Green’s Dictionary of Slang

buzz n.

1. as speech [buzz v.1 (1); note WWI UK army buzzer, a signaller].

(a) (also buz, buzzing) chatter, conversation.

[UK]J. Howell Familiar Letters (1737) I 2 Mar. 155: There is a buz here of a Match ’twixt England and France.
[UK]Massinger New Way to Pay Old Debts V i: There’s a certain buz Of a stolne marriage, do you heare? of a stolne marriage, In which ’tis said there’s some body hath beene coozin’d.
[UK]D’Urfey Collin’s Walk canto 1 36: Where primming Sister, Aunt, or Coz; Turn their warm Zeal, with Hum and Buz: And bobtail’d Rogues are zealous at it.
[UK]T. Brown Amusements Serious and Comical in Works (1744) III 122: Here Irish, Scots and English meet very amicably, make a buz, and contend in nonsense.
[UK]Salisbury & Winchester Jrnl 18 May 1/1: The King’s spech [...] was spoken with great eloquence and dignity, but the buzz of the Court did not allow it to be distinctly heard.
[UK]Chester Courant 17 June 1/2: Cornelius O’Crotchet’s Description of Longman and Broderip’s Music Manufactory in Cheapside, London. Having heard a great buzz about Longman and Brod’rip, / [...] / Just only to take a slight squint at their shop: / But, oh! thunder and ’ounds, / What a bodd’ring of sounds, / Echo’d thro’ the whole building. / Blood and turf! he’d look back, / One of Longman’s grand forte-pianos to hear. / [...] / And suppose we should sup where we dine, / Why, ’tis all by the way of Cheapside!
[UK]Austen Mansfield Park (1926) 245: As soon as the general buz gave him shelter, he added, in a low voice [...] ‘I should be sorry to have my powers of planning judged by the day at Sotherton’.
[UK]Egan Life in London (1869) 190: The Member of the Lower House, here take[s] a ride [...] to ‘pick up’ a little information respecting the buz on public affairs.
[UK]R. Whiteing No. 5 John Street 147: The meeting dissolves into worldly buzz.
[US]C.L. Cullen More Ex-Tank Tales 50: A two-minute buzz with the manager of the op’ry house.
[US]O.O. McIntyre New York Day By Day 11 Oct. [synd. col.] It seems that Jim Shortell met Sailor Burke [...] the other night and had quite a buzz with him.
[US]Irwin Amer. Tramp and Und. Sl. 44: buzz.–Talk; idle chatter; general conversation.
[US]P. Stevenson Gospel According to St Luke’s 139: He found that the silence of the empty Dorm disturbed him more than the schoolroom buzz.
[US]R. Chandler ‘I’ll Be Waiting’ in Red Wind (1946) 136: I’m in the dump an hour and the house copper gives me the buzz.
[Aus]R. Park Poor Man’s Orange 5: Hughie felt so bad that he had to leave the happy buzz and go home.
[US]R. Chandler Long Good-Bye 150: When he opened the door the buzz from the living-room exploded in our faces.
[UK]B. McGhee Cut and Run (1963) 44: If he thought I, for one, was, at any time, going to have a buzz with the police, he was a tattie short. He was ‘not on’.
[US]Ragen & Finston World’s Toughest Prison 793: buzz – Talk or conversation.
[US]G.V. Higgins Patriot Game (1985) 64: For the next couple of weeks that neighborhood had more buzzing goin’ on’n you’ll generally get in a beehive.
[US]L. Bing Do or Die (1992) 153: The buzz about disrespect got underway, and the next thing you hear, there was a fight at a party.

(b) a rumour.

