Green’s Dictionary of Slang

(a) the anus.

1788		Grose Classical Dict. of the Vulgar Tongue (2nd edn).
1790		Banquet of Wit 14: Let them all be turned bung up [...] I’ll take care to leave scarce a crevice open.
1941		in G. Legman Limerick (1953) 98: A psychiatrist fellow, quite Jung, / Asked his wife, ‘May I bugger your bung?’.
1950		in E. Cray Erotic Muse (1992) 206: She was short and underslung; / He missed her cunt and hit her bung. / And planted the seed of many a son / In the butthole of Kathusalem.
c.1960		in E. Cray Erotic Muse (1992) 206: The son of a bitch was underslung. / He missed her hole and hit her bung / And drove his dong into her dung, / Down by Jerusalem.
1965		Guild Dict. Homosexual Terms 6: bunghole (n.): The anus. Contracted to bung.

(b) (also bung head) a general insult.

c.1850		F.M. Whitcher Widow Bedott Papers (1883) 67: For who did she git but a decreppid old bung head that she wouldent a had if she could a got any body else.
1908		Bulletin (Sydney) 3 Dec. 40/3: Take my tip, you and Maunder stick to bilking bungs and other fatheads, else you’ll find yourself in Queer-street some fine day. Love to Jerry. Lord, how he did run when he twigged my persuader.
1967–8		Baker et al. CUSS 91: Bung A person who always fools around.

(c) (US) anal intercourse.

1982

V. Allen [book title] Born for Bung.

(d) see bunghole n.¹ (2)

(a) a brewer (also personnified with a capital B); a brewery.

1825		Age (London) 15 May 5/2: And bung’s* gone in brewing, with calvert a stew in [...] *whitbread has invariably gone by the name of bung, since the last Middlesex Election.
1851		‘Epistle from Joe Muggins’s Dog’ in Era (London) 22 June 3/3: Awle the ‘bungs’ [i.e. brewers who go racing] waz lively on ther fist day.
1863		Cornhill Mag. (The Inner LIfe of a Man-of-War) Feb. n.p.: From time immemorial these gentlemen [master’s assistants] have had to stand at the grog-butt and see the grog served out – an important duty, the discharge of which has invested them, such is the playfulness of naval humour, with the title of bungs [F&H].
1882		Dly Dispatch (Richmond, VA) 1 Nov. 3/3: A ‘bung’ is a brewer.
1886		Arthur Lloyd [perf.] ‘The Brewer’s Daughter’ 🎵 Some years ago In London Town, there lived a wealthy Brewer / [...] / Where’er you went you’d see Bung’s name, / Bung’s Ale, Bung’s Stout, Bung’s Porter.
1902		Bulletin (Sydney) 6 Sept. 16/3: One other [...] promptly wired to Cohen that he could go to Sheol, packed his traps in a jam-tin, and skipped for the wild and woolly West, where he now travels the goldfields for Bung and votes the Labor ticket.
1904		Sun. Times (Perth) 20 Mar. 5/2: ‘What do you mean, you, you — ?’ said bung.
1908		Bulletin (Sydney) 17 Dec. 18/1: The barmaids had gone out on strike, / They would not pull the pump – / For threats of Bung and wheedlings / They did not care a dump.

(b) an inn-keeper or publican; thus the bung ball, an annual publican’s dance.

1846		Era (London) 15 Mar. 12/1: There would be a spin between ‘Stunning Joe Banks’ and his brother ‘bung,’ the host of the Running Horse, for a ‘fiver’ and a ‘spread’.
1860		R. Nicholson Rogue’s Progress (1966) 211: [ad. for a play] The Licensed Victualler By the Editor of ‘The Town.’ Benjamin Bung (L.V.S. and A.T.T.) . . . . Mr. George Wild.
1860		Hotten Dict. of Modern Sl. etc. (2nd edn).
1879		London Life 6 Sept. 4/2: Asked I of a ‘bung’ while chatting, / Thinking be surely would know. / Barmen are always quite young men. / Where do the old ones all go?
1880		Sporting Times 17 Jan. 1/4: The Pint, a broadsheet for bungs and beaks.
1890		Music Hall & Theatre Rev. 29 Mar. 5/2: What the Bounder would like to know [...] If our spoof paragraph about Tommy Barrett becoming a bung has not led several of our contemporaries into the mire?
1894		Truth (Sydney) 19 Feb. 3/3: ‘Bung’ On The Job. The Licensed Victuallers, at their annual meeting, passed the following resolution [etc.].
1894		J. Astley Fifty Years (2nd edn) II 152: It dawned on them that a sporting ‘Bart.’ was a bit more liberal to the men of thews and sinews then the sporting ‘Bung’ usually was.
1900		Bulletin (Sydney) 7 Apr. 14/4: ‘Brandy’ and ‘Judy’ were ‘on the drunk.’ Judy planked a sixpence on the counter and demanded more rum, but Bung, thinking she had taken enough, refused and shoved her out of the bar.
1905		Sporting Times 1 Apr. 1/1: He had no alternative but to dispatch a wayside lout to the nearest pub. for a tankard of petrol. ‘Oh, for the Bishop of ——, eh?’ sneered the bung.
1906		N.Z. Truth 4 Aug. 5/3: ‘Bung’ as a rule is a greedy grab-all.
1910		Bulletin (Sydney) 1 Dec. 32/1: A male cook of any color – black, white or brindle – would require more than double the wages she receives. Yet Bung, while sweating her, has the hide to paste an advt. of his virtues on her back.
1914		E. Pugh Cockney At Home 163: So the bung says, ‘Try an onion’.
1916		Sun. Times (Perth) 25 June 1s/2: In this boshter beaker / All brave Bungs I pledge.
1922		E. Dyson Missing Link 🌐 Ch. iv: These young men must be divorced from the long-sleever, and rescued from [...] the blandishments of Bung, the reprobate who runs the pub.
1972		B. Wannan Folklore of the Aus. Pub 125: Bung: a publican.

(c) beer.

1891		in Punch CI:31 Oct. 213: Perchance he was a temperance foe / To alcoholic drink, / And from all dalliance with Bung / Did scrupulously shrink.
1896		M. Williams Round London 39: The gathering included many disciples of Bung, as was proved by red and pimply noses, beery breath, and sour skins.
1952		G. Meek ‘Wool, Wether And Wine’ Station Days in Maoriland 74: Would he ‘grind’ again or ring a shed for ‘Bung’ at the Shearer’s Rest.

(d) (Aus.) generic for the brewery interest; also attrib.

1900–10		Stephens & O’Brien Materials for a Dict. of Aus. Sl. [unpub. ms.] 32: BUNG: [...] the whole personal [sic] of the drink trade.
1906		Sun. Times (Perth) 9 Dec. 1/1: The advent of the Pinjarra publican has chased the cobwebs from bung society.
1914		Bulletin (Sydney) 23 July 10/2: Bung and Cold Tea have been fighting one another over every little point either of them could think of; and just when Cold Tea’s whiskers were uppermost, Bung, with his shoulders all but on the carpet, got in a useful twist which reversed the positions.

(e) a barman, a waiter.

2023

R. Milward Man-Eating Typewriter 223: The bung had begun hovering by us with an eek that suggsted he’d sooner garrotte me than serve me up another delicious gargler-quencher.