bum n.1
1. (also bumb, bum-bay, bumbum, bumm) the posterior, buttocks, anus, rectum.
 | Polychronicon VI in Trevisa (trans.) Ch. I line 27: At God hys ordenauns [...] he hadde Þat hatte fyches [piles]. It semeth that his bom is oute that hath that euel. | |
![[UK]](/static/img/flags/uk.png "United Kingdom") | Agenst Garnesche iii line 62: Ye wolde have bassyd hyr bumme. | |
| Tom Tyler and his Wife (1661) in (1908) 32: For if my wife come, up goeth my bum, And should she come hither, and we met together, I know we shall fight, and eke scratch and bite. | |
| Sixt Hundred of Epigrams (1867) 217: A byg breecht man fearing a deere yere to cum, / Bestowde in his breeche a cheese hard by his bum. | |
| Irish Chronicle 48: They that make more haste then good speede clincke there bummes to the stones. | |
| Midsummer Night’s Dream II i: The wisest aunt [...] Sometime for three-foot stool mistaketh me; Then slip I from her bum, down topples she. | |
| Measure for Measure II i: Your bum is the greatest thing about you. | |
| Scourge of Folly 101: How can thy Bumme (here bare) but blush. [Ibid.] 110: Her Breasts like Balloones, like great Globes her Bummes. | |
| Counter-Rat F4: [of a rat] It was a petty-fogging Varlet, / Whose back wore freeze, but bum no scarlet, And was tane napping with his Harlot, At Noddy. | |
| Antipodes II ii: And you, Sir, you have got the trick of late / Of holding out your bum. | |
| The Wandering Jew 36: Hee’s entred with much adoe, like a Gentlewoman with a huge bum. | |
| Whoremonger’s Conversion n.p.: And now I home am come, / With a newly-mended bum. | |
| Mercurius Fumigosus 20 11–18 Oct. 177: The Winde thereof blew three Fish-women with their naked Bumms up into the Aire so high. | |
| Wandring Whore III 3: Lead me with thy ivory fingers to it’s fancy, where I will enter it’s Port with a full spring tyde between thy bum’s riding safe at Anchor within thy harbour. | |
![[Ire]](/static/img/flags/ire.png "Ireland") | Nugae Venales 169: She raised her Bum, and so bepist him, that it ran from the Nape of his Neck down his Back to his Heels. | |
| ‘Upon a Lady, who by overturning of a Coach, had her Coats behind flung up’ Poems 92: My Heart, before averse to Love, / No longer could a Rebel prove; / When on the Grass you did display / Your radiant bum to my survey, / And sham’d the Lustre of the Day. | |
| Juvenal VI 106: Rank Matrons, Dancing to the Pipe, Gig with their Bums, and are for Action ripe. | |
| Shropshire Wakes [broadside ballad] And to our Christmas feast there comes / Young men and Maids to shake their bums. | |
| A great & famous scoldling-match 7: [T]he French Man brings up the Rear with Fire and Faggot, Aye and Faith he sticks to your Bumm with a vengeance. | |
| Answer to the Fifteen Comforts of Matrimony 3: Ten thousand lashes shall adorn thy Bumb. | |
| Wooden World 67: A Tar, after a hearty Meal of Pease, shall make his Bum rattle a Thanksgiving-Peal. | |
| York Spy 37: They’n as much Drapery on their Bums, as would make a Wino-sheet. | |
| ‘To a Lady’ in Chalmers Eng. Poets XI (1810) 455/1: Scourge the villains with a vengeance [...] Strip their bums; let Caleb hoise ’em; Then apply Alecto’s whip, Till they wriggle, howl, and skip. | |
| Grobianus 17: Forth from the treach’rous Passage of the Bum, A horrid Fume shall straight your Crime proclaim To ev’ry Nose. | |
| Tommy Thumb’s Songbook II 34: Piss a Bed, / Piss a Bed, / Barley Butt, / Your Bum is so heavy / You cant get up. | |
| Friar and Boy Pt I 9: I wish her bum might then let go, And crack like roaring thunder [...] And then a cracker she let fly, That almost shook the ground. | |
| ‘To the Revd Mr — on his Drinking Sea-Water’ in A. Carpenter Verse in Eng. in 18C Ireland (1998) 277: From reeking Vaults, full copiously supply’d / By bums venereal. | |
| ‘Gentle Robbin & Rude Moll’ Misc. 108: That Moll, of loudest Scolds, the lawful Queen / Bare as a Bird’s, thy very Bum was seen, / Exposed to ev’ry Coxcomb round the Court, The Object of their Wonder, and their Sport. | |
| Mimosa: or, The Sensitive Plant 16: St—t claps it in his valet’s b—m; / H—ll fingers it, and some / Like Dam—r never use it. | |
| More Lyric Odes to the Royal Academicians II 7: When thou art laid upon thy back, With bum as cold as clods of earth. | |
| Harris’s List of Covent-Garden Ladies 91: Her port is said to be well-guarded by a light brown chevaux de freize, and parted from Bum-bay by a very pleasant isthmus. | |
| Times 29 Nov. 4: Little Beaux Jemmies, among whom I have the honour to be ranked with the nick-name of, Sir, Puff Cheek-Squat-Bum. | |
| ‘The Irish man’s Ramble’ in A. Carpenter Verse in Eng. in 18C Ireland (1998) 501: My Carkas and bum was well warmed. | |
| Sporting Mag. Nov. IX 108/1: The Ladle appear’d, and don’t think it a hum, / It quickly whipp’d into the old woman’s b—. | |
![[US]](/static/img/flags/us.png "United States") | ‘American Spirit’ Yankee Doodle (1959) 8: If Frenchmen come with naked b-m / We’ll spank ’em hard and handy. | |
| Jr. (ed.) Rhymes of Northern Bards 43: Thy wit could not save the good breeches, / That mencefully [i.e. decently] cover’d thy bum. | |
![[WI]](/static/img/flags/wi.png "West Indies") | Willshire Squeeze 23: One suck’d his thumbs, two scratch’ their b-ms. | |
