''brogue'' ▫ᴱᴺ｜Definition｜1st｜20260904134559-00-⌔

brogue - Wiktionary, the free dictionary

English

🖼️ ➺

Noun

brogue (plural brogues)

• A strong dialectal accent, usually Irish or Scottish.
  • ✤ I had no doubt he knew where I was from, for I had the brogue, although not much of it.¹
  • ✤ “No-man’s-land.” The words were spoken in a deep voice filled with salt water and brogue.²
  • ✤ Belter is composed mainly of Chinese, Japanese, Slavic, Germanic, and romance languages because Earth’s most common tongues would be the ones to survive to form the new brogue of the cosmos.³
  • ✤ his brooding good looks and distinct Scottish brogue won him legions of fans worldwide.⁴
• A strong Oxford shoe, with ornamental perforations and wing tips.
  • ✤ Synonym: brogan
  • ✤ He had one pair of brogues and the soles were in a miserable state.⁵
• (dated) A heavy shoe of untanned leather.

Verb

brogue (third-person singular simple present brogues, present participlebroguing or brogueing, simple past and past participle brogued)

• (transitive, intransitive) To speak with a brogue (accent).
• (intransitive) To walk.
• (transitive) To kick.
• (transitive) To punch a hole in, as with an awl.

Verb

brogue (third-person singular simple present brogues, present participle broguing, simple past and past participle brogued)

• (dialect) to fish for eels by disturbing the waters.

Pronunciation

• (Received Pronunciation) IPA: /ˈbɹəʊ̯ɡ/
• (General American) IPA: /ˈbɹoʊ̯ɡ/
  • Audio (US): 🔊
• Rhymes: -əʊɡ
• Hyphenation: brogue

Etymology 1

Borrowed from Irish bróg (“boot, shoe”), from Old Irish bróc (“shoe, greave, legging, hose, breeches”), likely from Old Norse brók (“breeches”), from Proto-Germanic ﹡brōks (“breeches”). The “accent” sense may instead be derived from Irish barróg (“a hold (on the tongue)”).

Etymology 2

Possibly from French brouiller.

Printed 2026-09-04.

(echo:: @ ⌗)

Footnotes

1. 1978, Louis L’Amour, Fair Blows the Wind, Bantam Books, page 62: ↩

2. 2010, Clare Vanderpool, Moon Over Manifest, Random House, page 187: ↩

3. 2017 April 5, Emily Dreyfuss, “That Cool Dialect on The Expanse Mashes Up 6 Languages”, in WIRED ‎${}^{[1]}$, archived from the original on 25 January 2022: ↩

4. 2020 November 1, Alan Young, “Sean Connery obituary: From delivering milk in Fountainbridge to the definitive James Bond”, in The Scotsman ‎${}^{[2]}$: ↩

5. 2016, Colson Whitehead, The Underground Railroad, Fleet (2017), page 161: ↩