palooka

palooka

1. A foolish, clumsy, inept person. Some palooka has been knocking stuff off the shelves as they go by with their shopping cart. Oh, look what you did, you big palooka—you broke it!
2. An unskilled or incompetent professional boxer. That palooka ain't gonna last a minute with me in the ring, let alone twelve rounds!
Farlex Dictionary of Idioms.

palooka

and paluka (pəˈlukə)
n. a stupid person; an unskilled prizefighter; any mediocre person. (Also a term of address. From the name of the comic-strip prizefighter Joe Palooka.) Tell that stupid palooka to sit down and shut up.
McGraw-Hill's Dictionary of American Slang and Colloquial Expressions

palooka

A stupid or a clumsy oaf, and by extension, an incompetent prizefighter. Joe Palooka, the heavyweight boxing hero of Ham Fisher's cartoon strip that ran from 1921 to 1984, was anything but inept, but even his skills and the strip's popularity couldn't save the word from its negative meaning. Calling someone a “big palooka,” unless said in a jovial and friendly context, isn't likely to win you any fans and may win you a bloody nose. The word may have been a corruption of “Pollack,” the pejorative term for Polish people.
Endangered Phrases by Steven D. Price
See also:
  • paluka
  • meatheaded
  • muscleheaded
  • dickweed
  • backassed
  • zod
  • some mothers do have them
References in periodicals archive
Private First Class Palooka battled a German U-boat single-handedly, aided British intelligence, and fought with the Allied forces in North Africa.
Ya big Palooka!
So this seems the occassion to present the most ambitious fragment: a long poem titled Palooka, written in 1986, as a kind of extended jazz riff of sextalk.
Diamond Jack,
De Haven's novel will be a romp for cognoscenti who can pick out the bits of historical and biographical fact that make up the novel's fictional bricolage, as fragments of comic-strip creators such as Rube Goldberg and Harold Gray emerge at different points, while "Joe Palooka" artist Ham Fisher appears in proper persona.
Derby Dugan's Depression Funnies
Palookaville combines both the fairy-tale motif and the neorealist goal of depicting bleak times to make its point: Poor people, even would-be criminals, lead hard lives, and sometimes a dose of magic is needed to transform a palooka into a hero.
Palookaville
Dawson is such a palooka that he's a huge underdog in his next fight - against Solange Knowles.
FRED IS READY FOR BLAST-OFF; RESULT!
"On Sunday mornings a man would go to all the pubs along Netherfield Road selling American broadsheet comics like Tarzan of the Apes, Joe Palooka, and Little Orphan Anne.
Lost Tribes The People's Memories
If I'm in the hung parliament, which looks increasingly likely, I'll vote to keep Brown in power - though on condition that he starts acting like the Brown Bomber Joe Louis rather than Primo Carnera, the big palooka with a glass jaw and no heart.
IT'S a bit like hitting [...]
The original "Rocky" was one of 25 movies named to the National Film Registry by the Library of Congress last week--providing a timely reminder of the durability of Sylvester Stallone's punchy palooka saga just as the latest chapter headed into its second week at the B.O.
Promo of the week
Even comic strip heroes--Joe Palooka, Buzz Sawyer, and Mickey Finn--went to war because their creators knew children never would respect them otherwise.
Are we at war or what?
Comics Cartoon heroes such as Captain Marvel and Joe Palooka fighting the enemy sent powerful propaganda messages to children.
Home-front treasure
You my be cute, Palooka, but let's get something straight, I'm queer, yet too complacent to be cruising anyone not actively pursuing me, equally.
Palooka
Then there was the bitter feud between Capp and Joe Palooka" cartoonist Ham Fisher that sometimes spilled into their features.
Tinsley vs. Trudeau in funny page flap
Stallone is lovingly referred to by the Razzie organisers as the "Balboa Bozo" in honour of his numbing performances as Rocky Balboa, the palooka and the "all- time Razzie champ".
The WORST; And Hollywood's rasps ...the glittering gongs no star wants to get
QAm I right in remembering a series of films about a boxer called Joe Palooka back in the 40s?
Showbiz; THE MAN IN THE KNOW
Falling somewhere between Bruce Springsteen's "The Hitter" and "The Wrestler," Costello weaves his impeccable storytelling skills to tell the tale of a punch-drunk palooka called back into the ring on the leadoff track, "Down Among the Wine and Spirits." In a song that could be renamed "O, Mickey Rourke Where Art Thou?," Costello's rootsy, hands-on treatment gives a stinging authenticity to this bruised knuckles, battered ego and broken dream saga.
Elvis adds Worcestershire sauce