What Does OK Stand For?

Where OK came from

In the late 1830s, young newspaper writers in Boston and New York had a running gag. They shortened phrases to initials, often misspelled on purpose. Examples from the time include O.W. for "oll wright" and N.S. for "nuff said." In March 1839, a Boston paper printed "o.k." with the gloss "all correct," and the joke was that neither word starts with O or K.

Most of those fad forms vanished within a few years. OK survived thanks to good timing. In 1840, supporters of President Martin Van Buren, who came from Kinderhook, New York, and was nicknamed Old Kinderhook, formed "O.K. Clubs." The letters now carried two jokes at once and spread across the country in the campaign.

From there, OK found steady work in telegraph offices and business notes, where a short sign for "approved" or "received, all good" was very useful.

What does OK stand for? The myths, sorted out

Before the newspaper trail was dug up, people offered many origin stories. A careful American language scholar traced the 1839 source in the 1960s, and the following ideas are not supported by the record:

• Choctaw "okeh": a word meaning "it is so" was proposed, but there is no trail from it to the 1830s papers.
• West African languages: similar sounding words exist, but no written link has been found.
• Greek "ola kala" or Scots "och aye": sound alikes, nothing more.
• "Zero killed" in war reports: a popular tale with no early evidence.
• Initials on biscuit tins or barrels: also unsupported.

These are classic examples of folk origins, attractive stories made up to explain a word after the fact.

How OK is used now

OK works as almost every part of speech:

• Adjective: "The soup is OK, not great."
• Adverb: "The printer works OK now."
• Interjection: "OK, let's start."
• Noun: "We need the boss's OK."
• Verb: "She OK'd the plan."

Notice the shades of meaning. "OK" can mean full agreement, but "it was OK" often means only so so. Tone of voice carries a lot of the message.

OK abbreviation in texts and writing

Several spellings are standard. OK in capitals is what many news style guides prefer. Okay, spelled out, is equally correct and common in fiction. O.K. with periods looks a bit old fashioned but is still accepted. Pick one and keep it the same in a document.

In texting, things loosen up. Lowercase "ok" is neutral. A single "k" can read as short or annoyed to some people, while "kk" or "okie" usually sounds friendly. These are social habits, not rules, and they vary by age and group.

Past tense forms include OK'd, OKed and okayed. When you need the a or an rule, use an before OK, as in "an OK result," since it starts with a vowel sound.

OK as an abbreviation for Oklahoma

On mail, OK is also the two letter postal code for Oklahoma. An address line like "Tulsa, OK 74103" has nothing to do with approval. The older written form is Okla. Learn more on the Oklahoma abbreviation page, or see all codes in state abbreviations.

Is OK an acronym?

Strictly, it is an initialism: two letters said one at a time, "oh" and "kay." It has become so ordinary that most people treat it as a plain word, which is why the spelling "okay" exists. That shift from initials to word is something it shares with only a few other short forms. For the terms, see acronym vs abbreviation, and explore more letter stories in famous acronyms.