Green’s Dictionary of Slang

Irish.

1690

‘Teague’ Teagueland Jests II 153: Away goes Mac as big as Bull-beef, pust up with the Vapours and Exhalations of his Boggy heart.

a derog. term for an Irish person; also attrib.

1967		S. MacGregor Myrtle & Ivy 85: I don’t think I’ll ever lose the inferiority complex that started when the Belfast girls called me a bog-arab, and which Aunt Rose helped along in her bletherings about Irish country girls never settling properly outside their own backyard.
1973		S. MacGregor Sinner 167: I was sleeping with John O'Donnell, a filthy bog-arab from Parkhead.
1998		P. McCabe Breakfast on Pluto 86: Blahdy bog Arabs! I’m sorry, guv, but that’s the way I feel.
2012		J. Parker Escape Route 125: The hospital in Ayr was also targeted by the I.R.A. to raise funds for the cause. The dizzy bog Arab pricks had been told to carry out a bank robbery.

having tired eyes, the result of too little sleep or too much alcohol.

1924		‘Sabretache’ in Tatler 8 Oct. 38/2: I woke up and looked about in the bog-eyed way one does at 5.30 o’ the dawn.
1931		Burnley News 28 Nov. 9/6: Children would be coming to school bog-eyed and weary, and quite unfit for serious work.
1957		J. Braine Room at the Top (1959) 80: I watched then with tenderness [...] without the least trace of, as Charles used to put it, the bog-eyed hogger.
1975		A. Bleasdale Scully 57: I was still usually bog-eyed till about half way through the round.
1986		M. Brown Unlikely Ones 182: The stimulation of thought made us restless, bog-eyed sleepers when at last dawn broke on another grey, dripping day.
1991		D. Fowler Story of Michael 176: We were bog-eyed through lack of sleep.
2010		R.W. Greenacre Baghdad Express 231: Maybe they’re bog eyed and they can’t see signs one hundred yards away.

1. a derog. term for an Irish person; thus boghopping adj. [racial stereotyping].

[1899		Pall Mall Gaz. 18 Aug. 9/3: There is no place for hiding like an Irish bog [...] only the most experienced bog-hopper can retrace his steps to a spot once marked].
1960, 1975		Wentworth & Flexner DAS.
1978		Maledicta II:1+2 (Summer/Winter) 152: Bog-hopper Irish countryfolk in Ireland itself; anyone of Irish descent elsewhere. From the peat-bogs of Ireland, chief source of fuel and fertilizer for Irish peasants.
2005		K. Huff A Steady Rain I i: Fifty guys [...] who just all happen to be a lot more ethnic than me and my bog-hopping amigo paisan over here.

2. (US) a peasant, an unsophisticated rural person.

1902		Chicago Eagle 17 May 2/6: A statement [...] quoting Alderman Minwegen as calling foreign born policemen ‘bog hoppers and peat trimmers.’.
1970		in DARE.

1. Ireland.

1839

Yorks. Gaz. 12 Dec. n.p.: Justice to bogland that gem of the waters. / Aye, justice to her, and her sons and her daughters.

2. (Irish) the countryside.

2000

P. Howard Miseducation of Ross O’Carroll-Kelly (2004) 128: We’re in the middle of Bogland. How many pedestrian crossings do you see [...] down here.

an Irishman.

