bull n.1
1. in the context of aggressive sexuality.
(a) a womanizer, a successful philanderer.
![[UK]](/static/img/flags/uk.png "United Kingdom") | Titus Andronicus IV iii: The Bull, being gall’d, gave Aries such a knock / That down fell both the Ram’s horns in the court. | |
| Henry IV Pt 2 II ii: From god to a bull! a heavy descension! | |
| (trans.) Gargantua and Pantagruel (1927) I Bk I 203: Fat chuffcats, smell-feast knockers, doltish gulls, / Out-strouting cluster-fists, contentious bulls. | |
| Assignation III i: ben.: Faith, lady, I could not sleep one wink for dreaming of you lan.: Not sleep for dreaming? When the place falls, you shall be bull master general at Court. | |
| letter in Vieth Attribution in Restoration Poetry (1963) 244: You and I were ne’er so bold to turn the fair Cuffle when she fled us into a tree, not dreaming she would grow as big as one of Evelyn’s oaks, nor ourselves into bulls when we carried the two draggle-tailed nymphs one bitter frosty night over the Thames to Lambeth. | |
| Harris’s List of Covent-Garden Ladies 52: She was bred a dairy maid [...] but an ensign in a marching regiment took her from milking the cow, and taught her to stroke the bull. | |
| Satirist (London) 1 Apr. 109/3: [N]ear the foot of the new London Bridge, is the following quaint window advertisement:—‘Young ladies taught genteelly, and boarded, by A. Bull’. | |
![[US]](/static/img/flags/us.png "United States") | Whip & Satirist of NY & Brooklyn (NY) 16 July n.p.: the whip wants to know If the Goshen bull come out to Church, or to see the ladies . | |
| The Simple Tale of Suzan Aked 122: He must be a splendid performer, a perfect stallion, a grand bull. | |
| [ | | Nocturnal Meeting 49: Scarecly had I got into bed than he fairly rushed me, like a bull]. |
![[Aus]](/static/img/flags/aus.png "Australia") | Aus. Vulgarisms [t/s] 7: bull: A male noted for his amorous exploits. | |
| in Erotic Muse (1992) 302: If all the young girls were like cows in the pasture, / I’d be a bull and I’d fill them with rapture. | |
| Runnin’ Down Some Lines 151: You got cock for d’ rooster, pussy for d’ tomcat, and you got dat heifer for d’ bull. It take two to tango! | |
| Day of the Dog 94: You just wait til Rebecca catches you, ya double-dealin’ ole bull. | |
| (con. 1943) Coorparoo Blues [ebook] ‘[T]hem young bucks are two-minute shooters anyway. The old bull’s got a bit more lift-power’. |
(b) an aggressively masculine lesbian.
| Scarlet Pansy 137: An anomalous-looking masculine woman, Miss Bull-Mawgan, and her inseperable friend, Elsie Dike. | |
| in ‘The Jiver’s Bible’ in Orig. Hbk of Harlem Jive. | |
| Homosexual in America 104: The cantargot includes such terms for the Lesbian as dike (or dyke), stud, and bull (more frequently bull-dagger). | |
| Girls on the Rampage 168: In her homosexuality with other women she was invariably the ‘bull’. | |
| (con. 1949) True Confessions (1979) 206: ‘Was she really a les?’ ‘A real bull, Horace.’. | |
| Runnin’ Down Some Lines 159: There are several vernacular expressions for a lesbian: bull, bulldike, bulldagger. | |
| Rebecca’s Dict. of Queer Sl. 🌐 bull — 1) (n) short for bulldyke or bulldagger. | |
| Fabulosa 290/1: bull a masculine woman. |
(c) (US/W.I., also buller) a macho male homosexual.
| letter 13 Sept. in Joint (1972) 114: Bulls have big ears. | |
| Among Thieves 263: Everyone knew that all guards were sadists, and probably bull queers in the bargain. | |
| Christine 403: Big bull queers in the prison yard looking for fresh meat. | |
 | ‘Trini Dict.’ on Ultima’s Ultimate Rambling Page 🌐 Buller: Slang for gay man. | |
| Grandmother’s Erotic Folktales 77: They wanted to know what do we mean to say the Syrian was an old buller? Well Mrs Carmichael smiled and she said Mary, and I [...] said jump-over-the-fence, and Mrs Carmichael said softman, and I said borrow-the-Bishop’s crosier. | |
| Carnival 13: Let the neighbours peg us for a couple of bullers. Me ain’t bothered. |
2. false hair, worn by a woman [? resembling the hair between a bull’s horns].
| Dict. Canting Crew. | |
| , , | | Classical Dict. of the Vulgar Tongue . |
| Lex. Balatronicum. | |
| Grose’s Classical Dict. of the Vulgar Tongue. |
3. in the context of the animal’s strength and power.
