Rensselaer Republican, Volume 18, Number 33, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 22 April 1886 — A Dude. [ARTICLE]

A Dude.

The derivation of this word is not known. It has been suggested that it was derived from dodo, the name of an uncouth and now extinct species of bird which inhabited the islands of tho Indian Ocean. Others have suggested that it was a corruption of the old English word dudder, meaning a scarecrow. It is not even known with any certainty when theword was first coined, as it was in use in slang some time , before it found its way into print. It signifies a dandy or fop, one given to exaggerated nicety in dress, and always implies effeminacy,, and more or less mental imbecility. He is not a “swell,” however, for nothing can be more foreign to the character of a true dude than what is termed “loudness” in attiirerthat is, anything gaudy or showy. He is father the “exquisite,” or “beau” of the last half of the eighteenth century revived. The principle of the true dude has been well expressed as “nothing too much of anything, not even anytliing too much of nothing too much.” Inter Ocean.