c.1687		‘Mac O Bonniclabbero of Drogheda’ Bog Witticisms XXIII 23: Our Bog-lander takes up one of them, and smells [...] but suddenly the Crab seizes him by the Nose.
1692		D. Fitzgerald [bk title] The Wild Irish Captain, or Villany displayed; being the Exploits and Memoirs of that famous Boglander, the pretended Marshall of the King’s-Bench, David Fitz-gerald.
c.1698		B.E. Dict. Canting Crew.
1700		N. Ward London Spy XVI 389: A Bullet-Headed Boglander coming up into the same walk, at last enter’d the Bow or Half Moon.
1725		New Canting Dict. n.p.: bog-landers, Irish Men.
1737, 1759, 1760, 1776		Bailey Universal Etym. Eng. Dict. [as cit. 1725].
1785, 1788, 1796		Grose Classical Dict. of the Vulgar Tongue n.p.: Bog lander, an Irishman, Ireland being famous for its large bogs, which furnish the chief fuel in many parts of that kingdom.
1811		Lex. Balatronicum.
1826		Hants. Advertiser 24 Apr. 3/2: ‘Sure now,’ replied the other (who by his accent was an Irishman) [...] ‘And why so?’ reiterated the boglander.
1834		‘Jack Downing’ Andrew Jackson 125: It wou’d ’ve made your hart sick tu’ve seen so many of the brave boglanders in the dust.
1858		Celt Mar. 30: ‘I am no Irish dog,’ said the Dollaher slowly, ‘I’m no boglander, I am real English’.
1865		White Cloud Kansas Chieftain (KS) 4 May 4/2: An Irish Tangle. A regular boglander from County Clare walked up to Captain Lamson of the Parliament [...] ‘More power til yez, Captain dear’ [etc].
1895		Globe (London) 16 Mar. 1/5: An old but still common name for Pat is ‘boglander’ or bog-trotter’.

1. (Irish) a general term of abuse, presuming rural origins and general backwardness; cites 1869, 1875 refer to the Ribbonmen, an underground Irish nationalist organization, based in the south and south-west and formed 1819.

1869		Saunders News Letter 14 Sept. 2/1: The Fenians properly designate the others [i.e. Ribbonmen] Bogmen.
1875		Edinburgh Eve. News 24 Feb. 3/3: They called him a ‘Bogman’. This is the nickname in these parts for a ‘Ribbonman’ and a bad feeling had existed for a long time between them and the Fenians.
1909		Berwick Advertiser 8 Oct. 7/4: The poor bogman of Ireland.
1943		‘Myles na gCopaleen’ Faustus Kelly in ‘Flann O’Brien’ Stories & Plays (1973) 125: Lord knows what bogman’s back-chat.
1950		S. Murphy Stone Mad (1966) 209: Another time it would be the Irish language, on which he poured scorn ... ‘Reviving a language that was only the vehicle of expression for bog-men!’.
1958		(con. 1940s) B. Behan Borstal Boy 259: That old East Anglian bogman.
1981		(con. 1922) P. Crosbie Your Dinner’s Poured Out! 88: A bloody big bogman of a soldier let a roar at me. I nearly foaled a fiddle with the fright.
1985		T. Murphy Conversations on a Homecoming (1986) 21: You’re a bogman, Ryan.
1992		P. McCabe Butcher Boy (1993) 78: The bogmen were raging. I don’t see why she’s appearing to you, they said.
2002		O’Byrne Files: Dublin Sl. Dict. 🌐 Bog man n. Term of contempt.

2. attrib. use of sense 1.

1992

P. McCabe Butcher Boy (1993) 16: By God Father that’s a cold one I said rubbing the hands real bogman style.

3. (UK prison) a prisoner working outdoors.

1888

R. Barnett Police Sergeant C 21 252: But as they were ‘bogmen,’ or employed with the out-door gangs, Robert did not see a great deal of them.

potatoes.