(a) (US) a railway locomotive.
| Vocabulum 32: ‘This place is all on fire; I must pad like a bull or the cops will nail me,’ every body is after me in this place; I must run like a locomotive or the officers will arrest me. | |
| Secrets of the Great City 359: The Detectives’ Manual gives a glossary of this language, from which we take the following specimens [...] Bull. – A locomotive. |
(b) (Aus.) a casual wharf labourer who is given preferential treatment by the foreman; thus bull system, employment practices on the docks whereby the men line up for work every morning and the foremen pick them for a day’s work.
| Cairns Post 12 Dec. 5/1: Charles Pla, a waterside worker, in giving evidence, said that he had earned £9 at the Cairns wharves [...] The ‘bull’ system lowered the mental and moral physique of the men. | |
| Newcastle Morn. Herald (NSW) 28 Apr. 10/6: The present ‘Bull’ system [...] produces graft and corruption to say nothing of dissension between members of the federation. | |
| Courier-Mail (Brisbane) 23 Sept. 14/8: The 'bull system' so much decried by employers in the past. | |
| Newcastle Morn. Herald (NSW) 6 Nov. 4/3: Union officials claim that under the ‘bull’ system preference Is almost always given to strongly-built wharf labourers. Mr. Healy said that the ‘bull’ system was a relic of the Jungle laws which operated on the waterfront In the early days. | |
| Aus Qly 25 61: Men suffered the indignities and hardships of the ‘shape-up’ outside the dock gates hoping, often unsuccessfully, that they might get work, and the ‘bull’ system where employers played one gang off against another. | |
| Hungry Mile 80: The employers were often responsible for [...] indulging in illegal trafficking of ‘bulls’ to suit their own ends, or meet the request of other companies for early release of ‘bulls’ for new jobs starting [GAW4]. | |
| Sydney Morn. Herald 22 May 2: Under the ‘bull’ system, wharfies had to front the stevedore, and only the ‘bulls’ (company men who would sling to the foreman) could be sure of catching his eye [GAW4]. | |
| Weevils in Flour 244: Anyone who could get into a foreman’s No. 1 or No. 2 gang was assured of a reasonable living. These were the bulls. The rest of you had to take the leavings [AND]. | |
| Militant 71: In the cattle yard, down on the wharf / Where only the ‘bulls’ can get a go, / There isn’t a chance to get picked up, / Unless you’re in the know. |
(c) (US campus) an academically successful person.
| et al. CUSS. | |
| in Psychotic Reactions (1988) 33: Dope out with the gang, grass, speed, reds, Romilar, who cares, some frat bull’s gonna buy us beer. |
(d) (US Und.) a veteran, a long-term convict.
| ‘Catheads [...] and Cho-Cho Sticks’ in Abernethy Bounty of Texas (1990) 199: bull, n. – a guy who can withstand punishment. | |
| (con. 1949) True Confessions (1979) 95: An old bull, a lifer, had tried to ram him in the ass. | |
| Love Is a Racket 353: Some badass bulls will smack you in the mouth, knock your teeth out so’s you have to suck him like it or not. |
(e) a self-assured, poised person.
| Campus Sl. Spring. |
4. (also bull-meat) any form of meat as served in an institution, e.g., prison, the US Army; cite 1894 refers to a boxer’s training camp ration.
| , | | Dict. of Modern Sl. etc. |
| Wilds of London (1881) 53: ‘One chow’ (or chaw), [is worth] ‘a twelve and a bull’ (a 12 oz. loaf and a 5 oz. ration of meat). | |
| N. Devon Jrnl 8 Feb. 7/2: [from The Echo] Thus from the French ‘bouilli’ we probably get the prison slang term bull for a ration of meat . | |
| Mirror of Life 15 Dec. 11/3: There would have been no champion [...] had not Sergeant Green seen that the lad had his half a pound of ‘bull’ per diem when training. | |
| Sun. Washington Globe (DC) 4 May 1/5: The inmates of St Elizabeth are fed on texas bull meat. | |
| Voice of the People (New Orleans, LA) 8 Jan. 2/3: They are landed in his hotel [i.e. prison] where he gets 55 cents a day for feeding human beings a loaf of bread and a pound of stenchy bull-meat every 24 hours. | |
| Wadsworth Gas Attack 27 Nov. 23: Bull, gravy, dogs, and sinkers / Are my long suit. | |
| Criminal Sl. (rev. edn). | |
| et al. DAUL 36/1: Bull. [...] 2. (P) Any kind of meat on the prison menu. | |
| Prison Sl. 66: Bull also Mountain Goat Old term for meat. |
5. (US) an ox.
