Meanings
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1
adj
Satisfactory; good enough but not excellent.
The food was OK, but nothing special.
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2
adj
Allowed or acceptable.
Is it OK if I borrow your pen?
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3
noun
Permission or approval to do something.
We can't start the project until the boss gives the OK.
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4
verb
To officially approve or agree to something.
The manager OK'd our request for an extra day off.
Thesaurus
Etymology
Origin disputed. Wikipedia lists many possible etymologies, of which the most widely accepted is that it is an abbreviation of oll/orl korrect, a comical spelling of all correct, which first appeared in print in The Boston Morning Post on March 23, 1839, as part of a fad for similar fanciful abbreviations in the United States during the late 1830s. The expression became popular through its use in the presidential campaign of Martin Van Buren in 1840, who was nicknamed Old Kinderhook, and then slowly acquired other meanings. The Choctaw word oke, okeh (“it is so”), common in Choctaw translation…
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