Green’s Dictionary of Slang

1. (US, also bim, bombo) a thug; a large, stupid man.

1914		Wash. Herald (DC) 1 Feb. 26/1: A feud between Jacob Bimbo anbd Jacob Inski [...] was settled today by Judge Dingbats.
1921		H.C. Witwer Leather Pushers 8: One of them bimbos which hurls a mean hammer.
1924		C.S. Montanye ‘The Might That Failed’ in Top Notch 1 Apr. 🌐 ‘Who’s the victim next week, Foxy?’ asked one of the listeners. [...] ‘A bim they call “Lucky” Watson.’.
1929		T. Thursday ‘Pay Out West’ in Western Outlaws Dec. 🌐 Cowboys, rangers, two-gun bimbos and the usual assortment of tough and tender feet.
1932		Arizona Dly Star (Tuscon, AZ) 23 July 8/3: ‘Even if your rod work is a wee bit careless I’ve got a swell bim I think you’ll work well with on a big job’.
1934		‘Maxwell Grant’ ‘Murder Marsh’ in Shadow Oct. 🌐 There’s a bimbo I’m going to get—and I need a pack of gorillas to do it.
1953		R. Chandler Long Good-Bye 145: ‘Big Willie Magoon,’ he said thickly. ‘A vice squad bimbo. He thinks he’s tough.’.
1984		W. Diehl Hooligans (2003) 42: So where do these bombos fit in?

2. (Ling. Fr./Polari) a dupe, an insignificant person.

1919		D. Runyon in Little Rock Dly News (AR) 3 July 7/4: ‘No bimbo can lick me,’ he said [...] ‘What’s a bimbo,’ somebody asked [...] ‘A bimbo [...] is t-t-two degrees lower than a coo-coo-cootie’.
1928		M. West Pleasure Man (1997) Act I: Der big bimbo.
1960, 1975		Wentworth & Flexner DAS.
1995		J. Cameron Vinnie Got Blown Away 54: ‘Listen up bimbos,’ she went. ‘We’re here to learn French, right?’.
2019		P. Baker Fabulosa 289/2: bimbo a dupe.

3. (orig. US) a man, usu. young.

1920		Munsey’s Mag. 71 70/2: He was tryin’ hard. He didn’t quit. Hazel wasn’t that kind of a bimbo.
1922		Wash. Times (DC) 21 Aug. 4/4: Women Be Warned. With Europe all mussed up, it’s going to be a cinch for bimbos from abroad to spill smooth social etiquette and hypnotize unsuspecting romantic damsels into matrimony.
1923		Wodehouse Leave it to Psmith (1993) 516: Tonight this bimbo that calls himself McTodd is going to give a reading of his poems.
1925		D. Hammett ‘Tom, Dick, or Harry’ in Nightmare Town (2001) 244: Bill isn’t a bad bimbo, but he hasn’t any meekness.
1929		R. Coleman Girl From Back Home in Hatch & Hamalian Lost Plays of Harlem Renaissance (1996) 100: Whose the bimbo you’re running away with? Tom Hally?
1938		J. Curtis They Drive by Night 153: Now I come to think of it, he was a funny-looking bimbo.
1944		N. Davis Rendezvous with Fear 22: That confederate must be sort of a tough bimbo.
1952		(con. 1910s) G. Fowler Schnozzola 31: We mean to find this certain bimbo and shoot him right in the head.
1954		Wodehouse Jeeves and the Feudal Spirit 25: This Cheesewright [...] is a bimbo who from the cradle up has devoted himself sedulously to aquatic exercise. [Ibid.] 102: Uncle Tom is a kindly old bimbo.
1960		Wodehouse Jeeves in the Offing 30: Most of the bimbos to whom Roberta Wickham had been giving the bird through the years had been of the huntin’, shootin’, fishin’ type.
1981		J. Ellroy Brown’s Requiem 135: I studied the planes and angles of my face, and decided that Fritz Brown, thirty-three-year-old ex-L.A.P.D. bimbo [...] would do.
1988		(con. 1940s) C. Bram Hold Tight (1990) 67: She’s twice as smart as the bimbos here think she is.

4. an unintelligent, but attractive, young man or woman.

