Green’s Dictionary of Slang

(orig. N.Z. milit.) to lose emotional control.

1939–45		Expressions and Sayings 2NZEF (Nat. Archiv. TS WAIL DA 420/1) Do the Scone (or bun) Lose the temper-panic [DNZE].
1950		‘The Sarge’ Excuse My Feet 128: ‘O.K.! O.K.! don’t do your bun,’ he answered [DNZE].
1955		B.J. Cameron Collection (TS July) n.p.: do one’s block do one’s bun do one’s lolly (v) To get excited, lose one’s head [DNZE].
1960		B. Crump A Good Keen Man 76: Jock did his bun properly. ‘So my money’s not good enough, eh mate?’ he snarled at the driver.
1965		B. Crump ‘Here And There’ in Best of Barry Crump (1974) 171: I don’t suppose we can blame him for doing his bun.
1980		L. Leland Kiwi-Yankee Dict. 32: Do your bun or do your scone: is to blow your fuse. This is a temper tantrum but is less general and more directional than to throw a wobbly. One does one’s bun at someone.
1988		McGill Dict. of Kiwi Sl. 23/1: bun phr. do your bun lose your temper; eg ‘Hey, no need to do your bun, Milt. You’ll get your money.’.
1993		Eve. Post (Wellington) 9 July 13: A Wellington fisherman...has said he ‘did his bun’ when he found out the fish receivers had rejected some of his catch [DNZE].
2003		McGill Reed Dict. of N.Z. Sl. [as cit. 1988].

(US) an effete young man who attends smart tea parties and charms old ladies.

1922		Appleton Post-Crescent (WI) 29 Apr. 7/2: Flapper Dictionary bun duster – A Piker who frequents teas and other entertainments, without ever trying to repay his social obligations.
1938		Des Moines Register (IA) 6 Mar. 14/4: A student or pofessor who spends a lot of time going to faculty teas is a ‘bun-duster’.
2002		Merrian-Webster Dict. 🌐 Other words used to describe the same less-than-he-man included angel child, ballroom golfer, bun-duster, crumb-gobbler, crumb-snatcher, crumpet-muncher [...].

a third-rate feast, where even the buns are not enough to make one full.

1909

J. Ware Passing Eng. of the Victorian Era.

a tea party, esp. with image of children struggling for sticky buns; any party.

1865		Cornish Teleg. 8 Mar. 3/6: An evening party is facetiously a ‘bun-fight’.
1890		Dead Bird (Sydney) 8 Mar. 5/3: The whole town has been out to a bun fight or ginger-beer scramble.
1899		St James’s Gaz. (London) 20 Apr. 4/1: Even a bun-fight is hard to organize among people who squabble so much.
1907		London Dly News 12 Sept. 7/4: ‘There’s nuthin we love more’n a teetotal bun-fight, and seein’ the dear little kiddies a guzzlin’.
1917		Motherwell Times 5 Jan. 2/4: Winners [...] to have [...] a medal which is to be handed over at a representative bun-fight.
1923		Ednburgh Eve. News 30 Apr. 4/5: ‘Varsity Bun-Fights’ [...] The students [...] council has decided to hold an afternoon ‘tea-fight’.
1928		R. Campbell Wayzgoose 7: This phenomenon [the wayzgoose] occurs annually in S.A. It combines the functions of a bun-fight, an Eisteddfod and an Olympic contest .
1934		T. Wood Cobbers 10: Then they’ll amount to politenesses and bun-fights – we’re a hospitable race.
1943		Coventry Eve. Teleg. 16 Apr. 5/2: ‘I have other things to do beside wasting my time coming to bun fights.’ [...] ‘You must not refer to the ceremony as a bun-fight’.
1958		H.E. Bates Darling Buds of May (1985) 108: They tell me you practically organized this whole bun-fight singlehanded.
1967		Stage (London) 16 Mar. 24/4: The hilarious ‘bun-fight’ finale.
1971		N. Armfelt Catching Up 106: I’ll leave you two to clear up this bun fight.
1979		J. Morrow Confessions of Proinsias O’Toole 163: O’Driscoll visited me on his way to an ecclesiastical bun-fight in Maynooth.
1982		Barr & York Sloane Ranger Hbk 158: bun-fight n. Crowded party where you have to fight to get something to eat.
1983		Stage (London) 18 Aug. 2/4: The theatre had a special cake made [...] and invited all the staff to the bun-fight.
1999		Indep. on Sun. Culture 26 Sept. 10: A man who spent his time stuffing himself at endless roast beef dinners and literary bunfights.
2000		Guardian Guide 25–31 Mar. 6: Their coverage of the latest corporate bunfight or ruckus over property boundaries.

