Meanings
plural gloaks
- UKslangA man, a guy.
You're a prime gloak, an out-and-outer, to get as far as you did before they grabbed you.
1956, Frank Clune, Martin Cash: The Last of the Tasmanian Bushrangers, page 1492 more examples
‘Brit, by the look of him,’ cries a short, freckl’d seaman in whom Stature and Pugnacity enjoy an inverse relation. ‘– long way from home ain’t you old Gloak?’
1997, Thomas Pynchon, Mason & Dixon, New York: Henry Holt and Company, →ISBN, →OCLC, page 401[…] both toby-gills [highwaymen], buz-gloaks [pickpockets], cracksmen [housebreakers], &c., but from their good address and respectable appearance nobody would suspect their real vocation.
quoted in 2013, Nicola Phillips, The Profligate Son (page 133)
Synonyms & antonyms
nounA man, a guy.
Origin
Origin unknown.
Full word history & related roots →Rhymes & wordplay
Rhymes with gloak
Anagrams
Cite this entry
gloak. (n.d.). In WatkinsX Dictionary. Retrieved November 2, 2026, from https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/gloak
“gloak.” WatkinsX Dictionary, https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/gloak. Accessed November 2, 2026.
WatkinsX Dictionary, s.v. “gloak,” accessed November 2, 2026, https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/gloak.
Source: gloak on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.