Green’s Dictionary of Slang

1. to go insane, to lose emotional control; thus bug out on v., to attack in a psychotic rage; bugged out adj.

1961		Rigney & Smith Real Bohemia xiii: bug out, to to become psychotic.
1983		N. Heard House of Slammers 215: ‘He may bug out, but he may bug out on you first.’ [...] ‘Ryan’ll bug out, and Dr. Wiseman can send his ass to the nuthouse.’.
1992		R.C. Cruz Straight Outta Compton 41: Clive opened the door and stared at me like I was crazy. ‘What’s happening?’ he asked. ‘I’m buggin’ out,’ I answered.
2000		Other Side of the Wall: Prisoner’s Dict. July 🌐 Buggin’ Out: Going ballastic, losing one’s mind, going totally crazy. (SC).
2006		Prison Slang Mommyblogger mydogharriet.blogspot.com 26 Sept. 🌐 If your little cell warrior continues to bug out, tell her in a firm voice that she needs to stay dead mouthed until she gives you a dime of flat time.
2010		N. Minaj ‘Catch Me’ 🎵 You was buggin out, ya, you was p’d off.
2016		C. Eble UNC-CH Campus Sl. Spring 2016 2: BUG OUT -- act in a way that makes others uncomfortable or anxious: ‘I don’t know what happened. He just started to bug out’.
2023		Rayman & Blau Riker’s 399: I’m fucking bugging out. [...] ‘Can you call intake? Like, what’s up?’ [...] And he’s like, ‘They didn’t forget about you’.

2. to drive mad, lit. or fig.

1958		Kerouac letter July in Charters II (1999) 142: Lamantia bugged the shit out of me in the spring using me to publicize his poetry readings.
1962		(con. 1950s) H. Simmons Man Walking On Eggshells 183: That alone was enough to bug a cat out of its sanity.
1990		Eble Campus Sl. Nov. 2: bug out – surprise. ‘My grade on that test bugged me out.’.
1993		R. Shell Iced 109: I just couldn’t find my shit and it was bugging me out.
2011		G. Hayward Corruption Officer [ebk] cap. 32: What’s bugging me out is why neither one of them is stepping up and saying that I had nothing to do with this shit.

3. to subject to psychotherapy.

1972

S.B. Kopp Buddha 172: Come to bug me out, Doc? [HDAS].

4. to act in an excited manner, to be astonished.

1981		Detroit Free Press (MI) 6 July 17/1: buggin’ out or trippin’ out — acting silly or crazy.
1990		N. George ‘Video Blackulinity’ in Buppies, B-Boys, Baps and Bohos (1994) 150: Fantasies of macho potency many African American males first bugged out to.
1992		S.L. Hills Tragic Magic 29: My teachers used to bug out, because I’d come to school dressed with clothes more expensive than they wore.
2003		A.N. LeBlanc Random Family 128: ‘I bugged out for a minute. Then I got happy.’.
2022		J. Hannaham Didn’t Nobody Give a Shit 49: Why ain’t no other people bugging out inside this here time capsule?

5. (US drugs) to experience temporary hallucinations while high from drug use; also as n.

1992		T. Williams Crackhouse 77: This is what we call ‘the bug-out’ – we say ‘he’s bugging’ [Ibid.] 142: T.Q., who has prostituted herself, sold her lips for twenty dollars, but of late is refusing to have sex, is bugging out in a corner.
2017		hubpages.com ‘Roadman Slang 10 Jan. 🌐 Pranging out/bugging out - to have a bad experience on drugs and have a ‘freak out’. e.g. ‘I saw him at Wireless, he was pranging out!’.

6. (US campus) to experience pleasure; to do something purely for fun.

1990		Eble Campus Sl. Nov. 2: bug out – [...] Be pleased with. ‘I bugged out on War and Peace – it was a good book.’.
2007		B. Coleman Check the Technique 311: ‘[H]e heard me when I used to play around, just buggin' out’.