| ‘Fine Young Common Prostitute’ Cuckold’s Nest 41: One night, she met a cove / Who nearly cracked her bum, / Because he really had, O dear, / Such a stunning rum ti-tum. | |
| ‘Queen’s Wants at Childbirth’ in Curiosities of Street Lit. (1871) 61: Nine hundred and forty gallons of rum / And a sponge to wash her little bum. | |
| Dict. of Modern Sl. etc. | |
| ‘Meet Me By Moonlight’ Rambler’s Flash Songster 10: Remember, be sure to come, / If you wish for an out-and-out treat; / For I shall be scratching my bum, / Until my sweet maiden I meet. | |
| Cythera’s Hymnal 17: Her thumb she inserted his bum in. | |
| in Limerick (1953) 95: E’en a boy’s white, fat bum / Could not make him come, / But an old man’s piles gave him the horn. | |
![[Aus]](/static/img/flags/aus.png "Australia") | Dead Bird (Sydney) 21 Sept. 1/3: A Calico Jemmy [...] having patented a new dress improver, asked a friend to suggest a good advertising name for it. His friend’s reply, ‘superbum’. | |
| Bagnio Misc. 37: At each thrust smacking [...] the soft cheeks of my round little bum. | |
| Memoirs of Madge Buford 117: He can take me crooked, straight, / And can even try his fate / In my bum. | |
| letter 2 Dec. to Nora Barnacle in Ellman Sel. Letters (1975) 181: My hands clutching the round cushions of your bum and my tongue licking ravenously up your rank red cunt. | |
| Sport (Adelaide) 19 July 9/2: O’Connor was there, read [sic] as a plum, / And looked a lot redder when he fell on his — thumb. | |
| Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man 47: It can’t be helped; / It must be done. / So down with your breeches / And out with your bum. | |
| ‘First Book of Odes: 4’ Complete Poems (1968) 90: ...yet when the fellow with the red-hot poker comes / truculently to torment our blisters, we vie / with one another to present scarified bums / to the iron, clutching sausages greedily. | |
| (con. 1880–90s) I Knock at the Door 78: His belly full of fat, and his old cocked hat, and pancakes in his bum, bum, bum. | |
| Red Roses for Me Act III: Isn’t it a hard life to be grindin’ our poor bums to powder, forever squattin’ on the heartless pavements of th’ Dublin streets! | |
| Lore and Lang. of Schoolchildren (1977) 33: His sister played the tambourine / Till father smacked her bum. | |
| (con. 1948–52) Virgin Soldiers 38: Young and showing their busts and bums under their shiny tight satin and silks. | |
| ‘Sunrise at Midnight’ Fireworks (1988) 184: My Bumbum sticks out behind counterbalancing the twins. | |
| Picture Palace 22: I felt like a refugee myself, with my bum hanging out and getting kicked around. [Ibid.] 135: I figured him for a bum-pincher. | |
| (con. 1950s–60s) Little Legs 4: She’d tap the donkey’s bum. | |
![[NZ]](/static/img/flags/nz.png "New Zealand") | Broken Arse II viii: He’s got a broken bum-bum. | |
| Observer 27 June 11: Courtney’s barely-clad bum wiggling in front of them. | |
| Guardian G2 10 Jan. 5: You’ll come back with a sexy firm bum. | |
![[SA]](/static/img/flags/sa.png "South Africa") | Mail & Guardian (Johannesburg) 21 Apr. 🌐 It was the quality of its parts that put extra bums on seats. | |
| Silver [ebook] Martin gives him [i.e. a baby] a hug, holds him aloft to smell his bum. |
2. in a sexual context, the vagina.
| ‘As I was Riding’ in Merry Songs and Ballads (1897) I 72: I was content, & she said, ‘weele, / youst kisse my bum and feele my fist’. | |
| ‘The Louse’s Peregrination’ Musarum Deliciae (1817) 48: A Lord of this Land that lov’d a Bum well, / Did lie with this Mort one night in the Strummel. | |
| ‘Contentment’ in Merry Drollery Compleat (1875) 162: Let danger come, have at her Bum, Give me the Girle that stands to’t. | |
| Scoffer Scoff’d (1765) 238: He beat (oh, never such a Drum!) / A Point of War upon her Bum. | |
| ‘Satire’ in Poems on Affairs of State (1965) II 291: This French hag’s pocky bum ... Although it’s both blind and dumb, It rules both Church and State. | |
| A great & famous scoldling-match 7: Aye and Faith he sticks to your Bumm with a vengeance. | |
| Letters from the Dead to the Living in Works (1760) II 201: Who, but you, that hath acquired such plentiful possessions by the labour of her bum. | |
| in Pills to Purge Melancholy I 144: This made her stand out stoutly. / Opposing all that come, / Though twenty Demi-Cannon / Still were mounted at her Bum. | |
| Authentick Memoirs of Sally Salisbury 68: Dating the Packet from his Chucky’s Bum. | |
![[Scot]](/static/img/flags/sco.png "Scotland") | ‘Advice of Momus to Chloe’ Poems (1752) 81: Since Celadon no more is pleas’d / With your obsequious Bum, / To lay the Tickling he has rais’d / Ev’n, Chloe, take your Thumb. | |
| Homer Travestie (1764) I 189: With nimble bum, or nimbler wrist, / She guides his weapon where she list; / Nay more, a touch of her soft hand, / If fallen down, will make him stand. | |
| Burlesque Homer (3rd edn) 69: Best, did I say! bar helen’s bum, / He had the best in Christendom. | |
| Satirist (London) 26 Aug. 278/4: General Nugent arrived at the seat of war, and brought his battering-ram to bear upon the walls; but it was the Duchess’s bomb that did the business. |
3. (Irish) the underside, e.g. of a ship.
