Green’s Dictionary of Slang

a devotee of, a stickler for, a fan of; the implication is of strict discipline.

1915		S. Ford Shorty McCabe on the Job 97: Say, I’m a bear for Paris.
1918		D.G. Rowse Doughboy Dope 85: Many a guy who was a bear for yelling on the college campus finds himself out-yodelled by some meek individual.
1929		L. Thomas Woodfill of the Regulars 271: The old boy was a bear for inspection.
1949		(con. 1943–5) A. Murphy To Hell and Back (1950) 151: Be sure you address me properly when the head nurse is around. She’s a bear for rank.
1953		T. Runyon In For Life 304: Sweeney was a bear for work.
1986		C. Stroud Close Pursuit (1988) 79: Stokovich wanted no prima donnas on the squad, and he was a bear for records, summaries, notes.
1991		C. Hiaasen Native Tongue 105: I’m a regular bear for tape decks and Camcorders and shit like that.

1. an aggressive or forceful person (occas. animal); something violent.

1908		Courier-Jrnl (Louisville, KY) 2 Apr. 6/3: [of a racehorse] Edgeley, a bear-cat in the heavy going, was the one to take down the money.
1924		H.L. Wilson Professor How Could You! 268: You are just a wistful old bearcat [... ] one, in short, with a magnetic personality whose power over such as won his notice would be found all too plausible by casual reporters.
1949		Monteleone Criminal Sl. (rev. edn) 19: bearcat A good prize fighter; one with plenty of gumption.
1957		(con. 1943) A. Myrer Big War 225: ‘I think it’s going to be a bear cat.’ ‘As bad as Tarawa?’ ‘Worse’. [Ibid.] 356: I’m a bear-cat.
1960, 1975		Wentworth & Flexner DAS.
1972		Dahlskog Dict. Contemp. and Colloq. Usage.
1979		(con. late 19C) J.T. Edson Gentle Giant 87: He was no ‘bear cat’ as a bullying and unpopular gang boss was termed.

2. something excellent, first-rate; a person with great energy or ability.

1909		T.A. Dorgan in Zwilling TAD Lex. (1993) 17: [of a golf shot] Oh mommer!! There’s a bearcat.
1915		R. Lardner ‘Alibi Ike’ in Coll. Short Stories (1941) 50: Why should a man pull an alibi for bein’ engaged to such a bearcat as she was?
1929		W.R. Burnett Little Caesar (1932) 107: Ain’t she a bearcat!
1931		W.N. Burns One-Way Ride 284: He’d have been a bear-cat as a Central Bureau dick.
1933		W.R. Burnett Dark Hazard (1934) 79: You know Marg [...] You’re sure a bearcat at fixing things up. This place is swell.
1957		(con. 1943) A. Myrer Big War 221: Isn’t that a bear-cat though?

(UK Und.) a young nobleman’s travelling tutor.

c.1850

Duncombe New and Improved Flash Dict.

(UK society) a play fight, a bit of ‘rough-and-tumble’.

1861

T. Hughes Tom Brown at Oxford (1880) 441: By Jove, what’s that? Dragoons [...] There’s going to be the d—st bear-fight.

the vagina.

[1670		J. Ray Proverbs 216: He that hath eaten a Bear-pye, will always smell of the garden].
1709		N. Ward Compleat and Humorous Account of Remarkable Clubs (1756) 94: The Mask’d Ladies [...] open the Wicket of Love’s Bear-Garden, to any bold Sportsman who has a venturesome Mind to give a Run to his Puppy.

coarse language, vulgarity; sometimes abbr. as bear-garden.