1920		G. Clarke ‘My Little Bimbo Down On The Bamboo Isle’ 🎵 I’ve got a Bimbo down on the Bamboo Isle / She’s waiting there for me / Beneath a bamboo tree / Believe me, she’s got all the other Bimbo’s beat a mile.
1984		D. Jenkins Life Its Ownself 234: My favorite crook in the league is Charlie Teasdale, a referee whose bimbo is pictured on this page.
1992		K. Lette Llama Parlour 81: Believe me, living in LA you come to realise that the word ‘bimbo’ is not gender-specific.
2000		Observer Screen 6 Feb. 7: Leto seeems to be carving out a strange career as the sensitive male bimbo.
2004		L. Redhead Peepshow [ebook] Said you were just a stupid bimbo, all talk and no action.
2007		R. Milward Apples (2023) 2: They didn’t want some blonde bimbo putting a big downer on the night.
2010		K. Richards Life 294: At first I thought Bianca was just some bimbo.
2016		T. Robinson Rough Trade [ebook] [A] bar bimbo in a scoop-backed dress.

5. (orig. US, also bim, bimb, bimby) a woman.

1921		Sat. Eve. Post 194 193/2: She conveyed the information to the general atmosphere that she was a bimbo from a bamboo isle.
1922		Morn. Tulsa Dly World (OK) 18 June 32/1: Jewel plays that bimbo, herself.
1925		Eng. Journal (US) Nov. 700: John took his bim to a dance [W&F].
1929		S.J. Perelman Dawn Ginsbergh’s Revenge 119: There was once a certain Moorish bimbo [...] by the name of Etta Falcovsky.
1930		J.P. McEvoy Hollywood Girl 100: This little bimbo had just been given fifty grand and a piece of blue ice that must have been eight karats.
1935		(con. 1920s) J.T. Farrell Judgement Day in Studs Lonigan (1936) 467: Studs Lonigan copped off a bim whose old man is lousy with dough.
c.1940		‘Joe E. Brown No. 8’ [comic strip] in B. Adelman Tijuana Bibles (1997) 106: The old gas bag and myself grabs a couple of China bimbs.
1943		R. Chandler Lady in the Lake (1952) 210: Usually the bim tries to give her boyfriend a bit more alibi than that.
1946		J.E. Dadswell Hey, Sucker 88: The term glittergals applies largely to performers taking part in girlesk attractions, other women on carnivals are referred to as bimbos.
1953		S. Bellow Augie March (1996) 275: Kelly Weintraub is spreading a story [...] you took a bim to have an abortion.
1956		J. Thompson ‘The Cellini Chalice’ in Fireworks (1988) 84: Why, I’ve taken girls in here, really tough bimbos, and inside of three months . . .
1964		B. Jackson Get Your Ass in the Water (1974) 116: A bim that won’t bolt while you doin’ a little jolt / is just one out of a thousand, my friend.
1969		M. Puzo Godfather 240: He’d blown nearly fifteen grand on the track and show girl bimbos.
1972		R. Barrett Lovomaniacs (1973) 42: That bim he set me up with, the one from Vegas.
1975		L. Rosten Dear ‘Herm’ 5: Later that dumb bimbo returns to the line.
1978		L. Kramer Faggots 51: Bored with his bimbies, and bored with his two sons.
1989		C. Hiaasen Skin Tight 88: What, you opened a halfway house for bimbos!
1997		A. Frewin London Blues 20: Glam girls tarted up and expensively dressed like a page three bimbo opening a supermarket.
1998		G. Burn Happy Like Murderers 114: His floozy or his bimbo, the landlady [...] called her.
2000		Indep. Rev. 4 Jan. 8: Only one retained all her long, blonde hair and limbs – she was the token bimbo.
2000		R.G. Barrett Leaving Bondi (2013) [ebook] Stuck with some bimbo trapped in an Agatha Christie time warp.
2001		J. Stahl Plainclothes Naked (2002) 56: I’ll look like some heartless bim who pan-fries kittens.
2010		(con. 1973) C. Stella Johnny Porno 109: How the hell do i know you’re not screwing some bimbo in your hotel rooms?
2023		R. Milward Man-Eating Typewriter 238: [P]lenty of these poor bimbos preferred to the twisted lavvies they already had.

6. (also bim) attrib. use of sense 5, pertaining to (attractive) young women.

1989		M. Amis London Fields 134: He drools and slurps at everything remotely bim-like.
1991		D. Jenkins You Gotta Play Hurt 247: I wanted Bryce to know I was resigning from the bimbo business.
2000		F.X. Toole Rope Burns 112: Then they go back to their dark rooms and watch bimbo TV shows to keep their minds off the fight.