General
eek
What does eek mean?
Polari for face. It's backslang, 'face' clipped and flipped into ecaf, then worn down to eek. Lives in the classic greeting 'bona to vada your eek', lovely to see your face. Slap some powder on it and you're zhooshing your eek.
"Get your eek done before we go out, we're being photographed."
Origin
Polari of mid-20th-century Britain; 'eek' is a shortened 'ecaf', the back-slang reversal of 'face', a derivation set out by Paul Baker in his work on Polari.
Frequently asked questions
What does eek mean in Polari?
It means the face, and comes from 'ecaf', which is 'face' written backwards.
Why is the Polari word for face spelled backwards?
Polari absorbed back-slang, a coding trick of reversing words, so 'face' became 'ecaf' and then the clipped 'eek'.
What is the famous phrase using eek?
'Bona to vada your dolly old eek' — lovely to see your pretty old face.
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