--- --- # The Word 'O.K.' Has Just Celebrated Its 177th Birthday  by [Julia Zorthian](https://time.com/author/julia-zorthian/)  ## Julia Zorthian Mar 24, 2016 12:12 PM UTC  by [Julia Zorthian](https://time.com/author/julia-zorthian/)  ## Julia Zorthian Mar 24, 2016 12:12 PM UTC The word ‘ok’ first appeared in print [177 years ago on Wednesday](http://www.atlasobscura.com/articles/its-the-177th-birthday-of-okay), as a jab thrown in a rivalry between Boston and Providence newspapers. The use of the two letters (or the fully-spelled version, ‘okay’) has spread around the world to indicate varying states of positivity. But the _Boston Morning Post_ writer of a short item firing back at some snark from the _Providence Journal_ likely had little knowledge that the joke would resonate through the ages. Here’s first appearance of the word ‘ok’ took place on March 23, 1839, as [Atlas Obscura](http://www.atlasobscura.com/articles/its-the-177th-birthday-of-okay) writes today: --- > “” --- While the word may have survived the test of time, the humor has not. The joke, at the expense of the _Providence Journal,_ is that ‘o.k.’ does not stand for ‘all correct’, but for a misspelled, phonetic version of the phrase. And just as ‘ok’ is still popular today, so is the environment that gave birth to the _Post_‘s joke: an [“abbreviation craze.”](http://www.history.com/news/the-birth-of-ok-175-years-ago) History of the word O.K.: First Used on March 23, 1839 ```json [{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"NewsArticle","@id":"https://time.com/4270417/ok-word-anniversary/","mainEntityOfPage":{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https://time.com/4270417/ok-word-anniversary/"},"headline":"The Word 'O.K.' Has Just Celebrated Its 177th Birthday","datePublished":"2016-03-24T12:12:55.000Z","dateModified":"2026-02-22T16:11:00.823Z","description":"Here's how a newspaper rivalry inspired one of the most common words in English","url":"https://time.com/4270417/ok-word-anniversary/","keywords":["language"],"thumbnailUrl":"","author":[{"@type":"Person","name":"Julia Zorthian","jobTitle":null,"url":"https://time.com/author/julia-zorthian/"}],"articleSection":"History","image":[],"publisher":{"@type":"Organization","name":"Time","url":"https://time.com/","logo":{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://time.com/images/logo.png","width":528,"height":156},"foundingDate":"March 3, 1923","sameAs":["https://www.facebook.com/time","https://www.instagram.com/time/?hl=en","https://twitter.com/time","https://www.pinterest.com/timemagazine"]}},{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"BreadcrumbList","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"item":{"@id":"/section/history/","name":"History"}},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"item":{"@id":"/tag/language/","name":"language"}},{"@type":"ListItem","position":3,"item":{"@id":"https://time.com/4270417/ok-word-anniversary/","name":"The Word 'O.K.' Has Just Celebrated Its 177th Birthday"}}]}] ```