1864, 1867, 1870		Hotten Sl. Dict.
1868		Queenslander (Brisbane) 24 Oct. 7/7: Then they the bashful and peaceful race hurried away with their posts and shillelahs to mark out farms for vines, and fig trees, and bog oranges, and farms for their offspring and cousin’s, and for the Nowlans and Dowlans.
1873		Sl. Dict. 90: Bog-Oranges [...] A phrase perhaps derived from the term ‘Irish fruit,’ which, by some strange peculiarity has been applied to potatoes; for even the most ignorant Cockney could hardly believe that potatoes grow in a bog. As, however, the majority of the lower classes of London do believe that potatoes were indigenous to, and were first brought from the soil of Ireland, which is also in some parts supposed to be capable of growing nothing else, they may even believe that potatoes are actually bog-oranges.
1873		Hamilton Spectator (Vic.) 16 May 4/6: And he even went farther to rent a portion of the public park for cultivation and production of his native ‘bog oranges’.
1886		Boston Guardian 30 Jan. 2/6: First there were potatoes, ‘bog oranges,’ as we called them.
1888		Telegraph (Brisbane) 28 Sept. 5/1: That Grimes got one into Murphy when he said he hoped, in the interests of jam-making, that protection would be given to the importation of Irish bog oranges, commonly called murphies.
1892		Mt Barker Courier (SA) 23 Dec. 4/3: The carrots would tempt the most stubborn donkey to draw a load, and the potatoes rival the most famous ‘bog-oranges’ of the colonies.
1895		Isle of Man Times 19 Jan. 2/8: Ben Kewly, who supplied me with turnips and ‘bog oranges’ (Laughter).
1895		Crowe Aus. Sl. Dict. 10: Bog Oranges, potatoes.
1903		Ocala Eve. Star (FL) 7 May 3/4: Pittman’s Praties. Mr J.A. Pittman has an Irish potato patch which has supplied him and his family with all the bog oranges they could eat.
1908		Larne Times (Antrim) 29 Aug. 1/6: Green peas [...] served up with bog oranges and lamb.
1999		G. Seal Lingo 59: ‘Then dive across that ‘bog orange’ field till you run into a barrage. That lobs you right there’.

an Irish person.

1911		Yorkville Enquirer (SC) 4 July 4/4: The Bog Rat (for this was the name by which our young friend was known among his brother officers).
1976		Esquire 85 132/1: The girl’s father, a Mr. Mooney, was an Irish immigrant, a real bog rat from County Kildare.
1978		Maledicta II:1+2 (Summer/Winter) 152: Bog-rat, [...] Irish countryfolk in Ireland itself; anyone of Irish descent elsewhere. From the peat-bogs of Ireland, chief source of fuel and fertilizer for Irish peasants.
2010		S. Carter Dark Side of Mountain I 5: Well blow me down mates, the bog rat has spoken. What does he have on his little Irish mind?

1. to live in Ireland.

1689		‘A Cruel & Bloody declaration’ in A. Carpenter Verse in Eng in 18C Ireland (1998) 40: Nunc uni T[yrconne]l cum Bogtrottantibus Horsis.
1740		R. North Examen 323: It is a thousand Times better, as one would think, to bogtrot in Ireland, than to pirk it in Preferment no better dressed.
1905		Sun. Times (Perth) 10 Dec. 1/1: Old Gropers were successfully cultivating cherries when the blowhard was bogtrotting.

2. used adj., pertaining to Ireland.

1690		‘Teague’ Teagueland Jests I 3: Prethee get home, you Bog-trotting Owl.
1884		Western Times 24 May 2/4: The Irish occupant of the mud-hovel in which [they] have to set up house-keeping when they return from a bog-trot honeymoon.

1. a derog. term for an Irish person.

