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Green’s Dictionary of Slang

bugs adj.

[have bugs (in the head) under bug n.⁴]

(orig. US) crazy, eccentric; also as n., insanity.

1602		J. Cooke How A Man May Choose A Good Wife From A Bad Act III: ami.: My sweet Mary, not these drugges, Do send me to the Infernall bugges, But thy vnkindness. [...] yon. ar.: Hold man I say, what wil the mad man do.
1903		T.A. Dorgan in Zwilling TAD Lex. (1993) 21: Oo!! Gee dat’s [Ed. — a tooth] a big one. De gas put me ‘bugs’.
1917		R. Lardner ‘Carmen’ in Gullible’s Travels 22: As soon as they get wise that the both o’ them’s bugs over the same girl their relations to’rds each other becomes strange.
1927		(con. WW1) P. MacDonald Patrol 92: Strike me a flarin’ ruby . . . ’E’s bugs . . . abserlootely moost!’.
1928		J. Callahan Man’s Grim Justice 57: ‘Danny,’ I laughed at him, ‘you’re bugs.’.
1934		H. Roth Call It Sleep (1977) 321: Are yuh bugs or sumpt’n?
1942		R. Chandler High Window 149: Anyway in the night, bang, Hench is bugs. So they drag him over to the hospital ward and shoot him full of hop. The jail doc. does.
1953		T. Runyon In For Life 270: The Mainline [...] teased them about being bugs.
1960, 1975		Wentworth & Flexner DAS.
1963		M. Spillane Return of the Hood 39: You bugs, Irish? You outa your mind?
1967–8		Baker et al. CUSS 90: Bugs Go wild.
2001		N. Green Shooting Dr. Jack (2002) 126: ‘You ever heard of the DTs?’ ‘Bugs,’ Arthur said, and he did a whole body shiver.

In phrases

bugs on (adj.) (also bugs about)

crazy about, obsessed by.

1911		Alaska Citizen 28 Aug. 7/2: He was bugs on dancing.
1936		Archie Seale Man About Harlem 16 May [synd. col.] He is bugs about the fight game.
1944		J. Archibald ‘Meat Bawl’ in Popular Detective Aug. 🌐 It was called ‘Jeeps in the Jungle,’ starrin’ Gregory Bogard. I’m just bugs about him.
1953		S. Bellow Augie March (1996) 501: I was once bugs on the history of art.

drive (someone) bugs (v.)

to send (someone) mad.

1920		R.J. Fry Salvation of Jemmy Sl. II i: This classy little chicken, that has driven me clean bugs, is no other than the daughter of Mr. and Mrs. Best English.
1935		Column Rev. 1-2 12: A murrain on the assorted lot of muggs, Their chitter-chatter drives me bugs!
1946		America 75 314: Louie: Anyway it drives me bugs. Bill: You and me both.
1969		J. Crumley One to Count Cadence (1987) 125: I couldn’t understand [...] and that almost drove me bugs, man.

go bugs (v.)

to go mad, obsessive.

1909		R. Service ‘The Telegraph Operator’ in Ballads of a Cheechako 93: This awful hush that hugs / And chokes one is enough / To make a man go ‘bugs’.
1912		D. Lowrie My Life in Prison 103: He’s gone bugs.
1918		‘Commander’ Clear the Decks! 104: Gad! [...] I’ll go bugs with this sort of thing!
1927		E. O’Neill letter Apr. Sel. Letters 242: I owe it to myself — and you owe it to me — to have comparative peace of mind or I shall go bugs entirely.
1934		(con. 1920s) J.T. Farrell Young Manhood in Studs Lonigan (1936) 194: He must be going bugs.
1943		W.R. Burnett Nobody Lives for Ever 21: He’d certainly been pulling some funny ones lately. Getting bugs over that chiseling Chicago dame; letting her make a slob out of him in front of his friends .
1955		B. Appel Tough Guy [ebook] [H]e’d go bugs one drunk out of three and start wrecking things.
1983		N. Heard House of Slammers 163: ‘One-eyed muthafucka goin’s bugs’ was the consensus.