"Okay"

OK 1 or o·kay (ō-kā') n. pl. OK's or o·kays Approval; agreement.adj. Agreeable; acceptable: Was everything OK with your stay? Satisfactory; good. In proper or satisfactory operational or working order.Correct.Uninjured; safe. Fairly healthy; well. adv. Fine; well enough; adequately.interj. Used to express approval or agreement.


"frightful letters ... significant of the birth-place of Martin Van Buren, old Kinderhook, as also the rallying word of the Democracy of the late election, 'all correct' .... Those who wear them should bear in mind that it will require their most strenuous exertions ... to make all things O.K."

Okay is universally applicable, universally approved. Something that is okay can't be wrong. It cannot, by any subjective standards, be not okay. It's better than everything else. It’s simply right.

‘Just one more time, Jenny, please.’
‘I called him. I told him. He said okay, in English, because as I told you and you don’t seem to want to believe, he doesn’t know a goddamn word of Italian except a few curses.’‘But what does ‘okay’ mean?’
‘Are you implying that Harvard Law School has accepted a man who can’t even define ‘okay’?’‘It’s not a legal term, Jenny.’
She touched my arm. Thank God, I understood that. I still needed clarification, though. I had to know what I was in for.
‘‘Okay’ could also mean I’ll suffer through it.’
She found the charity in her heart to repeat for the nth time the details of her conversation with her father. He was happy. He was.



‘He’s okay,’ said Phil Cavilleri to his daughter.What did that mean?I didn’t need to have ‘okay defined. I merely wished to know what of my few and circumspect actions had earned for me that cherished epithet.Did I have the right cookies? Was my handshake strong enough? What?
‘I told you he was okay, Phil,’ said Mr.Cavilleri’s daughter.
‘Well, okay’, said her father, ‘I still had to see for myself. Now I saw. Oliver?’He was now addressing me.
‘Yes, sir?’
‘Phil.’
‘Yes, Phil, sir?’
‘You’re okay.’
‘Thank you, sir. I appreciate it. Really I do. And you know how I feel about your daughter, sir. And you, sir.’
‘Oliver,’ Jenny interrupted, ‘will you stop babbling like a stupid goddamn preppie, and-‘‘Jennifer,’ Mr. Cavilleri interrupted, ‘can you avoid the profanity? The sonovabitch is a guest!’