1678		J. Ray Proverbs (2nd edn) 66: He speaks Bear-garden.
c.1698		B.E. Dict. Canting Crew.
1698		N. Ward ‘Sot’s Paradise’ in Writings (1704) 33: I Teas’d and Tir’d with this Bear-Garden Play, In doleful Dumps did for ten Tankards pay, / And Sick, not Drunk, did Homewards steer my way.
1737, 1759, 1760, 1776		Bailey Universal Etym. Eng. Dict.
1785, 1788, 1796		Grose Classical Dict. of the Vulgar Tongue.
1811		Lex. Balatronicum.
1823		Egan Grose’s Classical Dict. of the Vulgar Tongue.

a travelling tutor; thus by ext. an expert who teaches by example; bear-led, mollycoddled, controlled.

1749		H. Walpole Letter To Mann 4 June II 392: I shall not wonder if she takes me for his bear-leader, his travelling governor! [F&H].
1756		Foote Englishman Returned from Paris in Works (1799) I 98: Servant. My young master’s travelling tutor, sir, just arrived. Crab. [...] Shew him in. This bear-leader, I reckon now, is either the clumsy curate of the knight’s own parish church, or some needy highlander.
1785, 1788, 1796		Grose Classical Dict. of the Vulgar Tongue n.p.: Bear leader. A travelling tutor.
1823		Egan Grose’s Classical Dict. of the Vulgar Tongue.
1835		G. Kent Modern Flash Dict.
1846–48		Thackeray Book of Snobs (1889) 32: They pounced upon the stray nobility, and seized young lords travelling with their bear-leaders.
1888		‘Ouida’ Massarenes 26: ‘I am not a bear-leader,’ said Lady Kenilworth, with hauteur [F&H].
1891		F.W. Carew Autobiog. of a Gipsey 143: He then undertook the post of bear-leader to the son of one of our local magnates, in which capacity he visited nearly every quarter of the habitable globe.
1916		A. Brazil Luckiest Girl in School 67: ‘[S]hut up ! A boy of sixteen isn’t going to be bear-led by an old fogey like Joynson’.

(US black) very strong (illicitly distilled) whisky .

1923

I. Cox [song title] Bear Mash Blues.

(US) an easy target.

1973

E. Bunker No Beast So Fierce 169: ‘How is it?’ [...] ‘It’s bear meat. If we brought the cannons we’d get him right now.’ ‘That good, huh?’.

an all-male party, esp. on the night preceding the wedding of one of the men.

1847

A. Smith Natural History of the Gent 93: They are men [...] strongly addicted to bear parties —who think ‘a glass of grog and a weed’ the acme of social enjoyment.

1. (US campus) a fool, an ignoramus.

1969

Current Sl. IV:3–4 (1970).

2. (US) a harsh taskmaster.

1990

Cher cited in Lighter HDAS I 115/2: I am a tough person to work with. I mean I can be a bear’s ass.

a joc./offensive term of address.

1942		G. Kersh Nine Lives Bill Nelson 33: He knew Bearsbreath and Bearsbreath’s fighting whisper.
1943		R. Llewellyn None But the Lonely Heart 252: ‘Here we are, bears breath,’ Slush says to some little bloke in a black apron.

(US) a doughnut.

1903		A. Adams Log Of A Cowboy 280: She asked me to make the bear sign – doughnuts, she called them.
1936		R.F. Adams Cowboy Lingo 149: Doughnuts [...] were called ‘bear sign’.
1998		D. Clark ‘I Rode for Bear Sign’ 🌐 Bear sign are a golden delicacy. / Doughnuts, to you in town.
2004		Official Louis L’Amour Discussion Forum 19 Feb. 🌐 OLYKOEKS (‘Bear sign’) (Oily Cakes, or Raised Doughnuts).

1. the pubic hair, orig. hair [resemblance].

1597–8		Jonson Case Is Altered IV iv: Nothing but hair [...] This bear’s skin.
1768		Gentleman’s Bottle-Companion 3: Then came a Furrier, so bold and so stout / With a rum-ti-dum, &c. / And he with a bear-skin did fur it about.

2. (UK Und.) money [fur as a trading commodity].

1718

C. Hitchin Conduct of Receivers and Thief-Takers 11: Now let us see how the Bear-Skin is divided, viz. you will have ten Pounds, and I shall have six Pounds, and the Cull, alias the Fool, will have four Pounds.