| (con. 1875) Early Days on the Western Slope of Colorado 84: None too willingly did our cow-ponies submit to be thus used as ‘packers’ [...] We had the time of our lives to get the ‘bulls’ to pull even the empty schooner to the top. |
6. (US) a buffalo nickel (on which the animal is engraved).
| Wise-crack Dict. 15: Throw the bull—Lend a nickel. |
In derivatives
male sexual excitement.
| the Devil rides outside 478: ‘Why [...] must you search frantically for the woman [...] who excites you to bullishness?’. |
In compounds
1. a masculine lesbian; thus bull-dagging n. and adj., engaging in lesbian love-making.
| Homosexual in America 104: The cantargot includes such terms for the Lesbian as dike (or dyke), stud, and bull (more frequently bull-dagger). | |
| 5000 Adult Sex Words and Phrases 32: bull-dicker (Vulg.) n. A Bulldagger; a female Homosexual. | |
| Tales (1969) 3: Bulldaggers hiding their pussies. | |
| ‘Sporting Life’ in et al. Life (1976) 162: There are teen-age hipsters and bull-dagging sisters, / All mixed up in one bowl. | |
| Daddy was a Number Runner 25: There was a rumor that Saralee was a bulldagger. I don’t know if it was true or not but she was certainly rough enough to be a man. | |
| Queens’ Vernacular 38: bull-dagger [...] Syn: bull bitch [dyke]. | |
| Runnin’ Down Some Lines 159: There are several vernacular expressions for a lesbian: bull, bulldike, bulldagger [Ibid.] 231: bulldagger, bulldike Lesbian (often associated with a particularly masculine acting female). [Ibid.] 234: dagger Lesbian. | |
| Drylongso 212: In school we had bulldaggers, fags, some of everything. | |
| Sl. U. 65: dagger homosexual female. | |
| (con. early 1950s) L.A. Confidential 161: You know the bull daggers at the Woman’s Jail? | |
| (con. 1910s) Livin’ the Blues 36: Anybody with both male and female characteristics was a morfydyke, and a bulldagger screwed other women just like a man. | |
| (con. 1940s-50s) Boots of Leather (2014) 7: The term ‘bull-dagger’ was used by hostile straights as an insult. | |
| Workin’ It 237: She got some bulldagging butch friends. She see bulldagging-ass Bev every day. | |
| Rebecca’s Dict. of Queer Sl. 🌐 bull — 1) (n) short for bulldyke or bulldagger. | |
| Rope Burns 181: They wanted to see how the old man would do against the big bulldagger ho. | |
| ‘Bulldagger Stole My Bitch’ 🎵 Some girls’ll do it, some girls don’t / A bulldaggin’ hoe will do what your boyfriend won’t. | |
| (con. 1950s) My Lives 109: Only bulldaggers are that masculine. | |
| email to youtube 🌐 I was taken on a ‘virtual lesbian experience’ Wow! After that, I wished I was a Bull-dagger! |
2. an effeminate male homosexual.
| Burgess Papers in First Sexual Revolution (1993) 95: Some of them you cannot tell from a woman if they never have whiskers or mustash. They take it in the ass, French you, like to be called girls’ names and if they like you will give you money, let you stay with them like man and wife. When they want to get married they go to a bull diggar’s [sic] ball, a bulldiggars marries them put a mark on the fag, and they tells her next husband how many times she has been married. |
1. (US gay) a lesbian who uses her clitoris to mimic the penis as in face-to-face heterosexual intercourse.
| Queens’ Vernacular 38: bull-dicker (fr sl dick = cock) the active lesbian whose extended clitoris enables her to fuck in a face-to-face position imitating heterosexual coitus. |
2. see bull-dyker n.
see bull-dyke n.
see bull-dyker n.
see bull-dyking n.
see separate entries.
