bad-ass n.
1. (US) an unpleasant, aggressive individual; thus superlative baddest ass n.
![[US]](/static/img/flags/us.png "United States") | ‘USMC Sl.’ AS XXXI:3 191: A marine who postures toughness is sarcastically labeled a bad ass or hairy-assed marine. | |
| (con. early 1950s) Valhalla 303: You’re a real bad ass. | |
| (con. 1950s) ‘The Fifties’ in Eisen Age of Rock 2 (1970) 101: The J.D.’s emerged [...] Badass. | |
| Flesh and Blood (1978) 47: I’m beginning to look like a bad-ass. I went to the barber and got a crew cut, and it made me look even tougher. | |
| Drylongso 232: In heaven, when the deal go down it’s the blackest and the baddest ass that makes the others deuce out. | |
| (con. 1968) Reckoning for Kings (1989) 289: Bikers got big hearts, you know? Like we just pretend to be bad asses. | |
| (con. 1970s) King Suckerman (1998) 36: Jealous boyfriends and barroom bad-asses and all the rest. | |
 | Hey! It’s That Guy! 1989: When you have more than one character on your resume who’s named after a kind of lethal blade, then chances are, you’re a bad-ass. | |
| Whiplash River [ebook] A Russian or Armenian badass. |
2. (US) on bad = good model, a tough, admirable individual; also occas. metonymic for one’s whole body.
| Mr Jive-Ass Nigger 149: ‘Hey, man, what’s happening with that blonde last night?’ [...] ‘Oh, beautiful pussy, sweet as honey’ [...] ‘You bad-ass’. | |
| Last Detail 2: Bad-Ass, wake up, it’s way the hell past reveille. | |
| Get Your Ass in the Water 57: Dolomite is the ultimate badass: he drinks, fights, and fucks, and in between seems to brag about what he has just done or will do next. | |
| (con. 1968) Citadel (1989) 238: Glad to find out the badass was still alive. | |
| Muscle for the Wing 132: He occupied an exalted spot against the wall, surrounded by lesser badasses. | |
| Homeboy 95: He obliged the ironbarred gallery with the Homeric ballad of that badass Dolomite. | |
| Dreamcatcher 9: You want to hurry your bad ass back. | |
| Pound for Pound 120: Everyone would know he was a badass. | |
| Running the Books 4: A book-slinger with a badge and a streetwise attitude, part bookworm, part badass. | |
| The Force [ebook] They’re badasses [...] always ready to go, ready to dance, just for the fuck of it. |
3. (US black) an untrustworthy male.
| Runnin’ Down Some Lines 148: A number of terms were used to characterize the young man who could not be trusted [...] bad-ass, no-account nigger. | |
| Shooting Dr. Jack (2002) 230: Got seven or eight former badasses in there with broken ribs. |
In derivatives
the qualities implicit in sense 2.
| in Assembly on Literature for Adolescents Rev. 30-31 210/2: I can SEE myself getting dragged into a whole heap of BADASSery. | |
| Spin Dec. 118: The Donnas’ Grease-lubed vision of badassery — dressing trashy, talking dirty, and putting out . | |
| Weather Man [ebook] I still had a little badassery to my look. I mean, come on. I’m Dan Fucking Weatherly. I’m badassery personified, costume party or not. | |
| UNC-CH Campus Sl. Spring 2014 1: BADASSERY — qualities of a bad ass, i.e., skilled, stylish, cool: ‘Marcus Paige’s basket at the buzzer was badassery at its height.’. |