| ‘Iter Hibernicum’ in Carpenter Verse in English from Tudor & Stuart Eng. (2003) 396: [of a ship] Thus Castor and Pullux, with double Bum, / Doth to its full Perfection come. |
4. in a sexual context, the anus as a target for sodomy; an act of homosexual activity; thus in compounds referring to a homosexual, as listed below; note also bit of bum
| ‘Ladies Complaint’ Lansdowne Ms. 852.279: The Queen [...] Matrimonial Comforts receives in her Bumm. | |
| ‘Satire on both Whigs & Tories’ in Court Satires of the Restoration (1976) 124: The surest way to glide / Not into’s heart but his well shaped backside. / Not Nobs’s bum more adoration found, / Though oft ’twas sung, his was more white and round. | |
| ‘Jenny Cromwell’s Complaint against Sodomy’ Harleian Mss. 7315.226: Thinking they must be Mimicks to the Crown / They to Each other put their Breeches down / If Wentworth one of these with Bum will bless / He’s not a little proud of his Success. | |
| Venus in India I 82: One night Searle [...] actually ravished his poor wife’s ... hem! ... hem! ... well! ... bum! | |
| (con. c.1950) London E1 (2012) 304: Leading Tel Acutt [...] shouting in mock seriousness ‘Rum for bum, anyone? Rum for bum?’. | |
| Down Among the Meths Men 88: A queer he is, and then some [...] He’s called Phyllis the Bum. | |
| Diaries (1986) 24 Feb. 91: If the Libyan authorities are so anxious that the country shouldn’t be written about – what on earth is it like? ‘Perhaps it’s hashish and bum all the way,’ I said. |
5. (N.Z. prison) a filter for a self-rolled or marijuana cigarette; the filter is seen as the ‘rear end’ of the cigarettes.
| ‘Boob Jargon’ in NZEJ 13 28: bum n.Cigarette filter or filter used when smoking drugs, e.g. in a marijuana joint. | |
| Boobslang [U. Canterbury D.Phil. thesis] 33/1: bum n. a filter for a tobacco or a marijuana cigarette. |
In derivatives
a homosexual orgy.
| ‘Letters’ at TheBollocks.com 🌐 Aye up Shite Flys back. Thought you’d topped yourself, or has Dicer just let you out of the garden shed after a month of major bum fest sessions. | |
| Top Twat Twit Tosh [ebook] I wish my mate would stop referring to Gay Pride as Bumfest Bonanza. |
the buttocks.
| ‘A Poeticall Poem to Mistresse Bess Sarney’ Wit Restor’d (1817) 219: And so I take my leave; prithee sweet Thumkin, / Hold up thy coats, that I may kisse thy bumkin. | |
| Compleat and Humorous Account of all the Remarkable Clubs (1756) 19: A List of the Knights of the Noble Order of the fleece. Sir Bumkin Guzzle. | |
| Fool of Quality II 247: First there is Sir Bumkin Toilette. |
In compounds
the labia.
| Sex-Lexis 🌐. |
(orig. skiing) a small bag or pouch, secured to a belt and worn around the waist.
| Hbk Ski-ing i 20: A Rucksack is not necessary [...] but [...] a ‘Bumbag’, worn round the waist on a belt, is very useful for carrying bits and pieces [OED]. | |
| Goodoo Goodoo 45: Scandinavian backpackers wearing shorts, bumbags [...] and leather sandals. | |
| Guardian G2 5 Oct. 13: The urban chic posture-friendly bumbags and backpacks [...] were replaced by huge Louis Vuitton shoulder affairs. | |
| Guardian G2 17 Aug. 8: It’s bum bags next season, apparently. Yes, the much-mocked accessory. | |
| ‘In Savage Freedom’ in Crime Factory: Hard Labour [ebook] Two new sleeping bags, dunny paper, some cash in a bum-bag. | |
| Braywatch 29: A man who wears a bum-bag is only four-tenths a man. |
trousers.
| ‘Costume of the Master of the Quorn’ in Annals of the Warwicks. Hunt I (1896) 308: Hodgson in white leathers, tights, / Braces, bumbags, brogues, or breeches / Made to fit like very Flight's. | |
| Dict. of Modern Sl. etc. (2nd edn) 92: bags, trowsers [...] The word is probably an abbreviation for b-mbags. | |
| Sl. Dict. | |
| Und. Nights 44: All recruits would be compelled to wear barbed-wire bum-bags and dive into a blazing tar barrel. |
the testicles.
| (con. 1890s) Pictures in the Hallway 331: The scarlet woman, the whore of Babylon, who’s dhrunk with the blood of the saints, hard at it in the midst of the soaring an’ falling bum-balls, red-hot from the canon’s mouth. |
a homosexual male, thus bum-banditry, homosexuality.
| q. in Hothouse Society 301: When I was trying on a uniform, this bum bandit pressed his tool right up against me. Uggh! Get this homo banned. | |
| Flame : a Life on the Game 28: At school where I’d occasionally hear people being described as ‘bum bandits’ who played ‘arse poker’. | |
| Lex. of Cadet Lang. 61: usage: ‘Look at that pooncy bunch of bum bandits over there.’. | |
| Fowler Family Business 74: Do we know the identity of the bum bandit who has copped the wad? | |
| Locked Ward (2013) 281: I thought this was some sort of bum bandits’ day out. Gang of homos standing around. | |
| Decent Ride 10: Thare’s gaunny be nae bum banditry gaun oan! |
1. a short jacket, just covering the buttocks.
| Larrikin Crook 2: Suburban snobs ‘going in the city every day […] in a nail can hat and a bum-banger coat’ [AND]. |
2. a male homosexual.
| N.Z. Politics: a Reader 235: Gay Liberation Front Poofter, queen, queer, fairy, bugger, ponce, swish, faggot, mincer, hustler, shit-stirrer, bum banger [...] We are the people you warned us against. | |
| Buddha of Suburbia 18: My God, you’re a bloody pure shitter! A bum-banger! My own son – how did it transpire? | |
| Beautiful Thing Fanfic Archive 🌐 Betty said that Trevor was calling Ste a ‘poofter’ and a ‘bum banger’. |
(N.Z.) a sheep shearer.
| Reed Dict. of N.Z. Sl. |
a cello.
| Anonymiana 415: The humble-bee ought [...] to be called the bumble-bee [...] from the deepness of the note, just as the violoncello is called by the vulgar a bum-bass [F&H]. |
jostling.
| Wit Without Money III i: Carmen curse you, can there be ought in this but pride of shew Lady, and pride of bum-beating. |
see bum-fluff n.
see separate entry.