(US) a firearm configuration in which the action (or mechanism) and magazine are located behind the trigger.
| Boy from County Hell 29: [A] bullpup AK-47 engraved with a Crusader’s Cross,. |
see sense 1c above.
SE in slang uses
In compounds
see separate entries.
(W.I.) a thug, a bully, an aggressive man; thus bull-bucking adj.
![[WI]](/static/img/flags/wi.png "West Indies") | ‘Duppy Conqueror’ 🎵 So if you a bull-bucka, Let me tell you this – I’m a duppy conqueror. | |
| Female Sexuality in Lyrics of Bob Marley and Shabba Ranks 2: The lovey-dovey, peace-making Bob Marley that Willis fabricates bears absolutely no resemblance to the incendiary, bull-bucking, duppy-conquering, Tuff Gong Rastaman. | |
| Indigo Rose 261: Lord, I must pay that bull bucka his money. Must pay him soon. |
1. (US) margarine.
| Dly Press & Dakotan (Yankton, SD) 5 Dec. 1/1: The butter trade is very much agitated because of the manufacture and sale of large quantities of oleomargarine or ‘bull butter’. | |
| Peck’s Sunshine 287: Reading the Chicago Times article on Oleomargerine, [sic], or Bull Butter. | |
| Chicago Trib. 13 May 3/2: If they personally prefer bull and boar butter to the genuine dairy article, no one can have any objection to their eating it. | |
| Jrnl Royal Statistical Soc. 55 285: About one-third of this importation was margarine, which in America was called ‘bull butter’. | |
| Two Argonauts in Spain 144: There are several kinds of butter in Spain [...] also the ‘bull-butter’ which comes in tins, mainly from America. | |
| Deseret Farmer (Provo, UT) 16 Jan. 8/3: The process grade is supplied by the funny stuff coming from Kansas [...] Uncle Sam is hunting the bull butter fiends. | |
| Gazette-Times (Heppner, OR) 19 Feb. 11/4: These figures apply to but one creamery [...] in the town, to say nothing of the bull butter and process factories. | |
| Time 10 May 20: Farm-area Congressmen had long sneered at margarine as ‘bull-butter.’. |
2. (US campus) nonsense.
| Campus Sl. Nov. 2: bullbutter – expression of disbelief or disagreement: ‘Robert Earl Keen is a better country singer than Pat Green.’ ‘Bullbutter! Pat Green is the best.’. | |
| Devil’s Own Day 25: You so full of bull butter, baby. I ain’t takin’ no cotton to no Debbil or no Ku Klux. |
see separate entries.
(US) a camp of outdoor workers, e.g. on an oil pipeline.
| Amer. Mercury Oct. 168: The place we picked was an old hobo bull-camp [HDAS]. | |
| (con. 1889) O’Fallon Historical Society (Baker, MT) 🌐 Dave continued working on the TD until 1889 when, having enough sheep to start his own ranch, he moved to the head of Pine Creek, locating his home ranch here, a former bull camp of the TD. |
(S.Afr.) a mugger.
![[SA]](/static/img/flags/sa.png "South Africa") | Blame me on Hist. 67: We never hesitated to use violence against the tsotsis, the bull-catchers, who attacked, robbed and stripped people. |
see bulchin n.
cream gravy.
| [ | | ‘Argot of the Vagabond’ in AS II:9 390: Country gravy has a very graphic name, but it is forbidden to print it. It may be remarked that it alludes to the seminal discharge of a bull]. |
| Amer. Thes. Sl. 100: Gravy: Bull shit, come, [...] gism. |
see separate entries.
(Irish) tedious, laborious.
![[Ire]](/static/img/flags/ire.png "Ireland") | Tarry Flynn (1965) 35: ‘How did you get on the day, Tarry?’ ‘Nearly finished.’ ‘Ye shouldn’t try to do a bull-dragging day. Isn’t there more days than years.’. |
(US) a peasant, a farmer.