(US) a ‘tall story’, an exaggerated story.

[1824		Sandusky Clarion (OH) 7 Jan. 3/2: [headline] A Bear Story].
1840		Times-Picayune (New Orleans, LA) 16 Feb. 2/5: This is a ‘bear story;’ whether true or not is more than we can say.
1856		Spirit of the Times (N.Y.) 25 Oct. 129/1: Whether the forty-bear-in-a-day story [...] was founded on fact, or was merely a bear-story, we are unable to decide.
1871		Atlantic Monthly 28 564/2: A company of hunters [...] went on in their old eternal way of making bear-stories out of whole cloth.
1882		Nat. Police Gaz. (NY) 16 Dec. 2/1: The country editors are at us again with the regular winter crop of bear stories. They give us no rest, these rustic liars.
1890		Dead Bird (Sydney) 18 Jan. 4/4: He therefore called upon T. H. to open the ball, which he did [...] with a fish yarn, and Charlie then followed with a bear yarn .
1939		Hall Collection 189/1: A fellow would come in and tell a little extra story, a little out of line, like he’d had a extra drink or somethin’; we’d call that a bear tale. It meant his story was a little exaggerated in places [DARE].
1958		McCulloch Woods Words n.p.: Bear story – Any kind of a tall story. Once the bear story was an important part of daily life in the woods, but bears, and bear hunters, and bear stories are all much scarcer nowadays.

(US) a difficult situation.

1835		R.M. Bird Hawks I 269: Look you, boy, you are in a bear-trap, and the log will soon be on your back [DARE].
1958		McCulloch Woods Words n.p.: Bear Trap [...] A tricky situation [...] A tangle of logs such that when the bucker makes a cut, one or more logs may roll and mash him.

a large, hairy vagina, esp. one that is dark in colour.

1997

Roger’s Profanisaurus in Viz 87 Dec. n.p.: bear trappers hat sim. Hairy front bottom. As in ‘She had a fanny like a bear trapper’s hat’. Also Davy Crockett’s hat.

(US) a challenge, ‘do your worst’.

1844		Kentucky Trib. (Danville, KY) 3 May 1/3: Call you this a game of brag? [...] Bring On Your Bears.
1861		Baltimore Sun (MD) 23 Feb. 4/1: Every child in the city [...] would have said to the President, like the children in the story, ‘bring on your bears’.
1870		Brooklyn Dly Eagle 27 May 2/6: Good bye grumblers. ‘Bring on your bears,’ if you have any: but don’t threaten and insinuate.
1882		St Paul Globe (MN) 20 Sept. 9/5: Inside a month there will be [...] 500 live men working for the regular candidate and against the Minneapolis ring [...] Bring on your bears.
1886		Chicago Trib. 13 Sept. [headline] Bring On Your Bears!
1889–90		Barrère & Leland Dict. of Sl., Jargon and Cant.
1897		Dly Arkansas Gaz. (Little Rock, AR) 29 July 5/2: They had no doubt at other times cried out bravely, ‘bring on your bears,’ but it was quite another thing when the bear was brought upon the scene.

(US black) miserable, out of sorts, dejected.

1942		Z.N. Hurston ‘Story in Harlem Sl.’ in Novels and Stories (1995) 1002: ‘What’s cookin’?’ ‘Oh, just like de bear – I ain’t nowhere. Like de bear’s brother, I ain’t no further.’.
1943		D. Burley N.Y. Amsterdam Star-News 3 Apr. 13: What’s your wish, tuna fish? If you want to gargle, be like the bear’s brother, try and get further.

see does a bear shit in the woods? Is the pope (a) Catholic? phr.