[US]S. Smith Major Downing (1834) 107: As soon as they set this afloat, it went through the town like a buzz.
[Aus]F. Garrett diary 27 May 🌐 Latest ‘buzz’ – Majestic torpedoed by submarine. [Ibid.] 29 May: Many buzzes are going around today and first class ‘latrines’ at that:– First. Austria has caved in. Second: The Tommies have captured Aitchi Bahr.
[UK](con. WWI) Fraser & Gibbons Soldier and Sailor Words 41: Buzz, A: A rumour: e.g., Its all the buzz.
[US]W. Winchell On Broadway 24 Jan. [synd. col.] Tom Mooney denied the divorce buzz.
[UK]D. Bolster Roll On My Twelve 20: We ’eard a buzz she was goin’ out to th’ East Indies.
[UK]J. Braine Room at the Top (1959) 177: I had the buzz that Hoylake’s reorganizing.
[Aus]J. Wynnum I’m a Jack, All Right 10: If you can place any reliance on the buzzes flashing round this hooker [...] the Jimmie has also dropped a roll.
[Ire](con. 1930s–40s) N. Conway Bloods 67: You’re putting out another buzz [...] you’re ball-hoppin’ again.
[UK](con. WW2) T. Jones Heart of Oak [ebook] It was amazing how very often the rumours — ‘buzzes’, which flew around the lower deck somehow instantaneously— were such highly accurate synopses of what the situation was within the higher echelons of command [...] Buzzes seemed to generate on their own, like busy fruitflies in a ripe melon.
[US]N. George ‘Bobby Brown’ in Buppies, B-Boys, Baps and Bohos (1994) 85: The buzz was that Brown had bad habits, bad manners, and no future.
[UK]H.R.F. Keating Soft Detective 63: The buzz round here is the victim’s some sort of Nobel Prize winner. Is that right?
[UK]Financial Times Weekend Mag. 10–11 Jan. 41/1: The buzz gets round the birds remarkably quickly that there’s a new place to stop.
[UK]K. Richards Life 132: We were probably disastrously horrible in some of those shows, but by then there was a buzz going on.
[US]J. Ellroy Widespread Panic 8: The buzz bombarded me. I heard murderous murmurs.

(c) a telephone call; almost always as give someone a buzz

(d) (US Und.) an exploratory conversation.

[US]Ersine Und. and Prison Sl. 24: buzz, n. A talk which has as its end the finding out of a person’s reactions to some matter.

(e) (US Und.) a warning.

[US]‘Boxcar Bertha’ Sister of the Road (1975) 184: About six o’clock we got the buzz. Pork Chops had seen the vice squad coming.

(f) (US) a call on an intercom.

[US]R. Whitfield Green Ice (1988) 52: We waited ten minutes before she got the buzz.
[US](con. 1920s) Dos Passos Big Money in USA (1966) 964: Give us a buzz when you’ve put him through a course of sprouts.
[US]J. Evans Halo For Satan (1949) 58: Two buzzes came over the wire.

2. (UK und.) the business, the situation.

[UK]New Brawle 11: [Y]ou have the buz in your own hands, I mean the Law.

3. (also buz) in UK cant uses; the image is of a ‘buzzing’ thief that ‘stings’ their victim.

(a) a thief.

[UK]C. Hitchin Regulator 19: A Buz, alias Prigg, alias Thief.
[UK](con. 1710–25) Tyburn Chronicle ii in Groom (1999) xxvi: A Buzz, or a Prig A Thief.

(b) a pickpocket.

[UK]J. Dalton Narrative of Street-Robberies 11: If [...] they would put their Pockets between their Hoops and their upper Petticoats, they might defy all the Buzzes in London to haul the Cly.
[UK]Vaux Vocab. of the Flash Lang. in McLachlan (1964) 231: buz-cove, or buz-gloak a pickpocket; a person who is clever at this practice, is said to be a good buz.
[UK]G. Smeeton Doings in London 254: Swarms of ‘buzzes’ [...] infest the neighbourhood of the theatres.
[UK]G. Kent Modern Flash Dict. 8: Buz – a pickpocket.
[UK]Flash Dict. in Sinks of London Laid Open.