| N.O. Republican (LA) 12 Feb. 1/5: A bull driver at the stock landing [...] undertook to drive to a slaughter-house a rampant beef without the use of the lasso. | |
| Arizona Sentinel (Yuma, AZ) 27 Sept. 6: [We] were about to pull the trigger, when [...] ‘gee-whoa-ha! come back hea!’ felk upon our ears, and we felt good enough to jump out and hug that bull-driver. | |
| Essex Co. Herald (Guildhall, VT) 2 Apr. 1/5: The hat is worn by the common people — the bull-drivers of Corea. | |
| Times (Richmond, VA) 31 Dec. 4/1: Texas cowboys expelled a drummer from a railroad train [...] because he had on a red necktie [...] Flaunting a red rag in the face of a bull driver has exactly the same effect that it does on the animal he drives. | |
| Wichita Dly Eagle (KS) 25 Mar. 12/5: If th wife of the bull-driver dies [...] you are told: ‘Cow-cow matrimona much malo’. | |
| Eve. World (NY) 29 May 2/1: As for Pikey, the bull driver [...] will show the people that he has been driving them like he used to drive around the slaughter-house. | |
| Bryan Dly Eagle (TX) 9 June 2/1: He cracks his whip above their heads with a dexterity equal to any ‘bull driver’. | |
| (con. c.1900) 1300 Words 7: Bull-driver—A rough farmer from the back country [DARE]. |
(US tramp) an empty passenger coach, either when standing in the yards or attached to a freight train.
| Amer. Tramp and Und. Sl. 40: bull fighter.–An empty passenger coach, usually when attached to a freight train or when standing idle in the yards. |
swagger, boastfulness, arrogance.
| Sl. and Its Analogues. |
1. cream gravy.
| [ | | ‘Argot of the Vagabond’ in AS II:9 390: Country gravy has a very graphic name, but it is forbidden to print it. It may be remarked that it alludes to the seminal discharge of a bull]. |
| in DARE. | |
| Color of Air 226: The morning meal is something in flour-gravy, which the kids call bull-fuck. |
2. custard.
| DSUE (8th edn) 150/2: Can, railroad-construction crews: since ca. 1910. |
3. vanilla pudding.
| Once a Marine xii: A creamy vanilla pudding was known as ‘Australian bull fuck.’ (Why Australian?) Mustard was always called ‘baby shit’. |
(UK Und.) a very credulous individual; thus bull-gander trap, a cardsharp.
| New and Improved Flash Dict. n.p.: Bull-gander a silly fellow who may easily be cheated; we plucked the bull-gander of every feather, we stript the fool of every shilling. [...] Bull-gander traps fellows who attend fairs, markets &c. for the purpose of deluding country farmers and others into making one of a card party. |
1. (US) a team of manual labourers; also attrib.
| Labor World (Duluth, MN) 3 Aug. 3/3: Here the ‘bull gang’ come into play, a body of ordinary laborers and young fellows, who are battered from pillar to post as needed. | |
| ‘Petroleum Iron Works Co. vs Bullington’ Oklahoma Supreme Court 🌐 It is further in evidence that said gang of workmen, working with the said Bullington, were being directed by a foreman known as the ‘Bull Gang Boss’. | |
| Women’s Enterprise (Baton Rouge, LA) 16 Dec. 10/2: These girls with their chaperons and the Bull gang were on their way to Ponr Vincent, La, where a camp was located. | |
| job ad. in Billboard 23 Mar.72/1: Want Ride Help [...] Also Help for Bull Gang to put up towers, arch and show fronts. | |
| Info. Circular 7798-7807 24: A group of unskilled laborers in the mine is known as the ‘bull gang.’ The bull gang transports supplies, constructs and maintains ditches [etc.]. | |
| Census of Pop. 1960 71: Bull-gang worker. | |
| Silence on the Shore 155: He had worked in a soap factory, as a temporary member of something he had called ‘the bull gang.’ The job had been a hard one, and dirty. | |
| (con. 1936) Canal Boatman 218: The tallying job led to a job in what was called the unloading or ‘bull gang.’ I helped unload boxcars containing raw materials. | |
| (ref. to 1945) in Brownwood High School Class of 1947 Newsletter #8 🌐 The Bull Gang went early to get things in shape for arriving troops. We worked on the water system, cleared brush, repaired the low water crossing, and in the summer of 1945 poured a concrete floor in the mess hall. | |
| Mother of Pearl 🌐 The ‘Bull Gang,’ a group of twenty-seven Negroes with varying degrees of mechanic skills, worked whatever the union said to work [...] Doing during their swing every low-down shitty job that needed doing, deep down where nobody else wanted to go. | |
| (ref. to 1931) West Texas Scouting Hist. 🌐 John P. Kilgore, Brownwood, remembers serving on the so called Bull Gang that first year. The Bull Gang went down several days before camp opened to help set things up. |
2. (Can./US prison) a gang of hardened, dangerous prisoners, used for manual labour.
