"). See also belch.

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Examples

  • The biblical wisdom, "As a dog returneth to its vomit, so a fool returneth to his folly", becomes, in the Newtyle version, "A dug canna lea its ain boak alane; nor can the bawheid his bawheiditness".

    A life in writing: James Robertson 2010

  • And did anyone else here catch that boak worthy editorial endorsement of the "Obama Messiah" on the eve of the Presidential election?

    On Thursday, the Legg report will be published along with... 2008

  • October 19th, 2007 at 8: 18 pm paris hilton is a bint. she gives me the boak!!!! the sex tape put me off sex forever!!! she needs to eat. .of course she is thick shes bleached blonde and why cover beautiful brown eyes with blue contact lens??? cos shes thick!!!!

    David Letterman Interviews Paris Hilton 2006

  • He had leaned across the double bed and reached for his bag, remembering even as he thrust his hand inside that the book he was half-way through was now probably some - where above the Atlantic, jammed firmly into seat-pocket 22D, between the lifejacket instructions and the boak-poke.

    Not the End of the World Brookmyre, Christopher, 1968- 1998

  • The source of his panic was that he couldn't remember where he had thrown up, indeed couldn't recall the act at all, but was certain it couldn't have been anywhere sensible, because even an unflushed lavvy bowl of boak can't permeate a flat so comprehensively.

    Quite Ugly One Morning Brookmyre, Christopher, 1968- 1996

  • 'A dead body in pyjama trousers in a wrecked flat awash with blood and boak, and a huge jobbie on the manteipiece for garnish. '

    Quite Ugly One Morning Brookmyre, Christopher, 1968- 1996

  • And as often as not she has a cold and cancels the boak party at the last minute.

    Mrs. Miniver 1939

  • Gobshite is a word I haven’t heard for many years, as is boak.

    08 « August « 2008 « I Can’t Stop Reading! 2008

  • Gobshite is a word I haven’t heard for many years, as is boak.

    Halting State by Charles Stross « I Can’t Stop Reading! 2008

  • Gobshite is a word I haven’t heard for many years, as is boak.

    August « 2008 « I Can’t Stop Reading! 2008

Comments

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  • Scots - vomit. Both noun and verb. Also spelled boke on occasion. Possibly onomatopoeic in origin.

    December 26, 2007