(c) (also buzz-lift) the picking of pockets; thus on the buzz, working as a pickpocket.

[UK]G. Parker Life’s Painter 168: The running rumbler is a fellow belonging to a gang of pickpockets, who, in order to give them an opportunity of working upon the buz, that is picking of pockets, gets a large grinding-stone, which he rolls along the pavement, the passengers hearing the rumble endeavour to get out of the way [...] in this critical moment some of the gang snatch your watch, or pick your pocket.
[UK]Vaux Vocab. of the Flash Lang. in McLachlan (1964) 231: The buz is the game of picking pockets in general.
[UK]Egan Grose’s Classical Dict. of the Vulgar Tongue.
[UK]‘The City Youth’ in Out-and-Outer in Spedding & Watt (eds) Bawdy Songbooks (2011) IV 139: His nob is never idle, or his daddles ever slack, / All day he’s on the buzz-lift, and at night upon the crack.
[UK]Leaves from Diary of Celebrated Burglar 76/1: I knew he had been ‘lushing’ too much that day to be able to see his way clear on the ‘buz’.
[Aus]Gippsland Times(Vic.) 29 Jan. 3/2: Gangs of pickpockets are called ‘whizz mobs’ and when ‘working’ are ‘on the buzz’.

(d) (US Und.) purse-snatching.

[US]Goldin et al. DAUL 38/2: Buzz, n. The act of buzzing; the purse-snatching racket among women shoppers in the market.

4. as a physical sensation, a ‘buzz in the head’ [ext. of SE; i.e. a sense of heightened emotion].

(a) (orig. US) a thrill, a feeling of excitement.

implied in give someone a buzz
[US]H. Brook Webb ‘The Sl. of Jazz’ in AS XII:3 184: buzz. Thrill derived from hearing good swing music.
[US]Berrey & Van den Bark Amer. Thes. Sl.
[US]Kerouac On the Road (The Orig. Scroll) (2007) 138: The bigcity buzz made me jump.
[US]J. Rechy City of Night 132: I don get no real buzz outta guys swinging on my joint.
R. Charles Brother Ray 34: Never did have any bad feelings about sex. [...] It gave me a buzz, and it felt awfully nice.
[US]C. White Life and Times of Little Richard 128: Little Richard’s journeyings around America had an expectant buzz about them. Every performance was wild and outrageous.
[Aus]M. Walker How to Kiss a Crocodile 92: ‘Wow, what a buzz! I used to watch you when you played football for the might Demons’.
[UK] in D. Campbell That Was Business, This Is Personal 14: That was the start, having got away with it [a robbery] and got the buzz out of it.
[Ire]R. Doyle Woman Who Walked Into Doors 53: All kids robbed; they were wild and then they stopped when they grew up. They didn’t need the buzz.
[UK]N. Cohn Yes We Have No 173: You can’t imagine the buzz.
[US]Hip-Hop Connection Jan./Feb. 94: The biggest buzz is talking to people who don’t know I’ve done it.
[US]L. Berney Gutshot Straight [ebook] Getting dressed, getting ready for an adventure, it always gave her such a delicious buzz.
[Scot](con. 1980s) I. Welsh Skagboys 383: But why, son? Dad implores [...] It’s [i.e. heroin] a good buzz.
[UK]J. Fagan Panopticon (2013) 234: It cannae be much of a buzz — knitting.
[US]F. Bill Donnybrook [ebook] Needed a good buzz. A stiff dick. Something to whittle the edge off.
[Aus]N. Cummins Tales of the Honey Badger [ebook] It was a perfect hiding place from which to scare the living Brad Pitt out of any poor bugger that thought they’d take some time out to enjoy the serenity. What a buzz!
[Scot]G. Armstrong Young Team 5: This week is a fuckin buzz cos yi huv Halloween and Guy Fawkes Night anaw.
[Ire]P Howard Braywatch 206: ‘I’m just trying to create a bit of a buzz about them’.