| Eve. Star (Wash., DC) 18 Oct. 51/4: A gang which is numerically smaller, but whose duties are far more arduous, is the ‘bull gang’. This is composed of the largest and strongest men in thwe workhouse [...] The prisoner, a strong able-bodied man [...] was placed in the ‘bull-gang’. | |
| letter in Joint (1972) 14: It’s rugged, back-breaking labor on the bull gang. | |
| Cool Hand Luke (1967) 5: The Bull Gang is always put in the cage truck. | |
![[Can]](/static/img/flags/can.png "Canada") | Go-Boy! 43: The legendary Bull Gang, a segregated unit within the institution that harboured fifty or sixty of the toughest and most desperate prisoners in Canada. |
3. (US) members of an institution, e.g. a club or college, who perform odd jobs to supplement their income.
| Wash. Times (DC) 4 July 13/2: Potomac Boat Club’s entries [...] are in Philadeplhia today [...] with a large gathering of the ’bull gang’ from the club which will back them to the limit. | |
| Youtube 9 Jan. 🌐 Our Bull Gang is better than your Bull Gang and we have the video to prove it! Watch as the Boston College Bull Gang converts Conte Forum from an ice sheet to a basketball arena then back to hockey. |
4. (W.I.) plantation labourers who perform odd jobs.
| cited in Dict. Jam. Eng. (1980). |
see bull come
(US) the leader, the boss; thus bull goose loony, the maddest person.
| Walk on the Wild Side 85: You the bull-goose here? [...] I’m lookin’ for boat-work. | |
| One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest (2002) 18: Who’s the bull goose loony here? | |
| Chicken (2003) 49: The air’s filled with sex, and I’m the bullgooselooney chicken. | |
| Paul and Carl’s Daily Diatribe 28 Mar. 🌐 It is believed Psychotic Derangement is to be introduced as a requirement for public office; The former Mayor is expected to run for the position of Bull Goose Looney. |
(US) cream gravy.
| in PADS. |
see separate entries.
see separate entries.
a men-only party.
| Dict. of Sl., Jargon and Cant. | |
| Sl. and Its Analogues. |
see separate entry.
(US) very low quality, cheap liquor.
| (con. WWI) One Man’s Initiation: 1917 (1969) 11: Everybody is soused on the strong red [i.e. French] army wine — nicknamed Pinard (bull piss). | |
| Stand (1990) 824: If it came down to a choice between drinking Za-Rex and bullpiss, I’d have to sit down and think. | |
| Watch for Me on the Mountain 189: Tell the low-down, blood-suckin' pimp that bottled this bull piss to find a buffalo waller a little older. | |
| Boy Zone 51: You know I don’t drink that bull piss anyway. |
(US) a point of advantage or superiority.
| Westminster Gaz 27 Sept. 9/3: I am afraid that Lord Lansdowne has proved anything but a bull point to the House [OED]. | |
| Daily Mail 12 Oct. 7/2: The great bull point of our manufacturers is their reputation for quality . | |
| Times 14 Apr. 5/4: It is a bull point in his favour that the visitors [...] found him eminently satisfactory . |
(Aus./US) a bullock-driver (Aus.) or the driver of an ox-team (US); thus bull-punching.