(UK Und.) public relief.

1941

V. Davis Phenomena in Crime 211: She has had recourse to the ‘bun-house’ (public relief).

(US) a coffeehouse.

1895

E. Townsend Chimmie Fadden and Other Stories 244: I took my potential scoop to a coffee-house – a ‘bun-joint’ in his slang.

a teetotaller; thus bun-punching adj., teetotal.

1921		N&Q 12 Ser. IX 424: Bun-Strangler. Teetotaller.
1933		(con. WWI) F. Richards Old Soldiers Never Die (1964) 119: If a teetotaller he was known as a ‘char wallah’, ‘bun-puncher’ or ‘wad-shifter.’ [Ibid.] 207: A bloody bun-punching swine.

(N.Z.) a person who delivers lunch and snacks around offices.

2003

McGill Reed Dict. of N.Z. Sl. 38: bunrunner Lunch and snack deliverer around offices. 1990s.

a tea party or tea meeting, also attrib., implying religiosity, teetotalism.

1865		Western Dly Press 26 Jan. 3/2: [...] what the vulgar have chosen to designate as as ‘tea fight and muffin struggle’.
1875		Sheffield Dly Teleg. 17 Apr. 2/5: The difference is about the same as that between a ‘tea fight’ and a ‘muffin struggle’.
1881		N.Z. Observer (Auckland) 15 Jan. 169/2: Mrs. N. [...] had developed an ardent desire to be at a Sunday-school picnic [...] presiding over the ‘bun and sandwich scuffle’.
1885		Bulletin (Sydney) 3 Jan. 13/2: A Shroud scribe, whose forte is ‘muffin struggle’ reports, says that ballet girls, like babies, should be attired in long clothes.
1895		Coburg Leader (Vic.) 13 July 1/6: At the Coburg bun struggle Bundie got ina crush.
1899		R. Whiteing No. 5 John Street 53: She wants yer to show up at a sort o’ bun struggle in ’er room.
1900–10		Stephens & O’Brien Materials for a Dict. of Aus. Sl. [unpub. ms.] 32: BUN-STRUGGLE: a tea meeting or tea party.
1902		Bulletin (Sydney) 5 Jul. 14/2: At a recent tea-scramble, a fortune-teller’s tent was the attraction of the day.
1904		Sydney Sportsman (Surry Hills, NSW) 3 Aug. 3/5: They were coming in on a suburban race train, and somehow the little bun struggle crowd got mixed with the race crowd.
1906		Hull Dly Mail 5 Dec. 2/4: The muffin struggle that we intended giving last week [...] is postponed until Thursday.
1910		Sun. Times (Perth) 31 July 2nd sect. 12/5: The opening opf the session [...] partakes of the sorriest features of the sham-fight, the circus, the bun-worry, and the bargain-sale.
1914		Sun. Times (Perth) 29 Mar. 8/4: The ‘corset parade’ might have been exhibited with perfect safety at a Y.M.C.A. bun-struggle.
1926		Western Morn. News 16 Dec. 7/6: [headline] Bath Tea Scramble. Mayor whose Guests were 6,000 Too Many.
1953		J. Franklyn Cockney 284: ‘Bun struggle,’ ‘tea fight’, and other variants, though possibly cockney in origin, are now general in their application.
1953		T.A.G. Hungerford Riverslake 109: Put that stuff back in the kitchen, Mancin – we’re not running a blasted bun-rush here, you know.
1960, 1975		(ref. to 1920s)Wentworth & Flexner DAS.

the mouth.

1984

Partridge DSUE (8th edn) 156/1: C.20.

1. (orig. milit.) a tea party; also attrib. (the implication is of ‘soft’ liberalism).

1890		Dead Bird (Sydney) 28 June 1/3: At a Sunday-school bun-worry a teacher noticed a little boy who sat glowering at his plate of bread and butter.
1908		Sun. Times (Perth) 5 Jan. 4/4: It should have nothing to do with Booth schemes, Zumini schemes, or bun-worry societies of any form.
1910		‘G.B. Lancaster’ Jim of the Ranges 3: ‘Some bun-worry of their own,’ he said.
1920		‘Sapper’ Bulldog Drummond 219: I remember in my extreme youth being worse than passing sick by those bushes [...] after a juvenile bun-worry.
1923		‘Bartimeus’ ‘In the Dog-Watches’ in Seaways 24: Two bun-worries in three days is about the limit.

2. (Aus./N.Z.) a general jollification.

1984

Partridge DSUE (8th edn) 156/1: late C.19–20.

see separate entry.