(b) attrib. use of sense 3a.

[UK]Guardian G2 7 Feb. 17: The buzz-film of this year – Sam Mendes’s thematically very similar American Beauty.

(c) (orig. US) a (usu.) pleasant sensation from drinking.

[US]E. Anderson Hungry Men 108: We ought to be gettin’ a buzz on this stuff pretty soon.
[US]F. Eikel Jr ‘An Aggie Vocab. of Sl.’ in AS XXI:1 31: buzz (in to get a buzz), n. To enjoy thoroughly. Probably from alcoholic reaction, a strongly stimulating effect.
[US]P. Thomas Down These Mean Streets (1970) 58: The whisky buzz was now in my head and the rest of the insane sounds became blurred.
[US]‘Iceberg Slim’ Pimp 39: Anything with a buzz in it was in great demand on campus.
[US]J. Yount Trapper’s Last Shot (1974) 174: Some people get loose and shoot all right with a little buzz on.
[US]C. McFadden Serial 19: It seemed to him, through an alcoholic buzz, that his goddam car was laughing at him.
[US]P. Munro Sl. U. 102: have a buzz to have a slightly dizzy feeling as the result of using alcohol, marijuana, or any other drug.
[Aus](con. 1964-65) B. Thorpe Sex and Thugs and Rock ’n’ Roll 208: Champagne was flowing like water and the whole place [...] had a real buzz going.
[US]C. Hiaasen Lucky You 77: Bode complained that his beer buzz was wearing off, so Chub opened a bottle of cheap vodka.
[US]G. Pelecanos Shame the Devil 84: He liked to drive the city at night when he had a buzz.
[Aus]D. McDonald Luck in the Greater West (2008) 5: Whitey liked the buzz of morning wine.
[Aus]L. Redhead Thrill City [ebook] [I] lay back, a pleasant little buzz on after the drinks.
[US]T. Robinson Hard Bounce [ebook] I was on my sixth round of beer and bourbon. My buzz took hold around the fourth round.

(d) the immediate response to taking a drug, esp. barbiturates or cannabis.

[US]C. Webb ‘Wacky Dust’ 🎵 So I don’t know just why it get you so high, / Puttin’ a buzz in your heart.
[US]‘Hal Ellson’ Duke 111: Everybody looked like they’d got in a good buzz.
[US](con. 1948) G. Mandel Flee the Angry Strangers 363: See now, you will smoke that evil weed [...] that’ll drive you frantic, that old buzz.
[US]Lannoy & Masterson ‘Teen-age Hophead Jargon’ AS XXVII:1 24: BUZZ, n. The effect of a drug; the feeling under the influence of a drug.
[US](con. late 1940s) E. Thompson Tattoo (1977) 678: Some of the men in the battalion had gotten into the morphine and shot it for the buzz.
[US]A. Hoffman Property Of (1978) 47: I could get a better buzz from swallowing a bottle of Midol.
[US]D.E. Miller Bk of Jargon 340: buzz: The initial, lightheaded effect of smoking marijuana; the effect of any drug.
[Ire]J. Healy Grass Arena (1990) 68: Pill-head slides some pills into my hand. I give him a wink, swallow them with a drop of water, then sit on the floor till I get the buzz.
see sense 3c.
[Ire]P. Howard The Joy (2015) [ebook] The buzz that day was good. The stuff I had was fuckin spot on. Mainlined it, I did.
[US](con. 1970s) G. Pelecanos King Suckerman (1998) 47: I had a nice buzz goin’.
[Scot]I. Welsh Filth 171: I’m getting a good buzz in my head.
[UK]Guardian G2 10 Aug. 10: There’s a buzz after taking it which makes you want to do the same thing again.
[UK]Indep. Rev. 7 Jan. 20: You would probably have got quite a warm feeling about cocaine. People talked about the buzz.
[Aus]R.G. Barrett Mystery Bay Blues 31: He’d been sneaking a bit of his pot and having a little joint [...] It wasn’t a bad buzz.
[UK]B. Hare Urban Grimshaw 113: He requisitioned a cup of vodka and the bong [...] ‘What a buzz!’.
[US]C. Eble (ed.) UNC-CH Campus Sl. Spring 2014.
[Ire]L. McInerney Glorious Heresies 53: [M]y buzz is climbing as fast as my dick is waning.

