palooka

pa·loo·ka

[puh-loo-kuh]
noun Slang.
1.
an athlete, especially a boxer, lacking in ability, experience, or competitive spirit.
2.
a stupid, clumsy person.

Origin:
1920–25, Americanism; origin uncertain

Dictionary.com Unabridged
Based on the Random House Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2013.
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Collins
World English Dictionary
palooka (pəˈluːkə) [Click for IPA pronunciation guide]
 
n
slang (US) a stupid or clumsy boxer or other person
 
[C20: origin uncertain]

Collins English Dictionary - Complete & Unabridged 10th Edition
2009 © William Collins Sons & Co. Ltd. 1979, 1986 © HarperCollins
Publishers 1998, 2000, 2003, 2005, 2006, 2007, 2009
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00:10
Palooka is always a great word to know.
So is interrobang. Does it mean:
an arrangement of five objects, as trees, in a square or rectangle, one at each corner and one in the middle.
a printed punctuation mark (‽), available only in some typefaces, designed to combine the question mark (?) and the exclamation point (!), indicating a mixture of query and interjection, as after a rhetorical question.
Etymonline
Word Origin & History

palooka
"mediocre prizefighter," 1925, of unknown origin, credited to U.S. sportswriter and humorist Jack Conway. Non-boxing sense of "average person" is from Joe Palooka, hero of Ham Fisher's comic strip.
Online Etymology Dictionary, © 2010 Douglas Harper
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Slang Dictionary

palooka definition

[pəˈlukə]
and paluka
  1. n.
    a stupid person; an unskilled prizefighter; any mediocre person. (Also a term of address. From the name of the comic-strip prizefighter Joe Palooka.) : Tell that stupid palooka to sit down and shut up.
Dictionary of American Slang and Colloquial Expressions by Richard A. Spears.Fourth Edition.
Copyright 2007. Published by McGraw Hill.
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