The origin of the word is uncertain. A derivation has been suggested from the eponymous dragon-like creature in the obsolete The Dandy comic strip "Jimmy and his Grockle", based on an earlier strip, "Jimmy Johnson's Grockle", in The Rover comic in the 1920s, somehow leading to use in the present sense in the movie The System (1964). It is doubtful that the word's use in the West of England goes back farther than that.
Eric Partridge's A Dictionary of Slang and Unconventional English also refers to the film The System but suggests another derivation, that holiday visitors in Torbay were compared to little clowns, and Grock (1880–1959) was a famous clown at the time.
grockle (plural grockles)
(slang, British, various parts of the West Country) A tourist from elsewhere in the country
In more recent times it has spread to other parts of the south coast and indeed elsewhere, including the former colonies of Northern and Southern Rhodesia as a term for a foreigner. The term is widely used in Devon and other areas of rural England where it refers to tourists or people recently relocated from elsewhere; it is a mildly derogatory. Climbers in England & Wales use it as a dismissive term for less serious visitors to upland areas. On Snowdon in North Wales the two easiest walking routes to the summit (along side the railway and the PYG Track) have each been referred to informally as the Grockle Track.
The word was imported to the Isle of Man in 1970 by Capt McKenzie who had learned the word in Plymouth. Commonly referred to tourists in cars who can be easily identified because all Manx number plates have either MN or MAN in them.
• grockel
Source: Wiktionary
2 April 2025
(adjective) secret or hidden; not openly practiced or engaged in or shown or avowed; “covert actions by the CIA”; “covert funding for the rebels”
The Boston Tea Party helped popularize coffee in America. The hefty tea tax imposed on the colonies in 1773 resulted in America switching from tea to coffee. In the lead up to the Revolutionary War, it became patriotic to sip java instead of tea. The Civil War made the drink more pervasive. Coffee helped energize tired troops, and drinking it became an expression of freedom.