(e) (drugs) PCP.

[US]H. Feldman et al. Angel Dust 90: Buzz puts you way out there in the ozone.

(f) any form of sensation, good or bad.

[US]E. Torres After Hours 122: Kleinfeld had come down from his buzz.
[UK]M. Amis London Fields 250: The bottle of porno passed through the dust to settle the crime buzz and the crime flop.
[US]Source Oct. 29: You might get a buzz for a minute, but you pick up.
[UK]N. Barlay Hooky Gear 5: I’m grinnin like a bastard too with the sheer buzz of bein hunted.

5. (US, also buzz-cut) a close haircut, given with electric clippers.

[US]G.A. Fine With the Boys 169: Buzz, n. Short haircut; crewcut.
[UK]D. Jarman letter Smiling in Slow Motion (2000) 88: HB came back with [...] a buzz cut.
[US]Bynum & Thompson Juvenile Delinquency 255: By 1990 ‘flat tops,’ ‘buzzes,’ ‘spikes’ [...] dominated the youth culture.
[UK]Guardian G2 11 Apr. 16: I had a buzzcut.
[US]A. Steinberg Running the Books 44: In the photo, I am captured with a buzz cut and a crooked, bewildered grin.
[Aus] A. Prentice ‘The Break’ in Crime Factory: Hard Labour [ebook] A tall guy, thirties, requisite buzz cut and square jaw.

In derivatives

buzzy (adj.)

tipsy, pleasantly ‘high’.

[US]L. Sanders Pleasures of Helen 175: To tell you the truth, she was feeling buzzy. Not drunk—but a small, relaxed buzz.

In compounds

buzz...

for combs. pertaining to pickpocketing, see under buz n.

buzz crusher (n.) (also buzz stripper) [SE crush/strip]

(US campus) anything or anyone that destroys a feeling of euphoria.

[US]Eble Campus Sl. Fall 2: buzz crusher – anything that depresses or deflates or ruins a good time [...] Also buzz stripper: Oh, no, my parents are here – what a buzz stripper.
[UK]C. Tippit Red Licorice 16: Mrs Waller. Whoa! Talk about an old buzz crusher!
[US]Eble Sl. and Sociability 31: Often the second part of a noun + noun compound is derived from a verb by the suffix -er: buzz crusher ‘anything that destroys a feeling of euphoria’ (something crushes [verb] one’s buzz [object]).
[US]R. Gallagher Girl Who Loved Garbo 35: Come on, Reb, snap out of it [...] You’ve been acting like a buzz crusher ever since you got off the plane.
[US]W.J. Cobb White Tattoo 216: His lack of money and generally meager prospects working like a major buzz-crusher on his wobbly ego.
buzz-cut (n.)

see sense 4 above.

buzzhead (n.)

(US black) strong alcohol.

[US]L. Johnson ‘Tin Can Alley Blues’ 🎵 I was down in Tin Can Alley, loaded down with that buzz-head gin.
buzzkill (n.)

see separate entry.

buzzman (n.)

(Und., also buzman) an informer.

