Green’s Dictionary of Slang

(US milit./campus) a very distant and/or insignificant place.

1972		oral testimony q. in Lighter HDAS I (1994) 310/2: They probably sent those records out to Bumfuck, Egypt.
1974		Res Gestae xlix/1: Your grades are admirably suited for determining whether you will [...] pound the pavements in South Bumfuck, Indiana chasing ambulances.
1979		M. Crawford Bad Communist 197: ‘I been in Egypt around here myself the last couple years.’ ‘Pardon?’ The old fellow grins inexplicably. ‘Bum fuck Egypt’.
1986		C. Hiaasen Tourist Season (1987) 316: High-school bands from Bumfuck, Iowa.
1989		P. Munro Sl. U. 35: B.F.E./B.F.A. the boondocks, a very far away place [...] [Butt Fucking Africa].
1996		Eble Sl. and Sociability 36: Two kinds of shortening reduce words to letters. The dominant type in college slang is initialism, which names the individual letters: BFE (bum fucking Egypt) ‘in the middle of nowhere, far away’.
1997–2000		Da Bomb 🌐 2: B.F.E.: An expression used to emphasize the fact that something or someone is very far away from you. The expression means Bum Fucked Egypt.
1997–2001		Online Sl. Dict. 🌐 bumfuck n 1. an imaginary place. [Ibid.] butt-fucking Egypt adj 1. inconveniently far away. Often abbreviated BFE, sometimes called ‘bum-fuck Egypt.’ (‘Man, you parked way out in butt-fucking Egypt!’). [Ibid.] east butt-fuck 1. inconveniently far away. Also used is the less offensive east bumble-fuck. (‘You live way out in east butt-fuck.’). [Ibid.] Egypt n 1. a very distant place. See also butt-fucking Egypt. (‘I’m not going to his party – he lives way out in Egypt.’).
1999		N. Stephenson Cryptonomicon 115: You are going to be in West Bumfuck, Arkansas, riding in the Memorial Day parade.
1999		People (Sydney) 5 July 9: Born in Ames, Iowa, just out of Bumfuck Junction, Iowa. Broke into showbusiness in 1993 by appearing as Miss April in a Motormag calendar.
2000		C. Hiaasen Sick Puppy 122: I wouldn’t have to fly to Bumfuck, Africa, or wherever.
2002		ADS-L 5 June 🌐 Even though I claim to be a North Carolinian, I’d never heard this; my friend didn’t give me a gloss in his first email and I took it for a synonym of ‘East Bumfuck’ (which he thought hilarious).
2002		D. Allison On the Whispering Wind 112: They blow their wad [...] on long circuitous cab rides, as Cassidy describes them, ‘from East Jesus to West Buttfuck.’.
2002		J. Starr Hard Feelings 193: Now you drag me out to Butt-Fuck New Jersey for some pointless lineup.
2006		Observer Rev. 15 Jan. 5/3: Fourteen hours later, the bus pulled up outside an army barracks – ‘someplace in Bumfuck, Texas.’.
2008		C. Faust Money Shot [ebook] I was doing recruiting trips out to strip clubs in bumfuck nowheresville, sniffing out fresh talent anywhere I could find it.
2010		J. Ellroy Hilliker Curse 9: Bumfuck, Wisconsin, was a drag.
2010		L. Redhead Thrill City [ebook] He wasn’t doing me any favours leaving me in bum-fuck South Australia.
2011		J.J. Connolly Viva La Madness 283: She’s a tourist — American I’d wager [...] from Bumfuck, Idaho.
2013		F. Bill Donnybrook [ebook] Wanted to know what Deputy Sheriff Whalen thought he was doing, searching abandoned houses down in bum-fuck.
2014		B. Turner My Life as a Foreign Country n.p.: in the middle of nowhere, ‘bum fuck Egypt’ as Barnes often put it [etc.].
2015		N. Cummins Tales of the Honey Badger [ebook] Our humble destination in the middle of bum-f**k nowhere.
2016		T. Robinson Rough Trade [ebook] [I]t was in the middle of the night in Bumblefuck, Massachusetts.
2017		ipetitions: Bring Victoria Bitter (VB) to the USA!! 4 Dec. 🌐 I am currently in the middle of butt f**k nowhere in New Mexico.
2020		C. Hiaasen Squeeze Me 262: ‘How has he not been transferred to Bumfuck, Alaska?’.
2021		J. Ellroy Widespread Panic 7: I had a squaresville home life in bumfuck Massachusetts.