(Mexican/US) a form of courtship that involves hugging.

a.1909

press cutting in J. Ware Passing Eng. of the Victorian Era 114/1: Courtship is carried on in a most extraordinary manner in Mexico. The part a man plays in a courtship is called ‘doing the bear’, which is a translation of ‘pacer el oso’. It is quite a common expression in Mexico to say: ‘I am doing the bear to Miss So-and-so’; or for the girl to say: ‘That young man is doing the bear to me.’.

(orig. Citizen’s Band radio) to pay a parking fine, to get a parking ticket.

1975		L. Dills CB Slanguage 4: Aviator: speeding driver; e.g. ‘That aviator is looking to feed the bears.’ [Ibid.] 33: Don’t Feed the Bears: don’t get a parking ticket.
1998		Citizens Band Mid-West Gloss. of CB Jargon 🌐 Feed the Bears: To receive a ticket or to pay a fine: ‘I had to feed the bears.’ (Had to pay a speeding ticket, usually in ‘green stamps.’).

(US black) unhappy or unsuccessful in life or a given situation.

1940		Pittsburgh Courier (PA) 27 Jan. 7/1: In Boston [...] racial prejudice runs rampant and the negro ‘ain’t nowhere’.
1940		D. Burley N.Y. Amsterdam News 19 Oct, 20: Joe the Jiver is a solid conniver. Yep, he’s like the bear’s brother Eddie, the cat ain’t ready.
1940		N.Y. Age 20 July 10/5: Santos Barksdale is just like a Bear (Need we say more?).
1941		Pittsburgh Courier (PA) 26 Apr. 7/2: He might be tops in ‘Native Son,’ but like the bear in driving he ain’t nowhere.
1941		D. Burley N.Y. Amsterdam Star-News 10 May 13: Laces long enough to tie up the Bear’s Nephew, Joe, who really doesn’t know!
1944		D. Burley Orig. Hbk of Harlem Jive 35: Like the Bear, he was somewhere!
1953		W. Fisher Waiters 74: Just another broke-ass waiter. Like the bear—nowhere.
1958		‘Ed Lacy’ Room to Swing 122: Honey, I don’t think anything. I’m like a bear — nowhere.
1964		R.S. Gold Jazz Lex. xxii: We should perhaps take note of the brief (c. 1935–c. 1940) vogue of rhyming slang in jazz which, unlike the British practice, was based generally on logical similes: e.g., mellow like a cello; fine as wine; like the bear, I ain’t nowhere (i.e., an extension of the lumbering physical qualities of the animal to the immobilized spiritual state of a man).

(US black) miserable, out of sorts, dejected.

1942		Z.N. Hurston ‘Story in Harlem Sl.’ in Novels and Stories (1995) 1002: ‘What’s cookin’?’ ‘Oh, just like de bear – I ain’t nowhere. Like de bear’s brother, I ain’t no further. Like de bear’s daughter – ain’t got a quarter.’.
1944		D. Burley Orig. Hbk of Harlem Jive 52: A homey ain’t nowhere— just like the bear’s brother, Jim, for him the pickins are slim.

(US black) a phr. implying that a noisy, bragging aggressive person is in fact all show and cowardice.

1942

Z.N. Hurston ‘Story in Harlem Sl.’ in Novels and Stories (1995) 1009: Nothing to the bear but his curly hair: I call your bluff.

(US) to let someone know what’s what, to tell someone off; thus know where the bear... v., to understand a situation.

1973		J. Wambaugh Onion Field 123: Maybe he ain’t so dumb after all [...] Maybe he really does know where the bear shit in the buckwheat.
1994		F. Darabont Shawshank Redemption [film script] I don’t need no smart wife-killin’ banker to show me where the bear shit in the buckwheat.
2004		www.bigslick.net 🌐 Last year was his first shootout and did not do too well. However, he is very patient and with a year under his belt he now knows where the bear shit in the buckwheat is.
2004		posting at cbs.sportsline.com 🌐 All I do is tell them exactly where the bear shit in the buckwheat.

to suffer.

1700

N. Ward London Spy XVII 409: By this time in came my brother Nomenater, who was to stand the Bears with me.