| Bell’s Life in Sydney 30 Apr. 3/3: Thomas Rogers, described as a ‘bull prodder’, id est, an individual who drives cattle. | |
| Aus. Jrnl 5 May 569/1: The Bullock Driver [...] The specimens of the genus shepherd are as yet plentiful [...] but, alas! the famed ‘bull-puncher’ is rapidly becoming extinct. | |
| Terr. Enterprise 17 Aug. 3/1: All the time the punchers are flying from ox to ox, plying their sticks right and left [DA]. | |
| My Wife and I in Queensland 49: The bullpuncher, as bullock-drivers are familiarly called. | |
| Bulletin (Sydney) 28 Feb. 11/1: He was a new-chum cleric, and meeting a bullock team […] he enquired of the gentleman in charge: ‘Aw—you are, what I am told is called a bullock-driver, are you not?’ ‘Jest as y’ like,’ replied the other; ‘but it’s bull-punchers we call ’em here.’ [Ibid.] 11/2: ‘Well,’ said the puncher, ‘when th’ roads is good an’ things are goin’ straight, we’re no better nor wuss than most other people.’. | |
| Arizona Champion (Mohave Co., AZ) 21 Feb. 1/5: One of the bull-punching element, in no modest or delicate manner, declared [etc.]. | |
| Colonial Reformer III 245: When they was bull-punchers without credit for a bag of flour. | |
| Bulletin (Sydney) 16 June 14/2: Re ‘A.A.A.’s’ ‘bull-punchers’ [...]. If there is a bull in a team he will be a ‘leader’ or a ‘poler,’ and these, as a rule, are not flogged as are the ‘body’ beasts. ‘Leaders’ or ‘polers’ wanting whip or ‘belting over’ require too much blanky – even for a ‘puncher.’. | |
| Bulletin (Sydney) 7 July 14/3: A rare variety of bull-puncher wielded the ungainly whip on the old goldfields’ roads of Victoria’s roaring days. | |
| Aus. Felix (1971) 35: Stock-riders and bull-punchers rubbed shoulders with elegants in skirted coats. | |
| ‘Joe Williams’ in Whorehouse Bells Were Ringing (1995) 184: Like all other old bull-punchers I love my whiskey tod. | |
| Aus. Lang. 67: Here are a few of the names by which [the bullock driver] and his kind are known: bull puncher, bullocker, buffalo navigator, bovine puncher. | |
| (ref. to 1870) Trib. (Ilwaco, WA) 5 Aug. 🌐 The loudest sound in the woods, in those days [i.e. 1870], was the stentorian bellowing of the bullpuncher as he goaded and prodded the phlegmatic bulls. The bullpuncher invented his own type of profanity. It was colorful, roaring and powerful enough to sear the sides off the oxen. |
(US) a pistol.
| Forayers 97: I tink, Mass Willie, [...] dat you better hab dese little bullpups yer, onder you own han. | |
| First Fam’lies in the Sierras 51: ‘Gone for his two little bull-pups,’ said Stubbs. That was what the Parson called his silver-mounted derringers. | |
| [ | | Pittsburgh Dispatch (PA) 5 Mar. 4/8: In an Iowa murder case it was proven that [the witnesses] were so near-sighted that they could not tell a pistol from a bull-pup fifteen rods away]. |
(US) the driver of an ox-team.
| Sun (NY) 12 July 1/2: The Society is composed entirely of cattle drovers, or, as they are popularly termed, ‘bull pushers’. | |
| Chicago Trib. 14 May 7/4: But a few years ago, every hog-driver and ‘bull-pusher’ was armed with an implement of torture that would make the old Roman inquisitors ashamed of themselves [DA]. | |
| Rock Is. Argus (IL) 8 Mar. 1/3: A veritable ‘bull pusher’ he is indeed, with his short stick [...] to goad the cattle. | |
| Sun (NY) 26 Sept. 26/5: Officers of the steaker Ikbul [...] reey3eport that one of the ‘bull pushers’ taken out on the steamer [...] was a woman disguised as a man. | |
| Hawaian Star (Honolulu, HI) 18 Nov. 20/1: Take a strong physique, a strong stomach and a strong desire to get abroad, shake them up with strong language and steers in a strong ship, and you have the trans-Atlantic ‘bull-pusher’. |
(US black) sexual intercourse in the rear-entry position.
| Ebonics Primer at www.dolemite.com 🌐 bull ridin’ Definition: when in the ‘doggy style’ position, grab her hair. Then call that bitch by another name and see how long you can stay in... Example: Fuck that skank, after I broke her off bull ridin’ style that pigeon she stop comin’ around the crib. |
see separate entries.
(Aus.) a drink of water and an act of urination.
| On Coast 75: Bull’s breakfast: A drink of water and a piss. |
see separate entry.
a fig. symbol of cuckoldry; usu. as wear a/the bull’s feather, to be a cuckold; to be cuckolded.
