List of proposed etymologies of OK

This is a list of etymologies proposed for the word "OK" or "okay". The majority can be easily classified as false etymologies, or possibly folk etymologies. H. L. Mencken, in "The American Language", lists serious candidates and "a few of the more picturesque or preposterous". Allen Walker Read surveyed a variety of explanations in a 1964 article titled "The Folklore of "O. K."" Eric Partridge described O.K. as "an evergreen of the correspondence column."