[UK]Bell’s Life in London 10 June 3/1: Epsom Races [...] rendered the assemblage rather select [but] there was no sufficient to excite alarm in the Beaks, or to secure the countenance of a ‘buzman’ even of the third degree.
[UK]Hotten Sl. Dict.
[Aus]Examiner 17 Mar. 13/2: It’s all along o’ that Fiddling Jack [...] He’s been about saying you was a buz-man.
W. Black Green Pastures and Piccadilly xi: What was all this about ‘Billy Rowland,’ ‘Scotland Yard,’ ‘Spy,’ ‘Buzman,’ and the rest? [F&H].
[US]Monteleone Criminal Sl. (rev. edn).
[US]Goldin et al. DAUL 38/2: Buzz-man. (P) An informer.

In phrases

catch a buzz (v.) [catch v.1 (2b)]

to start experiencing the (pleasurable) effects of alcohol or a given drug.

[US]Eble Campus Sl. Nov. 1: catch a buzz – get intoxicated.
[Can]Totally True Diaries of an Eighties Roller Queen 🌐 23 July In the day I walked to the store and saw Puffer. We smoked up. I caught a bit of a buzz but not much.
[US]D. Burke Street Talk 2 15: I’m catching a buzz off/from this wine.
www.nakedgov.com 🌐 South Dakota NORML — advocating for medical cannabis and the rights of peaceful honest folks to catch a buzz.
cop a buzz (v.) [cop v. (3c)]

(US) to get drunk, to get ‘high’ on a drug.

[US]Eble Campus Sl. Mar. 2: cop – acquire: let’s cop a buzz.
[US]Bentley & Corbett Prison Sl. 14: To cop or coppin’ may be associated with feelings or emotions. ‘He really copped a “buzz” from that marijuana.’.
give someone a buzz (v.)

1. (US Und.) to promise, to assure.

[US]C.S. Montanye ‘The Man Who Never Forgot’ in Detective Story 17 Dec. 🌐 Give me a buzz that I figure for half the stuff, and you’re on!

2. to call someone on the telephone.

[US]College Humor 75/2: Don’t hesitate to give me a buzz when the spirit move you.
[US]‘Ellery Queen’ Roman Hat Mystery 22: Give headquarters a buzz about the murder.
[US]R. Whitfield Green Ice (1988) 126: If they hole in anywhere that looks permanent, give me a buzz.
[US]D. Runyon ‘What, No Butler?’ in Runyon on Broadway (1954) 387: She gives the gendarmes a buzz.
[US]A. Kober Parm Me 25: If you wanna, you can gimme a buzz at home.
[US]M. Spillane One Lonely Night 154: There was no out until Lee [...] gave you a buzz.
[UK]P. Larkin letter 28 Oct. in Thwaite Sel. Letters (1992) 290: The visit will be so quick I doubt if I’ll have time to kill. Give you a buzz if I do.
[UK]F. Norman Guntz 60: He gives the director a buzz and asks him what the strength is.
[US]L. Rosten Dear ‘Herm’ 152: When you return [...] give me a buzz – and we will see.
[UK]‘John le Carré’ Honourable Schoolboy 133: Want me to give her a buzz?
[US]J. Ellroy Brown’s Requiem 220: [I] found a pay phone on P.C.H. and gave old Cal a buzz.
[US]C. Stroud Close Pursuit (1988) 237: Can you give her a buzz at 1430 hours. Tell her I’m on a surveillance detail.
[UK]M. Frayn Now You Know 74: I’ll give you a buzz some time.
[UK]T. Blacker Kill Your Darlings 218: Give me a buzz when you have a moment.
[Aus]N. Cummins Tales of the Honey Badger [ebook] But if you give me a buzz, I can tell you three wingers in the current Wallabies squad who have [drunk alcohol on planes].

3. to excite, to thrill (usu. sexually).

[US]C.L. Cullen Tales of the Ex-Tanks 90: It’s a queer old bug, the boyhood home bug [...] and every time you hear flute music and you’re sogged right it’s bound to give you a buzz.
[US]W. King ‘The Game’ in King Black Short Story Anthol. (1972) 304: Hey, mamma, you putty thang ... shorr look foine. Come mere, let Hoim give you this buzz.
[US]C. McFadden Serial 66: It gave me this terrific buzz.
give someone the buzz (v.)

to run away from, to elude.

