Brolic Physique

Hi, you have A Way with Words.

Hi, Amir Ross.

Amir?

Yes, how are you?

Hi, I’m doing well. Where are you calling us from, Amir?

Chicago, Illinois.

Well, great. What’s on your mind today?

Yes, so I’ve had this word around me growing up in New York, which was brolic. My dad said a lot, and me and my brothers used to use it, but I don’t really know where it’s from.

In what kind of context would you use the term brolic?

So usually in reference to like another person, like a person who’s yoked or like really muscled up, not to mess with them because they probably win in a fight.

Yoked. Yeah, we’ve talked about yoked. So super ripped, swole, maybe even right. Very muscular.

Exactly.

Yeah. And so your dad used it in New York City, and I guess you use it now, too?

I do.

Okay. And did your dad, have you ever asked him about it or discussed it with him?

Just said it was kind of a word he used around his neighborhood. He grew up in the Farragut Projects in Brooklyn.

And so it was really relevant when going from one neighborhood to the next, kind of seeing who to look out for.

Yeah. Yeah, exactly.

So sometimes it’s not just about muscle. It’s about being tough in appearance or ready to fight.

Exactly.

Yeah, okay.

So I love that it has this New York City connection for you because as far as we, meaning people who study language, know, that’s where it comes from.

Notorious B.I.G., Biggie, Biggie Smalls used it in his Long Kiss Goodnight album, which was released after his death.

And he rhymes it with alcoholic, brolic, alcoholic. And from then on, we see it appear again and again.

And that was a huge album. So it had a lot of influence.

And so we see it again and again and again, often from New York rappers and MCs, but also later, of course, throughout all of the United States.

And at some point, it started to be used in the weightlifting scene.

So I believe, and so do others, that it jumped from hip-hop, which is a lot of young men, to lifting and that sort of thing, or body development, body shaping, body sculpting through exercise and diet, to other young men who do that.

So B-R-O-L-I-C is usually how it’s spelled.

But you know, Amir, I wanted to share one curious coincidence with you.

So in English, we think it may have come from the word bro, you know, short for brother, means that you’re very much a bro and you’ve got the physical archetype.

Some people think it might come from Dragon Ball Z. You can find all kinds of articles online about the character Brawley, but the timing doesn’t work out for the release of that show in the United States.

Although there’s much argument about whether or not people in New York City were watching Dragon Ball Z on illegal tapes or DVDs, which you could buy on the street.

I definitely know I was.

But it’s still super iffy. The connection there is kind of rough. We’re not 100% sure.

But curiously, in France, there is also the term brolic, also in hip-hop, also very slangy, also appearing almost exactly to the same year.

But in France, it has the meaning of being strapped, as they say in American English saying, which means you’ve got a gun.

So because brolic is backslang or verlan, which is the word, more or less the word caliber, like a caliber of a weapon pronounced backward.

So it’s just, I don’t think that either one is the source of the other, like the French didn’t give it to the English language and English language didn’t give it to the French speakers.

But it is so curious to me that these two words that are about presenting different kinds of masculinity are pronounced the same and spelled the same, although the one in French has a lot of different other spellings.

Too cool.

Yeah, there’s a ton of stuff here.

It’s just the strangest thing.

Sling is so hard to get to the bottom of.

But you nailed the key parts, I think, when you first told us about your history with it.

New York City, the projects, and then we can add in hip-hop.

Biggie Smalls is a popularizer.

And then we know quite a bit more about it.

Very cool.

Funny enough, I’m talking from my office gym right now.

So I think I’ve done work to be brawling.

Are you ripped and yoked, Amir?

Yeah, you must be.

Just an aspiring.

Yeah, there we go.

Always working, always perfecting, right?

Keep hydrating.

Hydrate or die.

Take care.

That’s right.

Hydrate or die, Drake.

If there’s a word or phrase you’re wondering about, call us, 877-929-9673.