Green’s Dictionary of Slang

1. a general intensifier, carrying the same pej. imagery as the n.; occas. as adv.

1921		Dos Passos Three Soldiers 23: Indiana’s ma state. The tornado country . . . Git to work; here’s that bastard wop comin’ around the buildin’.
1922		Joyce Ulysses 557: I’ll wring the bastard fucker’s bleeding blasted fucking windpipe!
1933		‘George Orwell’ Down and Out in Complete Works I (1986) 198: Scotty, a little hairy tramp with a bastard accent.
1944		A. Kapelner Lonely Boy Blues (1965) 80: One bastard thing. You might wind up dead. Stinking, stinking dead.
1947		I. Shulman Amboy Dukes 4: Not working like hell in a bastard defence plant.
1951		K. Amis letter 22 Dec. in Leader (2000) 267: Here I am and here I bloody fucking bastard buggering sodding pissing shitting stay.
1959		‘Screwsman’s Lament’ in Encounter n.d. in Norman Norman’s London (1969) 68: It was when the motor gave a cough, I felt a lurching at my heart. / ‘We’re fucked,’ says Bill, ‘the bastard thing don’t want to start.’.
1963		C. Wood ‘Prisoner & Escort’ Cockade (1965) I i: They’ve had me on the wrong bastard train before today.
1968		J. Barlow Burden of Proof 117: Don’t talk with your bastard mouth full.
1977		(con. 1950s) Nicholson & Smith Spend, Spend, Spend (1978) 54: Get out of this bastard house or else I’ll kill thee. [Ibid.] 55: One of these days I’ll bastard strangle you!
1982		A. Bleasdale ‘Moonlighter’ Boys from the Blackstuff (1985) [TV script] 101: I’ve been left school two-and-a-half years. I’ve been out of work for two of them, and I’ve never so much as had a bastard interview.
1988		Viz Oct./Nov. 3: Oooh! What bastard luck!
1993		I. Welsh Trainspotting 171: He’s signed up fir the fuckin army again, six bastard years this time.
2000		Indep. on Sun. Rev. 30 Jan. 16: We live in a bastard world.
2009		J. Joso Soothing Music for Stray Cats 11: And just what the fuck was going through Jim’s stupid bastard head?
2012		C. Stella Rough Riders 37: You just can’t let the bastard bad guys get away.

2. as infix.

2000

N. Griffiths Grits 415: My sentiments, ex-bastard-actly.