Definitions

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 5th Edition.

  • noun A foolish or contemptible person.

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.

  • noun slang A manipulated or rigged set of business accounting ledgers.
  • noun A disagreeable or incompetent person.

Etymologies

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 4th Edition

[Probably alteration of moke.]

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License

Blend of manipulated and books (usually used in plural)

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License

The origin is uncertain.

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Examples

  • A minion, or mook, is an opponent designed to be one of those guys that goes down like tenpins in the movies.

    4e Excerpt: Minions « Geek Related 2008

  • First mook: "He says it's the Greek word for grace."

    Mandy Stadtmiller dot com 2009

  • First mook: "He says it's the Greek word for grace."

    Mandy Stadtmiller dot com 2009

  • First mook: "He says it's the Greek word for grace."

    Mandy Stadtmiller dot com 2009

  • It's got giant robots, double-breasted suits, chinese warlords, taoist priests, world domination, some of the coolest "mook"-level henchmen good and evil ever, superpowers, and more sheer AWESOME than anyone can easily compare.

    Anime Bleg Rogers 2008

  • Over in Japan, FAUST is considered a "mook" - that's a magazine and a book - speaking to the disaffected otaku culture, with a mix of cutting-edge fiction and manga.

    Bookgasm 2009

  • Similarly, while sometimes all it takes to drop a mook is a round to the get, you can other times empty a clip into someone's shiny noggin and they'll just grin and blow you away with a Skorpion.

    Atomic 2010

  • The ride on the ferry takes 1 and a half hours. (what kind of mook thinks it takes six?)

    dailycomic Diary Entry dailycomic 2008

  • I learnt the official meaning of "mook" in today's commercialist society.

    sierrazen Diary Entry sierrazen 2006

  • Make will be published quarterly and will take the format of a "mook," a magazine and book hybrid popular in Japan.

    Magazine Makes Gadget-Making Fun 2004

Comments

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  • M. SCORSESE et al. Mean Streets (film script: first draft) 86 JOHNNY (Interrupting) We won't pay...because this guy (pointing to Jimmy) is...a mook!... Nobody knows what a mook is... JIMMY (angrily) A mook. I'm a mook. (pauses) What's a mook?... You can't call me a mook.

    The OED says a mook is a stupid person, but I always understood it to be someone overly gullible or, you know, just a palooka or galoot (hey, those are cool words too!)--with an affectionate connotation to it rather than a pejorative one.

    February 4, 2007

  • I always thought it was a cultural slur against Italians, like guido, but I'm happy to be wrong in this case, cause it's a cool-sounding word.

    October 4, 2007

  • I learned the word on PBS's now-infamous Frontline report The Merchants of Cool. The Mook is a made-up character presented to teenagers as real; he's the male counterpart to the female Midriff.

    October 4, 2007

  • Spike Lee's character in "Do the Right Thing" is named Mookie. Recently saw that movie again for the first time since it came out in 1989, and man, it aced the test of time. It's great.

    October 4, 2007

  • Portmanteau of magazine and book.

    December 13, 2007

  • In its dead tree manifestation The Idler is an example.

    December 31, 2008