1665		Head Eng. Rogue I 232: The remembrance of those three Bog-trotters converted the hot fit of my amorous Fever into a cold one.
1682		in Carpenter Verse in English from Tudor & Stuart Eng. (2003) 462: [ballad title]The Bogg-Trotter’s Glory.
1685		‘The Coy Cook-Maid’ in Euing Broadside Ballads No. 45: Be gone bogg-trotter, then Joan did cry.
1690		‘Teague’ Teagueland Jests I 24: A certain Lord had a nimble Bog-Trotter to his Servant.
c.1698		B.E. Dict. Canting Crew n.p.: Bog-trotters, Scotch or North Country Moss-troopers or High-way Men formerly, and now Irish Men.
1707		Farquhar Beaux Strategem IV ii: The son of a bog-trotter in Ireland!
1719		in D’Urfey Pills to Purge Melancholy I 244: Leave off your howle you seeple Bogtrotter.
1725		New Canting Dict.
1732		‘An Irish Wedding’ in A. Carpenter Verse in Eng. in 18C Ireland (1998) 112: From whoring Bogtrotters, of Footman’s Degree / [...] / Good Lord deliver us.
1734		C. Johnson Hist. of Highwaymen &c 450: What a Holobo-loo was there! worse than what the wild Irish make at the Funeral of a Bogtrotter.
1779		Nocturnal Revels I 72: How many oaths have these Bog-trotters sworn?
1785, 1788, 1796		Grose Classical Dict. of the Vulgar Tongue.
1792		H.H. Brackenridge Modern Chivalry (1937) Pt I Vol. I Bk I 15: This servant of mine is but a bogtrotter.
1806		G. Colman Yngr John Bull I i: Have done with your blarney, Mr. Dan [...] you bogtrotter!
1811		Lex. Balatronicum.
1812		G. Colman Yngr ‘The Lady of the Wreck’ Poetical Vagaries 61: Drink, Paddies, drink drink to the Lady so shining! / While flowret shall open, and bog-trotter dig.
1821		‘A Real Paddy’ Real Life in Ireland 58: Which amongst us has not seen an ould splatter-dashed bog-trotter counting his pigs on a Saturday night.
1825		T.C. Croker Fairy Legends and Traditions of the South of Ireland (1862) 36: It is absurd enough to hear a stout ‘bog-trotter’ offer to ‘step over the mountain and be back with your honour in less than no time’.
1827		Guards 119: Lord Glenmuck, the son of a red- headed bog-trotter, who had the luck to step into a title and a fortune.
1832		S. Lover Legends and Stories 224: I’d be long sorry to let sitch a mallet-headed bog-throtter as yourself take a dirty advantage o’ me.
1838		R. Nicholson Cockney Adventures 3 Feb. 111: ‘Come out, yer bog-trotter,’ cried the infuriated Mr. Terry.
1841		Sun. Flash 19 Sept. 4/2: The Irish have a dish they call ‘potatoes and point,’ because the bogtrotters eat the fruit and point at the bacon.
1850		Bell’s Life in Sydney 11 May 2/5: His wife [...] muttered her disappointmentr in the purest bogthrotter’s dialect.
1854		Leicester Jrnl 31 Mar. 1/4: How can I give it you, when you don’t tell me who you are, you stupid bog-trotter? You’re an ignorant old spalpeen.
1856		Life in Boston & N.Y. (Boston, MA) 23 Aug. n.p.: Tady T—, the bog-trotter, has gone back to Ireland.
1859		G.A. Sala Gaslight and Daylight 342: Gaunt reapers and bog-trotters in those traditional blue body-coats, leathern smalls, and bell-crowned hats, that seem to be manufactured nowhere save in Ireland.
1865		‘Mickey Magee’ Bob Smith’s Clown Song and Joke Bk 59: A bog-trotter won Mickey Mulvaney.
1868		song title at warrenfahey.com 🌐 The Bogtrotter’s Lament.
1877		‘Norah Molloy’ Yankee Paddy Comic Song Bk 1: And faith and troth, where is myself, the bogtrotter, phat you will discharge before you have me.
1886		St Paul Dly Globe (MN) 19 Oct. 4/6: He said when he landed in New York in 1862 the ‘bog-trotters’ were respected.
1895		Globe (London) 16 Mar. 1/5: An old but still common name for Pat is ‘boglanger’ or bog-trotter’.
1899		Record-Union (Sacramento, CA) 12 Nov. 8/3: Bogtrotter, an Irish man.
1900		Bulletin (Sydney) 8 Dec. 29/1: Come and drink, you pink-snouted bog-trotter!
1906		S. Ford Shorty McCabe 217: Dennis, you low-county bog-trotter.
1915		Eve. Star (Wash., DC) 24 Jan. 8/1: Bad wind to the townful o’ ye [...] if New York, that’s never tired of braggin’ the cleverest men the sun shines on, needs [...] a poor bogtrotter from Ireland.
1923		Lincs. Echo 22 jan. 2/6: A lot of the poor bogtrotters from the wilds of Kerry [...] are too stupid and too ignaoorant to be deterred by the risks.
1930		R.E. Howard ‘Bull Dog Breed’ Fight Stories Feb. 🌐 ‘Help me up, Tom Roche, you big bog-trotter,’ I snarled.
1937		S. Anderson Winesburg I ii: Hello, you Corkonian bog-trotter.
1940		E. O’Neill Long Day’s Journey into Night II ii: Your Irish bog-trotter idea that consumption is fatal.
1960, 1975		Wentworth & Flexner DAS.
1981		J. Wambaugh Glitter Dome (1982) 254: Jesus, around here he felt like his old man must have felt as a bogtrotter at Ellis Island.
1999		Guardian Editor 18 June 12: Bogtrotters worked hard, prayed hard, drank hard.
2017		D. Winslow The Force [ebook] Russo is that rare redheaded Italian and Malone jokes that there must have been a bogtrotter in the woodpile.

