OK

exclamation

all right, correct. The term is no longer thought to be slang, but its origins are frequently debated by amateur and pro-fessional etymologists. The first recorded use was in the Boston Morning Post of 23 March 1839 by C. G. Greene, who used OK as a facetious abbreviation of a mis-spelled 'Orl Kor-rect'. This novelty, possibly reinforced by the Scottish phrase 'Och, aye', which has the same meaning and an almost identical pronunciation, was imitated by other comic writers and taken as the title of a Democratic political club in 1840; this last example was also prob-ably a pun on 'Old Kinderhook', the nickname of the politician Martin van Buren. The several other proposed sources for the word, including a pos-ited cry in French au quai! ('to or on the quayside'), are probably spurious. By the end of the 19th century OK was in use in Britain.