1. a male homosexual.
| Horned Pigeon 116: ‘Who is it?’ Binns hissed [...] ‘The colonnello’s bum-boy. A shit.’ ‘Shall we knock him off?’. | |
| Man on Rock 183: Mrs. Vrissoglou began to scream at them in Greek: ‘What is all this? [...] Can’t two decent women sit in privacy without a number of bum-boys’ – she used a word which is even cruder and more forceful in Greek – ‘spying on them’. [Ibid.] 246: That was the most humiliating thing of all. I was one of ‘them’ [...] the bum-boys from Constitutional or Omonoia Square. | |
| Naked Lunch (1968) 147: The bum boys fall back in utter confusion. | |
| Down Among the Meths Men 40: The bum boy leapt through the window. | |
| All Looks Yellow to the Jaundiced Eye 53: A shockproof, fully automatic, twenty-two-carat bum-boy. | |
| Hot to Trot 17: He wears no underwear under those hip huggers. Bum-boy. Fag-bait. | |
| Train to Hell 148: That’s the people’s game, a man’s game, mate. No bumboys allowed. | |
| ‘Never Mind’ Some Hope (1994) 85: Amanuensis? Bumboy, you mean. | |
| Bad Debts (2012) [ebook] Not even Harker was stupid enough to give [the job] to him. Not then, anyway. Later on, they were like bumboys. | |
| (ref. to 1963) Bend for Home 227: We stepped out of the shower and Hugh McGovern said, Are yous bum boys or what? | |
| ‘Boob Jargon’ in NZEJ 13 28: bum boy n. A homosexual . | |
| Boobslang [U. Canterbury D.Phil. thesis] 33/2: bum boy 5 a homosexual (usually male). | |
| Mystery Bay Blues 120: You’re a shitty fuckin waiter [...] And this is your little bumboy. | |
| Black Swan Green 95: Forget yer breakfast, yer bumboys! | |
| Thrill City [ebook] Your guess is as good as mine. Is he Rod’s bum boy? His illegitimate son? | |
| ‘Suicide Chump’ in ThugLit July [ebook] [G]rim nights as an involuntary bumboy for the orphanage's clerical staff. |
2. (also bum, the) anyone regularly saddled with lit. or fig. dirty jobs.
| Boobslang [U. Canterbury D.Phil. thesis] 33/1: bum boy n. 1 (also the bum) an inmate (normally young or new to the prison) enlisted as a servant or runner for another (usually senior or more established) inmate. | |
| Reed Dict. of N.Z. Sl. 111: I’m not your bum boy I am not your servant. |
3. a toady, a sycophant.
| (con. 1916) Her Privates We (1986) 190: I don’t see why we shouldn’t have a good time, even if we’re not a lot of bum-boys attached to the staff of some bloody general or other. | |
| Glass Canoe (1982) 65: You know what that boss of yours does to his bumboys. | |
| Aus. Prison Sl. Gloss. 🌐 Bum boy. An obsequious subordinate. | |
| ‘Boob Jargon’ in NZEJ 13 28: bum boy n. 2. An inmate who acts as a slave for another inmate, does all their work. | |
| Theft 216: I am the perfect bum boy for their client. |
4. (mainly UK juv.) on pattern of gay adj. (9), a term of abuse, irrespective of sexuality, for an unpopular individual.
| Official and Doubtful 126: My thieving Dago chef did a runner ten minutes ago along with his bum-boys. | |
| Indep. Education 8 July 2: ‘Battyman’, ‘bender’, and ‘bumboy’. These terms are not reserved for those young people perceived as lesbian or gay. Rather, they are generalised terms of abuse, used against youngsters, particularly boys, who deviate from the norm. |
5. (N.Z. prison) a prison officer, who is seen as working as a servant to the inmates.
| Boobslang [U. Canterbury D.Phil. thesis] 33/2: bum boy 2 a prison officer, because he is employed to see to the inmates' needs, e.g. to lock and unlock their doors, to escort them to various areas of the prison, to give them toothpaste when they want it, etc. |
6. (N.Z. prison) a novice, inexperienced prison officer, just out of training.
| Boobslang [U. Canterbury D.Phil. thesis] 33/2: bum boy3 a young officer, new to the prison, recently completed his training. Such an officer [...] may spend much of his time carrying out various jobs for more experienced officers . |
7. (US gay) a (young) homosexual prostitute.
| Widespread Panic 105: Rock [Hudson] orders in bumboys from a dial-a-dick service. |
a schoolmaster.
| Works (1760) II 86: [Dionysus] was forced to turn bum-brusher. | |
| Briton Described 11: We had scarce primed our Pipes, but in comes a Law-Jobber, accompanied with the Bum-brusher, or Schoolmaster of the Place. | |
| Student 31 Jan. 285: The 16th chapter of the second book of that admirable Bum-brusher, Quintilian. | |
| Eng. Rev. V 73: Happily the bum-brusher has so fully displayed his acquaintance with grammatical propriety [...] as to render ail further critique unnecessary. | |
| New London Mag. 137: A successor was immediately called from that great nursery of bum-brushers, Appleby School [F&H]. | |
| Sporting Mag. XVII Oct. 19/2: A ludi magister, or pedagogue, familiarly called a bum-brusher. | |
| Panorama of Wit 264: To a Poetical, Satirical, Bum-Brusher. Tho’ teaching thy peculiar bus’ness be, / Learn this one lesson, Pedagogue! of me. | |
| Lex. Balatronicum. | |
| Turf Register 477: At Kilkenny, July 12, He won 50gs 8st. 71b. each, beating at four three-mile heats, Cynere, Bum-brusher, and Prancer. | |
| Winter Evenings II 127: The world is governed by names; and with the word Pedagogue has been ludicrously associated the idea of a pedant, a mere plodder, a petty tyrant, a gerund-grinder, and a bum-brusher. | |
| Norwich Election Budget 61: CALEB QUOTUM alias the Bum-brusher of Pottergate Street, could perhaps inform you whether the Paper Kites are still flying by which he raised the wind for a certain Election. | |
| Blackwood’s Mag. Oct. 426: To protract existence... in the shape of bum-brushers, and so forth, after the fashion of the exalted emigres of 1792? [F&H]. | |
| Hereford Jrnl 10 Oct. 4/1: Nor dare we, Sir, set at Defiance a Rule / By Bum-Brushers en-tailed on each Tyro at School. | |
| Smoking & Smokers 72: Would it be possible for a true smoker to have recourse to the birch ? No! indignantly we repel even the insinuation. No lover of the fragrant weed could be a bum-brusher. | |
| Dict. of Modern Sl. etc. (2nd edn). | |
| Sl. Dict. | |
| Sl. and Its Analogues. | |
| Rejected Guest 172: ‘Do you want to be a bum-brusher?’ ‘A what? I don't understand.’ ‘A schoolmaster — one of those who sweep their livings from the posteriors of little children’. |
(US black teen) marijuana, a marijuana cigarette.