2. a peasant, a yokel.

1795		J. O’Keeffe Life’s Vagaries 43: I’m not accomplish’d, I’m quite a bog trotter.
1812		Spirit of Irish Wit 221: Ye are all a pack of such bloody-minded bog-trotters [...} I dare say it was some one [...] of y who kill’d poor Teddy Balin .
1832		Satirist (London) 18 Mar. 91/3: The elevation of bogtrotter Gibney to the Peerage [...] has roused every mother’s son, of the jalap community.
1850		E.V. Kenealy Goethe: a New Pantomime in Poetical Works 2 (1878) 337: Crackhemp, Cullion, Blabber, Boor, / Vile bog-trotter. Whipper-snapper / You're a pretty god, I’m sure .
1858		A. Mayhew Paved with Gold 280: It’s a queer look-out — a regular bog-trotters’ nest.
1860		Hotten Dict. of Modern Sl. etc. (2nd edn).
1898		Kipling ‘Stalky’ Complete Stalky & Co. (1987) 24: You’re no farmer [...] Disreputable old bog-trotter, you are.
1899		Roanoke Beacon Plymouth, NC) 3 Mar. 1/1: The boys ands girl of Number Seven [...] were a somewhat poor and shiftless lot [...] We nicknamed them ‘bog-trotters’.
1937		‘F. Bonnamy’ Death on a Dude Ranch (1953) 25: He used to say that in Ireland he had been a bogtrotter.
1942		(con. 1890s) S. O’Casey Pictures in the Hallway 70: Gawks. Bog-trotters. Never seen anything higher than a haystack.
1950		L. O’Flaherty Insurrection 28: Don’t let it be said that two bog-trotters from the west can lick the whole of Dublin.
1963		L. Daiken Out Goes She 40: These migrants are no inferior race of bog-trotters as Brendan so vehemently maintains.
1989		H. Leonard Out After Dark 26: Bogtrotters like the schoolmaster were the new Quality.
1991		J.B. Keane Love Bites and Other Stories 80: [The corner boy] is not as he has been so often mislabelled a peasant or a churl or a bog trotter. He is neither a yokel or hick.
2001		G. Coughlan Everyday Eng. and Sl. 🌐 Bogtrotter (n): another word for a culchie.

3. (Aus.) in pl., large, heavy boots for country wear.

1904

Sydney Sportsman (Surry Hills, NSW) 23 Nov. 3/4: [E]yeing him from his imitation Panama to his bog-trotters.

1. a derog. epithet for an Irish person.

