Dictionary

looky en · VERB

Etymology

None of the various attested forms appear in the OED, in Victor & Dalzell’s Concise New Partridge Dictionary of Slang and Unconventional English, nor in Webster’s New Universal Unabridged Dictionary. According to the RHD, 'looky' (also 'lookee') is an interjection attested from 1875–80 which is an alternative form of the imperative look ye! Similarly, the linguist Andrew L. Sihler indicates that ye, the now-archaic subjective form of the English 2nd pers. plural pronoun, “is fossilized in looky (here) …”.

Meanings

1. (colloquial, humorous, sometimes) Look.
   • The old man is cackling. "Looky here, looky here." He's got four little bright coins on his outstretched trembling hand. 1989, Elizabeth Jolley, The Travelling Entertainer:
   • 1877, Burdette, Robert Jones. The Rise and Fall of the Mustache: And Other ‘Hawk-eyetems’. Burlington Publishing Co., 1877. p. 15. http://books.google.ca/books?id=Q6MEAQAAIAAJ&pg=PA15&dq=lookee&hl=en&sa=X&ei=JQfgUfjxD4akyQH174CgCw&ved=0CFMQ6AEwBw#v=onepage&q=lookee&f=false "… Cain would shout ‘Oh, lookee, lookee pa! what’s that?’"
   • Lookee here, Tom, being rich ain't what it's cracked up to be. 1876, Mark Twain, The Adventures of Tom Sawyer:
   • "Looky thar!" "All right, I can see that hole, all right, but the argument was whether the earth was round or flat, and I say it's round!" 1936, The American Mercury:

Forms

Relateds

lookit · looky-loo