| Ebonic Wordz Dict. 🌐 bud/buddah/bumbud: a joint/mariajuana [sic]. |
a homosexual's male partner.
| ‘Coming Out’ on ScottOwen.org 🌐 I first remember knowing the name of what I was when a friend of mine was being called ‘homo’ and ‘bum-buddy’ in school – we were 9 or 10 at the time. | |
| Blood Lines 113: That’s Rod [...] William’s bum-buddy. | |
| Five Years After 66: It’s your bum-buddy, [...] he’s been under you for forty-eight hours and it looks like we couldn’t pry you two buggers apart with a crowbar. | |
| Reign on Cloud Nine 300: So then Mickey—who's this? He looks familiar to me . . . is he your bum buddy? Got sick of Clive, did ya? |
(UK juv.) pain during defecation, the result of eating an excess of over-spiced food.
| OnLine Dict. of Playground Sl. 🌐 bum-burn adj. What you are left with after spending an hour in the toilet passing the remnants of that Vindaloo you downed with 10 pints of hard lager last night. |
(gaming) a marked card.
| Detection of Vyle and Detestable Use of Dice Play 33: Cutting at the neck is a great vantage, so is cutting by a bum card (finely) under and over. | |
| Treatise against Dicing (1843) 142: They haue such sleightes in sorting and shuffling of the cardes [...] Eyther by pricking of a carde, or pinching of it, cuting at the nicke; eyther by a bumbe carde finely vnder, ouer, or in the middes. | |
| Pappe with an Hatchet C2: Hee’le cogge the die of deceit, and cutte at the bumme-carde of his conscience. | |
| Pierce’s Supererogation 140: If already he be ashamed of that coniuring leafe, foisted-in like a Bum-carde, I haue sayd nothing. | |
| Humours Ordinarie F3: For [...] Cardes, or Dice, To those exploits he euer stands prepar’d: A Villaine excellent at a Bum card. | |
| Gloss. (1888) I 119: bum-card. A card used by dishonest gamesters. |
a pair of trousers.
| Fast Man 4:1 n.p.: Their toggery is terrifically astounding, truly spiflicating, licking Stultz into smash, and frightening the whole race of bum-case-constructors. |
1. (orig. Aus.) an intimate friend, the inference is of homosexuality.
| Woroni (Canberra) 16 Mar. 4/3: Poor old Lambert (rushing around with pink shirt white shorts, white golf, socks and brown shoes) and his bum chum Sweeney (in sports clothes) provided the best laughs of the day! | |
| Illus. Wkly India 110 57: While hubbie was taking all the flak for being the PM’s bum chum and adviser, Sterre preferred to remain in the shadows. | |
| Lex. of Cadet Lang. 61: bum chum a mate; a good friend. | |
| Layer Cake 140: You better hurry up before your bum-chum Alan rings back. | |
| Reed Dict. of N.Z. Sl. | |
| Bobby March Will Live Forever 163: ‘Watch it, Watson. You may be Raeburn’s bum chum but I’m still your superior officer’. | |
| Empty Wigs (t/s) 118: He’s gay as a boat. With him everything’s fabulosa or grotterama. His last bumchum emigrated to Anustralia. |
2. a male homosexual.
| Filthy Eng. 128: Did you know he held up one of his brownhatter's clubs with a shooter and got away with a bottle of Scotch. I know he done it. The filth knows he done it. But our boy's got a close friend, a bum chum like,. | |
| Girl’s Night Out 158: Or they get a bum chum and go drilling for Vegemite. Some of the guys inside are double adaptors, but most become Hocks. Hocks give it. And Cats take it. | |
| Guardian Weekend 26 June 3: One can imagine the ghosts of Lytton Strachey and his erudite bum-chums smiling down benignly. | |
| Urban Grimshaw 39: Going upstairs with your bum-chum, Urbie? |
the Ecclesiastical Court; also attrib.
| Supplement to Henry VIII 28: The hearing of testamenterye causes [...] of sclaunders, of leachery, adultery, and punyshement of bawedrye; and suche other bumme courte matters [OED]. | |
| Stapleton and Martiall Confuted 128: These quarrels sir Bachiler, are more meet for the bomme-courts, in which perhaps you are a prating proctor, than for the schools of divinity [OED]. |
1. see crack n.1 (2a)
2. see crack n.3 (4)
a toady, a sycophant.
| They Drive by Night 69: Good job if he’d showed this snotty young bastard Edwards up. Proper little bum-crawler. | |
| Water Carnival 84: How can you be an artist and on the side of the enemy, a lick-spittle, a bum-crawler to Society? | |
| Collected Stories 480: Her clothes are catastrophic, she’s a monumental bum-crawler and makes tea at matinees. |
1. one who walks with their back noticeably bent.
| Eng. Moor III iii: Of all / Features and shapes, from the huckle-back’d Bum-creeper. |
2. a sycophant, a creeper.
| DSUE (8th edn) 153/2: since ca. 1918. |
a jacket.