[US]G. Milburn ‘The Stew-Bum’ in Hobo’s Hornbook 137: Yes, ’twas a woman – and I give the moll the buzz.
[US]M. Rumaker Exit 3 and Other Stories 106: They chased us to the bridge. We gave them the buzz.
have a buzz on (v.) (also get a buzz on)

1. (orig. US) to be drinking and mildly intoxicated but not drunk.

[US]W.H. Kayy We Can’t All be Sane! 186: When he is put under insufferable tensions [...] he flees into his easiest escape world — namely intoxication. Why slip into an anxiety when you can also have a buzz on?
[US]Southern Reporter: Cases Argued 879/1: Defendant [...] testified that these six highballs had no effect on his driving ability. However, he did admit on cross-examination that he had a ‘buzz-on’ and that he wasn’t feeling like normal.
[US]S. King Stand (1990) 794: He hoisted the jug of wine and had a swallow. ‘I got quite a buzz on myself.’ [Ibid.] 1262: Lloyd was pouring the gin freehand, and Whitney had a nice buzz on.
[US]R. Price Breaks 237: I get a little buzz on [...] and I can stare at a goddamn beer glass.
[US]S. King Christine 424: The way he sometimes goosed her when he got a buzz on.
[US]Source Nov. 161: Even Grandma was getting her buzz on.
[US]L. Lungaro The 3-0 309: They popped open a couple of beers and were getting quite a buzz on.

2. (orig. US) to be slightly intoxicated from drugs.

[US]South Wester Reporter: Cases Argued 260 2/1: Having taken any codeine before, he could have probably got a ‘buzz’ on — kind of a slight drunk with half a grain of codeine.
[UK]T. Keyes All Night Stand 123: I get a very nice buzz on the two times I get hold of it.
[UK]P. Theroux Family Arsenal 72: You got a buzz on.
kill someone’s buzz (v.) (also stomp on someone’s buzz)

(US campus) to depress someone, to destroy someone’s enjoyment or pleasure, to disappoint someone.

[US] P. Munro Sl. U.
[US]Eble Campus Sl. Oct. 5: stomp on someone’s buzz – put a damper on one’s good time or pleasure: ‘That pop quiz in English really stomped on my buzz’.
[US]T. Dorsey Hurricane Punch 177: He’s killing my storm buzz!
on the buzz (adj.)

busy, excited.

[US]C.E. Piesbergen Overseas with an Aero Squadron 60: John made quite a racket around the supply department, where he was always ‘on the buzz’.
[UK]‘Sapper’ Final Count 799: I’ve just come from the War Office, and they’re somewhat on the buzz.
put the buzz on (v.)

(US) to pressurize, to bribe.

[US]C. Coe Hooch! 120: I think he’s puttin’ the buzz on Swinnerton for dough. [Ibid.] 167: This rat was puttin’ the buzz on you fer dough. You know he had your number!
[US]Hostetter & Beesley It’s a Racket! 221: buzz—To interview; also in the sinister meaning of visiting and intimidating someone, especially with the ultimate purpose of extorting money, as ‘to put the buzz on.’.
[US]Proc. All-Ohio Safety Congress 615: I do not mean to put the buzz on the fellow that had the accident, to put him on the spot.
[US]Billboard 23 May 19/4: [Irving] Berlin put the buzz on the War Department to give temporary furloughs to some 20 or 25 songpluggers now in khaki.
[US]H. Kane Corpse for Christmas (2012) n.p.: How do you like that guy? Putting the buzz on me for two hundred G’s.
rape someone’s buzz (v.) [rape v. (2)]

(US campus) to put a damper on someone’s pleasure.

