How the Word ‘Dude’ Originated With the British Insult ‘Yankee Doodle Dandy’

Dr. Erica Brozovsky, PhDof thePBSseriesOtherwordsexplained the etymological origins of the word dude". Despite its popularity in the modern lexicon, the word actually comes from the British insult Yankee Doodle Dandy" from the 18th century, which was then abbreviated a hundred years later.

Dude has been around since the 1880s.Researchers think that it's a shorteningof Yankee Doodle Dandy, an insulting term theBritish used for Americans trying to be fancyand refined. Americans reclaimed it, but that's six syllables,so it got shortened to dood, D-O-O-D, andlater, the D-U-D-E spelling we're used to.