| A Merry Play in Farmer Dramatic Writings (1905) 70: But then my wife so oft doth thither resort / That I fear she will make me wear a feather. | |
| Ram-Alley V i: Why my good father what should you do with a wife? Would you be crested? will you needs thrust your head In one of Vulcans Helmets? Will you perforce Wear a Citty cappe and a Court feather? | |
| Cheats V ii: Stick a bull’s feather in my cap! Make me a knight of the forked order! | |
![[Scot]](/static/img/flags/sco.png "Scotland") | ‘The Bulls Feather’ in Broadside Ballads No. 23: There’s nere a proud Gallant / that treads on Cows leather, / But may be Cornuted, and wear the Bulls Feather. | |
| Clarissa V 202: They may very probably adorn, as well as bestow, the bull’s feather. | |
| , , | | Classical Dict. of the Vulgar Tongue. |
| Lex. Balatronicum. | |
| Grose’s Classical Dict. of the Vulgar Tongue. | |
| in Roxburghe Ballads V:1 151: This not only indicated the ‘Bull’s Feather,’ of matrimonial mishap, but [...] was a nickname for the Compter prison. | |
| Vocabula Amatoria (1966) 4: accroc au mariage (faire un), To cuckold; ‘to plant the bull’s feather’. |
see bull-head n.2
(US) a police truncheon.
| Gang 153: About six of us went robbin’ government property on the railroads. A man with a bullshiner and a 45-automatic said ‘Stand!’. |
(Irish) a hostile glare.
| Goodbye to The Hill (1966) 101: As I got near the old Canon, who was a right crochety old bastard, he gave me a bull’s look. |
see separate entries.
a mass of curled or frizzled hair worn over the forehead by a woman.
| Lat. Dict. n.p.: Anthiæ, Bull-tour, a woman’s forelock, frouze. |
see separate entries.
In phrases
(US) the boss, the leader, or someone who poses as such.
| Hist. Kansas 377: [He was] a strict disciplinarian, respected by bis soldiers, by whom he was termed ‘Old Bull of the Woods,’ on account of his gruffhess. | |
| Americanisms 250: Sherman was known as Mad Tom, and Sumner as the Bull of the Woods. | |
| Industrial Worker (Spokane, WA) 12 June 4/1: The ‘bull of the woods,’ Oscar Enloc, was in Bellingham [...] hunting a new crew [DA]. | |
| ‘Jargon of the Und.’ in DN V 440: Bull of the woods, The boss of a lumber camp. | |
| Jive and Sl. n.p.: Bull of the Woods ... College prexy, Dean. | |
| Woods Words 21: Bull of the woods – a. A big man, a tough hombre. b. A boss logger, superintendant, or logging manager. c. A top hand. | |
| , | | DAS. |
| Judas Tree (1983) 27: Around here, I’m known as bull o’ the woods. |
1. (Aus.) used of a fight in the open air, or elsewhere than an official venue.
| Sun. Times (Perth) 7 Apr. 13/8: An excited hammer-and-drill man [...] stood up at the conclusion of the 20th round, and challenged the [cinema] screen to fight the winner for drinks for the house, either in the ring or out where the bull feeds next morning. | |
| Laverton Mercury (WA) 28 Dec. 1/5: Two of the Soakers, who had not been agreeing of late, brought things to a climax by going out where the bull feeds. | |
| Koroit Sentinel (Vic.) 7 Dec. 3/3: War Words [...] An invitation to ‘hop out where the bull feeds’ was no more than a suggestion that a squabble should be settled where there was more room than the trench afforded. | |
| Sydney Sportsman (Surry Hills, NSW) 4 July 8/5: Pat is pining for another chance with Dillon, and [...] will fight him anywhere, anyhow and for anything he likes at any time, or if he prefers it, ‘for a bellyful out where the bull feeds’. | |
| Narromine News (NSW) 27 Nov. 2/3: Here some of the younger members howled him down and after offering to take any of them on out where the bull feeds, and chuck in the difference in age, Long Dan retired from the meeting. | |
| Argus (Melbourne) 18 Jan. 4/2: The king-hitter may not have time to get in his favourite punch [...] so he invites him out where the bull feeds. In a city pub it would be the back lane. |
2. (Aus.) in the Outback.
| Townsville Dly Bulletin (Qld) 16 Apr. 11/5: I do not think it advisable to write anything that would be sure to offend a large number of really decent fellows, who were so unfortunate as to meet a better man than themselves ‘out where the bull feeds’. | |
| Townsville Dly Bulletin (Qld) 14 Oct. 4/4: Trot your horse out where the bull feeds, and within five minutes he’II be as quiet as one of those mrery-go-round yarramans when I’m finished with him. |
In exclamations
see bullshit! excl.
an excl. of disbelief.
| letter 14 Aug. in Leader (2000) 594: One gran corrida de toros has easily sufficed to turn me into an afficionado. Yes, in a bull’s arse it has. I can’t imagine anything to beat it for childishness, brutality and boredom. |