Green’s Dictionary of Slang

sexually appealing/available.

1976

J. Braine Waiting for Sheila (1977) 101: If there’s a pokeable woman around it grows to a respectable length of six inches.

(N.Z.) exhausted.

1978		V.G. O’Sullivan Boy, The Bridge, The River 115: He had told the boys he’d be out at the lake by nine, it was no good getting up on the skis if you felt poked.
2003		McGill Reed Dict. of N.Z. Sl.

the vagina.

1937–84		Partridge DSUE (1984) 904/1: C.19–20.
2002		Markelle ‘Muffy’s World of Vagina Euphemisms’ at Starma.com 🌐 pocketbook / poke hole.

the penis.

1600		T. Morley First book of Airs in Wardroper (1969) 162: I have other dainty tricks / Sleek stones and poking sticks.
c.1610		Shakespeare Winter’s Tale IV iii: For my lads to give their dears; Pins and poking sticks of steel; What maids lack from head to heel.

a euph. for fuck off v. (1)

1958

C. Lee diary 20 Feb. in Eight Bells & Top Masts (2001) 65: You want Spanish Fly, he said. Ainslie told him to poke off.

a phr. meaning that a woman’s looks are irrelevant if she’s sexually available.

1963–74		B. Humphries Barry McKenzie [comic strip] in Complete Barry McKenzie (1988) 18: Oh well, you don’t look at the mantelpiece when you stoke the fire.
1967		J. Wynnum I’m a Jack, All Right 125: ‘You couldn’t say she was much of a cop.’ [...] ‘When you’re stoking the fire, you don’t look at the mantel-piece’.
c.1977		Macc Lads ‘Nagasaki Sauce’ 🎵 You don’t look in the mirror when you’re poking the grate.
1998		I. Welsh Filth 50: Never mind the mantelpiece when your pokin the fire, that’s my motto.
2006		P. Carey Theft 238: They say you do not look at the mantelpiece when you are poking the fire so I poked her.

an interfering person.

1916

T. Burke Limehouse Nights 271: Go on up and see fer yes-selves, yeh dirty lot of poke-noses.

to walk slowly; to do anything slowly.

1840		T. Haliburton Letter-bag of the Great Western (1873) 33: We have been accused of ‘poking’ our way across the Atlantic, I don’t know how that applies to us, for we kept a ‘straight course,’ ran like the devil, and cleared ‘all the bars’.
1843		T. Haliburton Sam Slick in England II 89: I was a pokin’ along the road from Halifax to Windsor.
1873		‘Cuthbert Bede’ Little Mr. Bouncer 117: I’ll make myself happy, and poke about, and have a look over the premises.
1898		H. Macilwaine Dinkinbar 32: The pokin’ and the pokin’ along day in and day out as if a man didn’t care if he grew old and died on the road.
1899		Kipling ‘The Flag of Their Country’ in Complete Stalky & Co. (1987) 205: He came down to lunch with the Head. I found him pokin’ about the place on his own hook afterwards.
1905		L. Pound ‘Dialect Speech in Nebraska’ in DN III:i 64: poke, v. Go slowly. ‘He poked along.’.
1917		‘Banjo’ Paterson ‘His Masterpiece’ in Three Elephant Power 124: You know how a one-eyed beast always keeps movin’ away from the mob, pokin’ away out to the edge of them so as they won’t git on his blind side.
1945		C. Himes If He Hollers 149: I turned away and started walking, not fast but not poking.
1978		J. Dingwall Sun. Too Far Away 52: I’m no champion. I just poke along.
1983		R. Klein Jailhouse Jargon and Street Sl. [unpub. ms.].
1992		N. Stephenson Snow Crash (1993) 8: The retards and the bimbo boxes poke along, random, indecisive.

to trick, to fool, to deceive.

1889–90		Barrère & Leland Dict. of Sl., Jargon and Cant.
1890–1904		Farmer & Henley Sl. and Its Analogues.

see under borak n.

see poke (the) borak under borak n.

(N.Z.) backward, insignificant.

1976

R. Morrieson Pallet on the Floor 75: The old Marshal’ll run around in circles. Murder in this poke-in-the-arse burg.

(Aus.) to abuse.

1991

R.G. Barrett Between the Devlin 154: ‘Then when I get a job, you poke shit at me’.

1. (Anglo-Ind.) to provoke; to irritate.

1894		Civil & Milit. Gaz. (Lahore) 27 Sept. 1/4: The native makes you curse and swear, it is his little plan, / He knows your blessed temper, so he riles you all be can; / And the native is ingenious In poking up a man.
2023		R. Milward Man-Eating Typewriter 79: I was poked-up about them ridiculing my oink-vonka.

2. to look up.

1921

(con. WWI) E. Lynch Somme Mud 5: We poke up and see a whopper nigger eating plum pudding.