The term 'uke' is a 20th-century English abbreviation of 'ukulele'. The full word 'ukulele' entered English from Hawaiian in the late 19th century. In Hawaiian, 'ukulele' literally means "jumping flea" (from 'uku', "flea, louse" and 'lele', "to jump"), a name purportedly inspired by the rapid finger movements of an early virtuoso player. The clipped form 'uke' follows a common English pattern of creating informal, familiar names by shortening longer words, similar to 'phone' from 'telephone'.

The word 'uke' is a clipping of the full word 'ukulele'. It is not composed of multiple meaningful morphemes in English.