Green’s Dictionary of Slang

absolutely nothing; also as adj., adv.

1921		N&Q 12 Ser. IX 418: The word nothing was replaced in the Army by ‘b----r-all’ – ‘I did b----r-all’; ‘There was b----r-all to eat’.
1930		(con. 1918) J. Hanley German Prisoner 33: What are you afraid of [...] There’s buggerall here now’.
1942		P. Larkin letter 19 Sept. in Thwaite Sel. Letters (1992) 44: I do just bugger all and tend to stagnate.
1943		P. Larkin letter 18 July in Thwaite Sel. Letters (1992) 60: I have got a first in my Schools!!... It is all the more remarkable because I made numerous blunders and knew sweet bugger all about my subject.
1943		Mass-Observation Report on Juvenile Drinking 11: She points to some young girls sitting on the settee alongside the wall, near the piano... Inv. naively asks if they’re up to much. F30D (known as Mary) answers, ‘they’re all bugger-all.’.
1945		J. Maclaren-Ross Swag, the Spy and the Soldier in Lehmann Penguin New Writing No. 26 49: I’m shit out, see? Ain’t got bugger all.
1955		D. Niland Shiralee 29: ‘What’s at Millie?’ ‘Bugger-all.’.
1958		(con. 1940s) B. Behan Borstal Boy 19: It’s got bugger all to do with him.
1958		F. Norman Bang To Rights 28: They can just do what they like, when they like and to who they like [...] and you can do sweet b.a. about it.
1959		A. Sinclair My Friend Judas (1963) 58: Other people’s bellyaches over blow-all make me sweat blood.
1965		E. Bond Saved Scene v: Yer got bugger all idea ’ow to look after yerself.
1967		J. Wynnum I’m a Jack, All Right 8: That’s got buggerall to do with it.
1973		(con. 1930s) F. Huelin ‘Keep Moving’ 35: We came back and things were crook — no work, no pension, sweet bugger-all except th’ uniform. We could keep that.
1982		P. Barker Union Street 78: ‘I expect you wonder why I do this.’ ‘Bugger-all use denying it.’.
1986		R. Beckett Dinkum Aussie Dict. 11: One can [...] have ‘bugger all’ (nothing) or be told to ‘go to buggery’ (to piss off).
1998		R.G. Barrett Goodoo Goodoo 5: It had catchy jingles, bugger all ads [etc.].
1999		Indep. 21 July 7: He knows bugger all about art.
1999		P. Temple Black Tide (2012) [ebook] You brought me out in the appalling conveyance, this hot rod, for sweet bugger all.
2003		Bug (Aus.) Sept. 🌐 ‘French cuisine in a smart, no-nonsense atmosphere.’ It was clear to me what that meant – bugger-all on your plate for heaps of dosh.
2004		C. Brookmyre Be My Enemy 109: A wireless bra [...] giving bugger-all support.
2010		Sun. Times Mag. 19 Dec. 12/4: There’s bugger-all on TV.
2016		N. Cummins Adventures of the Honey Badger [ebook] We’d caught bugger-all fish.
2019		P. Temple ‘High Art’ in The Red Hand 28: ‘The boyfriend’s on the payroll. Doing sweet buggerall’.
2021		P. Papathanasiou Stoning 125: ‘The parents do bugger all’.
2023		A. Nette Orphan Road 164: ‘I’m a nearly forty-year-old woman with bugger-all prospects’.