Green’s Dictionary of Slang

1. (orig. milit.) a clergyman; an evangelist.

1937–84		Partridge DSUE (1984) 480/2: RAF, from ca. 1920.
1968		G. Slatter Pagan Game (1969) 82: He scoffed at God-botherers.
1979		C. Dexter Service of all the Dead (1980) 181: A family household brimming with evangelical piety, and one forever frequented by inveterate god-botherers and born-again Baptists.
1986		R. Beckett Dinkum Aussie Dict. 28: God Botherer: A man of the cloth. A clergyman of the Christian persuasion.
1990		Tupper & Wortley Aus. Prison Sl. Gloss. 🌐 God botherer. Minister of religion.
1999		Roger’s Profanisaurus 3 in Viz 98 Oct. 22: parts of shame n. A God-botherer’s genitals.
2011		Indep. 16 Jan. 58/2: The suits [...] had heard all the gospel music he played and assumed he must be a God-botherer.
2012		(con. 1943) G.S. Manson Irish Fandango [ebook] [H]e built churches and schools and virtually anything with four walls that the local god-botherers required.

2. a sanctimoniously pious person.

1962		M.K. Joseph Pound of Saffron 13: He’s another of these God-botherers.
2005		P. Howard Curious Incident of the Dog in the Nightdress 101: Two God-botherers, just our luck.
2007		L. Redhead Cherry Pie [ebook] I noticed [...] a small crucifix nestling in his chest hair, dangling from a chain. I hadn’t picked him for a god-botherer.
2015		G. Disher Heat [ebook] Batten arrived [...] his tiny god-botherer’s cross in the lapel of his jacket.
2015		L. McInerney Glorious Heresies 106: ‘You don’t look like a musician.’ ‘You don’t look like a God-botherer’.
2017		Times 1 Apr. 🌐 Horrible diseases, no antibiotics, God-botherers on the prowl, terrible wigs.
2024		J. Meades Empty Wigs (t/s) 166: [A] laudanum-addicted, Camelot-obsessed, tertiary-syphilitic god-botherer.