We have a little dispute about this in our team at work.
Rolf is a German male name. But someone said, he saw online, that "to rolf" is a verb in American Slang, which means "to vomit".
And indeed on dict.cc there is an entry in the dictionary saying that.
But in virtually every other source I tracked down, there is no mention of this.
I found three different meanings:
- Male Name
- Rolling on laughing floor (?)
- using a special massaging technique (Rolfing)
So, my question is, is there a possible meaning in any kind of English for "to rolf" that equals "to vomit" or something similar?
Best Answer
Being from Norway, I instantly recognized what the title was referring to.
Norway also has the male name Rolf, and the slang phrase "rope på Rolf" ("to call for Rolf") means "to vomit". It refers to the pronunciation of "Rolf" being somewhat similar to the sound you make when you vomit
From 1825 to 1920 about 800 000 Norwegians emigrated to America. (Norwegian Wikipedia article). I would not be surprised if they brought slang with them, although I can not find any sources for when the slang appeared in the Norwegian language