Green’s Dictionary of Slang

1. taking on the attitudes and lifestyle of the middle classes.

1976		R. Price Blood Brothers 115: They come up here, an’ some of them get into a bougie trip.
1991		Eble Campus Sl. Mar. 2: bougy – [...] ‘Jennifer is a bougy princess.’.
1999		J. Ridley Everybody Smokes in Hell 37: That didn’t make Daymond happy, his bougie neighbors thinking he was a rapper.
2000		W. Shaw Westsiders 49: Disco was fake, phoney and, worse, ‘bougie’ — bourgeois.
2013		K. Koke ‘Film It’ 🎵 And I ain't too bougié, / To put the work in.
2017		Young M.A. ‘Walk’ 🎵 Never boujee, we on vacay, pourin’ Henny in our Mai Tai’s.
2018		Negus Who Read Feb. 🌐 Negus Who Read is intelligent without being bougie.
2022		J. Hannaham Didn’t Nobody Give a Shit 139: [B]ougie Black folks! [...] they cleaned up Fort Greene and folks started callin that shit Chocolate Chelsea.

2. (US campus) unfair; socially unacceptable.

2012

C. Eble (ed.) UNC-CH Campus Sl. 2011 BOUGIE — /buži/ <bourgeoisie unfair, socially unacceptable, tacky: ‘The whole thing was so bougie. Even though I studied for twenty hours, I failed the quiz. While my best friend didn’t study and passed with an A.’.