| Sporting Mag. Aug. 313/2: Being provided with a Gyp and a bum curtain (two indispensables by the bye) I sallied forth with all the airs of a senior wrangler. | |
| [ | | Sl. Dict. 89: bum-curtain, an old name for an academical gown when they were worn scant and short]. |
| Sl. Dict. |
hen’s eggs.
| DSUE (8th edn). |
see separate entries.
to have sexual intercourse; thus bum-faker n., a male homosexual.
| Vocabula Amatoria (1966) 47: branler du cul = to copulate; ‘to bum-fake’. [Ibid.] 87: culiste, m. A sodomite or pederast; ‘a bumfaker’. |
1. to thrash, to beat severely.
| DSUE (8th edn) 153/2: bum-feag(u), – feagle, -feg to thrash [...] late C.16–early 17. |
2. to have sexual intercourse.
| Adam and Eve 61: Madam Cunicula, or the Countess of Bumfeagle. |
see separate entries.
a womanizer, a whoremonger.
| in Pills to Purge Melancholy II 218: Fortune-Biters, / Hags, Bum-fighters. |
a sodomite; thus bum-firking n. and adj.
| London Spy III 69: We [...] squeez’d our selves thro’ a Crowd of Bumfirking-Italians. | |
| Reformer 85: As Inamour’d [...] as an Old Frizel-Pated S-t, the Bum-Firker, is of the Sodomite Stationer. |
see separate entry.
see separate entry.
1. (also bum fluff, tail fodder) lavatory paper.
| (trans.) Gargantua and Pantagruel (1927) I Bk I 53: Of all torchculs, arsewisps, bumfodders, tail napkins, bunghole cleansers and wipe-breches, there is none in the world comparable to the neck of a goose. | |
| Mercurius Fumigosus 11 9 Aug. 101: Jocosus the Thieving Mercury, lying very sick and weak of the Morbus Gallicus, hath lately made his Will, and bequeathed all his weekly Bum-fodder to Bridewell Privies. | |
| Rump Poems and Songs (1662) II 54: [title] ‘Bum-Fodder: or, Waste-Paper, proper to wipe the Nations Rump with, or your Own’. | |
| London Spy III 70: Their upper Lips look’d as if they Excreated thro’ their Nostrils and had forgot to use Bumfodder. | |
| Letters from the Dead to the Living in Works (1760) II 192: I tell thee, bully, if thou wert but to be found upon the earth, I would grind thee in a paper-mill for thy insolence, till I had made bumfodder of thee. | |
| Penkethman’s Jests I 65: He that writes abundance of Books [...] may, in some Sense, be said to be a Benefactor to the Publick, because he furnishes it with Bumfodder. | |
| Meditations Upon an House-of-Office 22: What is thy Shop O Jacob! but a Bog-House, fill’d with nothing but Bum-Fodder. | |
| , , | | Classical Dict. of the Vulgar Tongue n.p.: bum fodder, soft paper for the necessary house or torchecul. |
| Lex. Balatronicum. | |
| Grose’s Classical Dict. of the Vulgar Tongue. | |
| Criminal Sl. (rev. edn). | |
| ‘Whisper All Aussie Dictionary’ in Kings Cross Whisper (Sydney) xxxii 7/1: bum fodder: Toilet paper. | |
| Ridgey-Didge Oz Jack Lang 21: Bum Fodder Toilet Paper. | |
| Lowspeak 32: Bum fluff – soft lavatory paper. | |
| Campus Sl. Nov. 8: tail fodder – toilet paper. |
2. trashy literature; also as adj. [i.e. only good for use as sense 1].
| Mercurius Fumigosus 22 25 Oct.–1 Nov. 194: The second Course, brought in by Squire Ajakes in Bum-fodder Papers of his Monthly Observations, Prognostications and Predictions. | |
| (trans.) Gargantua and Pantagruel (1927) II Bk IV 422: I happened to read a chapter [...] and old Nick turn me into bumfodder, if this did not make me so hide-bound and costive, that for four or five days I hardly scumbered one poor butt of sir-reverance. | |
| Compleat and Humorous Account of all the Remarkable Clubs (1756) 100: Loudly repeating some new Verses, hammer’d out of his dull Noddle for next Bumfodder Bill, that it might first make People laugh till they were ready to bedung themselves and do them the Service of a Paper-Muckender. | |
| Scot’s Mag. Apr. 208 1: (title) Bum fodder for the ladies [F&H]. |
homosexuality, homosexual activity.
| Get Your Cock Out 65: Strutter could put up with Darklord’s arseholishness for the 40 grand a week, but he drew the line at bumfoolery. | |
| Roger’s Profanisaurus in Viz Apr. 48: run the taps v. To take a leak following a spot of bumfoolery. |
1. a short jacket that stops short of covering the buttocks; orig. describing an Eton jacket, latterly the ‘Italian’ styles of 1950s and thence any short (men’s) jacket.
| Sl. & Its Analogues. | |
| William Clissold I 121: Harrow and a halo or Eton in a topper and a bum-freezer? | |
| Magnolia St I iii 58: He wore [...] an Eton coat, or ‘bum-freezer’, as they termed it in Magnolia Street [OED]. | |
| (con. 1830s–60s) All That Swagger 394: She had a fashionable coatee known as a ‘bum freezer’, which outlined her anatomy apropos. | |
| ‘A Bit of a Smash in Madras’ Memoirs of the Forties (1984) 279: In about five minutes, this bloke blew in, complete with white bum-freezer and smoking a cheroot. | |
| Jimmy Brockett 29: A typical country bumpkin, with half-master pants and a bum-freezer coat. | |
| Enderby Outside in Complete Enderby (2002) 277: he wore a white bum-freezer with claret lapels. | |
| Confessions of Proinsias O’Toole 120: He was back to the hippy garb again – long black wig, leather bum-freezer and mauve slacks. | |
| (ref. to 1960s) in Walking After Midnight (1989) 116: In Crawley in the sixties I was a mod [...] I used to wear Italian suits with cloth buttons and a ‘bum freezer’ jacket. [...] I also got my first pair of winkle-pickers – a bit late, but I got them. | |
| on BBC Radio 4 Desert Island Discs 19 June 🌐 We wore our Tonik suits and bumfreezer jackets. | |
| Man-Eating Typewriter 218: [S]himmery mohair bum-freezer manto. |
2. (Aus.) a mean, cheating person.
| Roaring Nineties 137: His mate was Johnny Bull. They wasn’t doin’ too well, but that old bumfreezer made out to Johnny he was sharin’ equal. He started sneakin’ a bit of gold over to the storekeeper. [...] This was a crime. |
used of a very short skirt.
| Big Ask 112: This work was conducted by men in comfortable trousers and women in bum-freezing skirts. |
see separate entries.