[US]Eble Campus Sl. Oct.
[US]Eble Sl. and Sociability 55: In the expression rape my buzz, buzz is generalized from the ‘pleasant euphoric feeling caused by drinking a small amount of alcohol’ to a generally happy or pleasant feeling; as in ‘My dad phoned this morning and raped my buzz’.

In exclamations

buzzkill!

see separate entry.

SE in slang uses

In compounds

buzz-box (n.) [the sound of the engine]

an automobile.

[US]Arizona Republican (Phoenix, AZ) 10 Dec. 22/3: Mother, thee knows thy scriptures, but thee knows nothing about a buzz box.
[UK]‘Sapper’ Bulldog Drummond 216: How long will it take me to get the old buzz-box to Laidley Towers?
[US]Eve. Public Ledger (Phila., PA) 28 Aug. 27/1: He constrained himself to use Bill’s services with the ‘buzz-box’.
[US](con. 1930s) R. Barber Night They Raided Minsky’s (1968) 306: Instruction book for buzz-box.
buzz buggy (n.) [the sound of the engine + buggy n.2 (1)]

1. (US) an automobile, esp. a cheap one.

[US]Wash. Times (DC) 29 May 9/3: One thing at which I insist upon drawing the line now is racing on tracks not fit for automobiles [...] I figured out about one thousand ways in which a buzz-buggy might bump into bits.
[US]Reformatory Press (Iowa) 30: Next morning I went down town and soaked my Waterbury, got the buzz buggy and a pair of goggles, called for Gladys, and away we went.
[[US]Pop. Mechanics Dec. 872/1: [report on adding a propellor to an automobile to increase the speed] The method of changing an automobile into a ‘buzz buggy’ is clearly shown in the photograph].
[US]‘Hugh McHugh’ You Should Worry 44: Then the Buzz Buggy turned around and barked at them, and with an excited wag of its tail scooted for home.
[US]T.A. Dorgan in Zwilling TAD Lex. (1993) 23: She was fond of you too eh — She offered you her 90 horse power buzz buggy and diamond rings did she not.
[US]Progressive Grocer 1 60/2: I sold a man ten gallons of gas for his buzz-buggy and gave him coal oil by mistake.
[US]Beekeepers’ Item May 90/2: Henry Ford makes a buzz-buggy which fifty million Americans understand so well that they teach it tricks like climbing trees and jumping puddles.
[US] (ref. to 1915) Wentworth & Flexner DAS.

2. in attrib. use of sense 1.

[US]Medical Insurance 36 346/2: Young Doctor — That patient has St. Vitus’ dance, hasn’t he? Old Doctor — No. He has ‘the buzz-buggy twitch,’ caused by dodging autos.
buzz-car (n.)

(N.Z.) an automobile.

[NZ]N.Z. Truth 4 July 4/6: An elegantly appointed buzz-car pulled up at his joint.
[US]C.E. Beals Passaconaway in the White Mountains 298: He saw a ‘blue-coat nip a buzz-car’ (auto) because it did not wait for the pedestrians to pass.
buzzwagon (n.) [the noise]

an automobile.

[US]R. McCardell Conversations of a Chorus Girl 68: One who will take you to the pony ring in a big red buzz wagon.
[US]K. McGaffey Sorrows of a Show Girl Ch. xvii: I landed this buzz wagon out of a ten dollar pike bet.
[US]J. London Valley of the Moon (1914) 23: We’re the real goods, Saxon an’ me, if anybody should ride up on a buzz-wagon an’ ask you.
[US]F. Packard Adventures of Jimmie Dale (1918) I vi: When I’m ridin’ in me private buzz wagon, Wowzer, youse stick around.
[US]Ade Hand-made Fables 4: [They] were piling into the high-powered Buzz-Wagons for a Spin out to the Home for Polite Souses.
[US]J. Mitchell McSorley’s Wonderful Saloon (2001) 61: If all the perverted ingenuity which was put into making buzz-wagons had only gone into improving the breed of horses.
[US]Wentworth & Flexner DAS.