1663		Head Hic et Ubique IV iii: Why thou Bog-trotting, Beetle-head.
c.1687		‘Mac O Bonniclabbero of Drogheda’ Bog Witticisms 3: Prethee get home, you Bog trotting Owle.
1746		[as 1687].
1759		O. Goldsmith Citizen of the World II lxv 13: The champion Rock advises the world to beware of bog-trotting quacks.
1786		Bath Chron. 14 Sept. 1/2: The riots and excess committed by the bog-trotting peasantry of Ireland.
1792		H.H. Brackenridge Modern Chivalry (1937) [1797] Pt I IV Bk I 273: I wad rather lie by the fire side, than contaminate mysel, bedding wi’ sik a bog-trotting loon as he is.
1807		Cobbett’s Wkly Political Register 7 Feb. 2/1: Sheridan’s ancestors were [...] at the head of some little band of bog-trotting savages.
1815		Morn. Post (London) 29 July 3/5: The blundering vivacity, conceit and thick-wittedeness, which make up [...] a low bog-trotting Irishman.
1821–6		‘Bill Truck’ Man o’ War’s Man (1843) 80: You bog-trotting potato-eater.
1831		Chester Chron. 1 July 3/3: It is to be hoped that a sufficient number of our bog-trotting [...] brethren of the Land of Potatoes will be sent over to Chester.
1849		Thackeray Pendennis I 115: The impudent, bog-trotting scamp [...] dare to threaten me!
1852		G.C. Mundy Our Antipodes I 173: Yield in the King’s name, ye bog-trotting villains!
1868		Lincoln Co. Herald (Troy, MD) 14 May 4/1: The Democratic party was composed of bog-trotting, ignorant Irishmen and swag-bellied lager beer Dutch.
1876		C. Hindley Life and Adventures of a Cheap Jack 191: He can’t stand to be called by his true name; the bog-trotting rascal denies his Ould Ireland for a mother.
1886		Jamestown Wkly Alert (ND) 4 Mar. 6/2: ‘None of your lip, you impudent, bogtrotting Paddy!’ roarded the enraged officer.
1890		St Paul Dly Globe (MN) 28 July 3/1: The flannel-mouthed bogtrotter [...] ‘or bogtrotting contemporary’.
1906		‘O. Henry’ ‘Between Rounds’ Four Million (1915) 43: Me brother was worth tin dozen bog-trotting McCaskeys.
1917		Princeton Union 12 July 8/5: It is only the bog-trotting Irish [...] who are doing their little best to make trouble.
1920		Washington Herald (DC) 19 June 9/4: Me brother was worth tin [sic] dozen bog-trotting McCaskeys.
1936		(con. 1830s–60s) ‘Miles Franklin’ All That Swagger 181: He was a convict. An ignorant bog-trotting Irishman – an innkeeper!
1938		Derry Jrnl 4 Mar. 10/2: Begone [...] thou unutterable Irish addlepate [...] Thou barefooted bog-trotting hacheteer!
1951		(con. 1900s) S. Longstreet Pedlocks (1971) 133: I was rather a feather in their bog-trotting cap.
2004		N. ‘Razor’ Smith A Few Kind Words and a Loaded Gun 43: A kid [...] called me a ‘bog-trotting Fenian bastard’ to impress his mates.

2. rustic, foolish, ignorant.

1841		Royal Cornwall Gaz. 8 Oct. 4/1: The first to insult, and the first to back out —An impudent, bog-trooting mendicant lout.
1961		(con. 1930s) D. Behan Teems of Times and Happy Returns 91: Go on, yeh bog-trottin’ bastard!
1996		A. Cronin Samuel Beckett, The Last Modernist n.p.: The withdrawal of the O’Casey play and the subsequent events [...] would be instanced by him for many years as an example of Ireland’s bog-trotting obscurantism [BS].

a derog. term for an Irish person.

1998		I. Welsh Filth 293: Dirty fuckin thick fenian terrorist bog-wog cunt.
2000		M. Manning Get Your Cock Out 63: Just because he’s hung out with thus facking Irish bogwogs, Bonio and his garden facking hedge.