(NZ prison) the Assistant Superintendant.
| ‘Boob Jargon’ in NZEJ 13 28: bum girl n. The Assistant Superintendent. |
diarrhoea.
| personal correspondence: Bum Gravy – This one speaks for itself ! You may get this after a dodgy curry. |
the anus; thus bumgut-shot n., a breaking of wind.
| (trans.) Gargantua and Pantagruel (1927) I Bk I 13: Her bum-gut, indeed, or fundament escaped her in an afternoon on the third day of February. | |
| Grobianus 40: Unreprehended there, supine, you lie, And many a fragrant Bum-gut-shot let flie. | |
| Ulysses 703: He brings me the works of Master Francois somebody supposed to be a priest about a child born out of her ear because her bumgut fell out a nice word for any priest to write and her a--e as if any fool wouldnt know what that meant. | |
| Black City 46: ‘May your bumgut fall out,’ said Flynn. He stood up suddenly. ‘That’s French for I don’t like you.’. |
see separate entries.
a schoolmaster.
| (trans.) Adventures of Gil Blas (1822) I 226: Each scholar [...] went humbly to receive a book from the hands of the bum-jerker. |
sweat that gathers between the buttocks.
| ‘Movies’ on University of Windsor 🌐 A stink palm is when you stick your hand down your pants, specifically between your butt cheeks, and get it all stinky like a bum, then go and shake hands with your enemy. Well Brodie takes this further and shakes Mr. Svenning’s hand, but also offers him some of his chocolate pretzels. So Brodie hands him a pretzel which is all melty, *shudder*, and Mr. Svenning eats it. It was handed to him with the same hand that had been stink palmed. He then proceeds to lick the melted chocolate (and bum juice) off of his hand. | |
| Hospital [ebook] The air stinking of scalp and lockerroom, perfume and bum-juice. |
a male homosexual.
| G’DAY 83: Woss the mail on the joker with the leather pants? Looks like a bit of a bumjumper ter me. | |
| Dict. of Obscenity etc. |
prostitution.
| Letters from the Dead to the Living in Works (1760) II 263: Of all the unmerciful impositions that ever were laid upon bum-labour, none ever so highly afflicted, or so insupportably oppress us, the retailers of copulation. |
a toady, a sycophant; cite 2011 is a general term of abuse.
| It’s Draughty in Front 205: At least, in the kind of taxidriver who isn’t a born bum-licker. And very few of us can be accused of that. | |
| Blood Son 104: Bloody English bum-licker. | |
| New Statesman 111 33: A faithful bum-licker called Brittan / By his leaderene's bottom was smitten, / Till Tarzan's denouement / Produced a bowel movement / And poor little Leon got shit on. | |
| Helicopter Rescue 52: He was a very average doctor but a bum-licker of the first degree. | |
| Pigeon English 159: Me: ’Devil-lover!’ Lydia: ‘Bum-licker’. |
a man who finds a woman’s buttocks her most alluring feature; cite 2012 is gay use.
| Dict. of Kiwi Sl. 23/1: bum man heterosexual male with professed liking for female buttocks, in phr. ‘I’m a bum man myself’. | |
| Guardian 27 Nov. 25/8: Was not Rubens a Tit and Bum man? | |
| Reed Dict. of N.Z. Sl. [as cit. 1988]. | |
| Italian Journey 160: I am not a bum man, but even if I were, no libidinous thoughts would enter my mind. | |
| Off the Mark 88: He asked Mark if he was a ‘leg and bum’ man or a ‘breast’ man. | |
| Material Girl 123: Be a tit man, a bum man, a leg man, a face man, a hair man, a cock man, anything, anything. But that's all sex, it's just sex. |
infinitely tedious, usu. applied to work of some sort.
| DSUE (8th edn) 154/1: 1976. |
(Aus./N.Z.) eggs.
| G’DAY 75: Some kids still ask for googies — boiled, fried or scrambled — for breakfast and occasionally you’ll hear an adult call them bumnuts . | |
| Aus.-Amer. Dict. 47: BUM NUTS: Cackle berries. Chicken eggs. | |
| Reed Dict. of N.Z. Sl. |
a short jacket.
| Dict. of Sl., Jargon and Cant I 201/2: Bum perisher, or shaver, a short-tailed coat. | |
| I Travelled a Lonely Land (1957) 231/1: bumshaver – dinner jacket, tuxedo. | |
| in Parky’s People [ebook] Like an idiot, I'd got on a little bum-shaver Eton jacket and a top hat – very first time I’d ever worn it. |
a male homosexual, a sodomite.
| Sex-Lexis 🌐. | |
| Black Swan Green 4: If I ever admitted that [I’d rather have been born a girl] out loud I’d get bumhole plumber scrawled on my locker. |
(Aus.) a homosexual.
| Tracks (Aus.) Jan. 21: In other words the bum punchers are recognised as being on a par with honest clean-living married men and women [Moore 1993]. | |
| Pushed from the Wings (1989) 67: He’s a doctor. And a bumpuncher [...] My own half-brother. | |
| Lex. of Cadet Lang. 63: bum puncher a homosexual male, a gay (especially one thought of in connection with sodomising). Also used generally as a term of abuse. | |
| Military Culture 127: Someone who is gay is a ‘freckle puncher,’ ‘poo pirate,’ ‘turd burglar,’ ‘bung-hole buster,’ or ‘bum puncher’. |
(Aus.) (homosexual) anal intercourse.
