dekko

English

Alternative forms

• decko

Etymology

Borrowed from Hindustani देखो / دیکھو (dekho), imperative of देखना / دیکھنا (dekhnā, “to see, to look”).

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /ˈdɛk.əʊ/

• Audio (General Australian):

  (file)

• Rhymes: -ɛkəʊ
• Homophone: deco (one pronunciation)

Noun

dekko (plural dekkos)

1. (UK, Ireland, slang) A look; a glance.
   • 1960, P[elham] G[renville] Wodehouse, chapter XII, in Jeeves in the Offing, London: Herbert Jenkins, →OCLC:

     But now there was a listlessness about her, not the listlessness of the cat Augustus but more that of the female in the picture in the Louvre, of whom Jeeves, on the occasion when he lugged me there to take a dekko at her, said that here was the head upon which all the ends of the world are come.

   • 2011 [1965], Olivia Manning, Friends And Heroes (The Balkan Trilogy)‎^[1], Random House, →ISBN:

     Phipps went on: “One of our chaps, out on a reccy over the Bulgarian front, thought he saw something in the snow. Something fishy. He dropped down to have a dekko and nearly had kittens. What d'you think? Jerry's got a mass of stuff there—tanks, guns, lorries, every sort of heavy armament. All camouflaged. White.”

Further reading

• “dekko n.”, in Green’s Dictionary of Slang, Jonathon Green, 2016–present

Broome Pearling Lugger Pidgin

Etymology

From English let go.

Verb

dekko

1. to drop

References

• William McGregor (2004) The Languages of the Kimberley, Western Australia (in Broome Pearling Lugger Pidgin), Taylor & Francis