| Lex. of Cadet Lang. 63: usage: You’ve got to be sick to go in for poofter bum punching. |
an act of sexual intercourse.
| Honest Fellow 38: While you my dear Pollly [sic], a bum-reel can jig, / And at once please the Parson, the beau, and the prig. |
a male homosexual.
| DSUE (8th edn) 154/1: 20C. |
a bustle.
| Poetaster II i: Nor you nor your house were so much as spoken of, before I disbased myself, from my hood and my farthingal, to these bum-rowls and your whalebone bodice [F&H]. | |
| Parson’s Wedding (1664) III v: Her lady [...] raised her from the flat Peti-coat, and Kercher, to the Gorget and Bum-roll. | |
| Gloss. (1888). | |
| Vocabula Amatoria (1966) 87: cul de paris = ‘a bum-roll’. |
(Aus.) an incompetent, a fool.
| Lockie Leonard: Scumbuster (1995) 76: I was totally embarrassed. I was ashamed to the max. You even made me look like a bumscrape. |
rear-entry position sexual intercourse.
| Family Connections 16: Your mother, who had been watching the double bumscuttle [...] reappeared on the scene when the ladies had refastened their drawers. |
see bum-perisher
1. a brothel.
| DSUE (1984) 154/1: bum shop. A brothel mid-C.19-20 ob. |
2. the vagina.
| DSUE (1984) 154/1: bum-shop [...] the pudendum muliebre mid-C.19-20 ob. |
homosexual anal intercourse, also as v.
| Line of Beauty 36: Nick wanted to hold Leo and kiss him at once; but he wasn't quite certain. Bumshoving was unambiguous, and encouraging, but not romantic exactly. | |
| Line of Beauty 346: ‘You're not going to carry on bumshoving him when he's married to the poor little French girl, I hope?’. |
see slinger n. (4)
diarrhoea.
| Chicago May (1929) 128: They allowed us, out of goodness of heart, to buy a little something. They, however, gave us bum soup. |
metaphorical ‘strings’ that secure the buttocks to the torso.
| Maronides (1678) V 78: Such a dam’d lick athwart the back, / As made his very bum-strings crack. |
see separate entries.
deposits of faecal matter in the hairs around a badly cleaned anus.
| DSUE (8th edn) 154/1: C.20. | |
| Dict. of Obscenity etc. |
the penis.
| Sl. and Its Analogues. |
flagellation.
| Randiana 29: I cannot help thinking that so far as practical bum-tickling is concerned, we are a long way a head of all the ancients. |
1. lavatory paper; also attrib.
| in Limerick (1953) 141: Plain bum-wad’s all right in its way, / But there’s nothing so grand / As some leaves, or your hand. | |
| And No Birds Sang 178: They only give us one airgraph blank a week, though back in the base area they have so many they use them for bumwad. | |
| Cryptonomicon 300: Randy hears his words from the other end of a mile-long bumwad tube. [Ibid.] 798: Now I’ve [...] given you my whole supply of bumwad. |
2. a newspaper.
| Dict. Service Sl. n.p.: the bumwad . . . home town newspaper. |
a long suit jacket, covering the buttocks.
| Indiscreet Guide to Soho 113: His jacket is a long bum-warmer, hand stitched. |
In phrases
of a woman, wearing a noticeably large bustle (a stuffed pad that emphasized the rear of the dress).
| Dict. of Sl., Jargon and Cant. |
sexual gratification, whether homo- or heterosexual; thus have a bit of bum.
| Cold Stone Jug (1981) II 25: ‘You didn’t say a bit of bum, did you?’ Then I twigs. ‘O that,’ I says, [...] ‘What do you expect a man to do, locked up night after night, and no women?’. | |
| DSUE (8th edn) 83: bit o(f) bum. (of men) homosexual gratification: low: C.20. | |
| (con. WWII) Jack and Jamie Go to War 100: You like me. I know you do. It’s only a bit of bum. | |
| EliteFitness.com Forum 25 Jan. 🌐 have a bit of bum / have a bit of cock / have a bit of crumpet. |
(Aus.) head over heels.
| ‘Abbreviation’ in Turning (2005) 23: The first wave sent him bum over breakfast. |
to visit the lavatory.
| DSUE (8th edn) 9: mid-C.20. | |
| Amatory Ink 🌐. |
to have sexual intercourse.
| Sl. and Its Analogues. |
to have sexual intercourse.
| Sl. and Its Analogues III 206/2: To go [...] bum-fighting; bum-working; bum-tickling. |
(N.Z.) to experience good luck.
| Reed Dict. of N.Z. Sl. 125: land with your bum in butter Excessively lucky. ANZ. |
(US gay) to offer oneself for homosexual sex.
| Thief 286: That little sonofabitch is trying to put the bum on me himself! [...] A fag and a kidnapped queer kid who was trying to get into my pants. |
to talk nonsense.
| Traveller’s Tool 12: Ask any politico if you reckon I’m talking through me bum. |
In exclamations
(Aus./N.Z.) an excl. of contemptuous dismissal.
| Ridge and River (1966) 125: You go and bite your royal Irish bum! | |
| Maori Girl 220: Sweating, feeling ill, she said, ‘Oh, go bite your backside!’. | |
| Puberty Blues 30: ‘Oh, Johnno, lend us ya . . .’ ‘Bite ya bum.’. | |
| Dict. of Kiwi Sl. 15/1: bite your bum get lost! eg ‘I’m sick of you, go bite your bum!’. | |
| Llama Parlour 218: ‘Go bite your bum,’ I said profoundly. | |
| Reed Dict. of N.Z. Sl. 88: go bite your bum! Rude request to absent yourself. Sometimes with the ruder extension and make sure you leave your tongue in it. |
a general excl. of disdain, dismissal, arrogant contempt.
| At Swim-Two-Birds 33: That is all my bum, said Brinsley. | |
| Out After Dark 156: He’s not supposed to walk up stairs. Stairs me bum, he’s not even let out of bed. | |
| Indep. Rev. 17 Mar. 5: Transgressions, as they say in that wonderful country, my bum! |