Green’s Dictionary of Slang

1. (orig. US) a masculine lesbian; usu. an unpleasant, excessively man-hating one.

[1892		Decatur (IL) Daily Rev. 29 July 7(?)/2: With an idea of killing off a greater portion of the women of the levee district Hattie Washington, a colored woman, started out at 3:30 o’clock Wednesday afternoon with a big revolver in her hand. She went to Blanche Alexander’s place, at 101 Custom House place, in search of Belle Watkins, who, she said, had won the affections of Harvey Neal, alias ‘Bulldyke.’ Bell [sic] heard of her coming and escaped, but as soon as the woman got inside of the house she began firing right and left].
1935		L. Bogan ‘B.D. Woman Blues’ 🎵 B.D. Women ain’t gonna need no men .
1936		B. Gaither ‘Strange Woman’ 🎵 She went to Cincinnatti, learned to do the B.D., / She came back in Louisville and took my gal away from me.
1937		R.B. Nye ‘A Musician’s Word List’ in AS XII:1 45: bulldike. A female sexual pervert.
1938		J.P. Johnson [song title] The Bull Diker’s Dream.
1958		T. Capote Breakfast at Tiffany’s 85: Get them cotton-pickin’ hands off of me, you dreary, drivelling old bull-dyke.
1959		W. Burroughs Naked Lunch (1968) 112: He was torn in two by a bull-dike.
1963		J. Rechy City of Night 174: On the dance-floor, too, lesbians – the masculine ones, the bulldikes – dance with hugely effeminate queens.
1964		H.S. Thompson letter 24 June in Proud Highway (1997) 456: She snapped and snarled like a bull-dyke dealing with a subway masher.
1974		G.F. Newman You Flash Bastard 93: Juliet’s association didn’t fit, for most of the women Sneed had seen with that organisation were like bull-dykes who probably believed that total equality would find them with pricks too.
1975		E. Torres Carlito’s Way 80: Rivas [...] had run into a crew of teenage boldykes.
1978		H. Selby Jr Requiem for a Dream (1987) 36: Maybe its [i.e. a dog] just a bulldike.
1980		E. Folb 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).
1989		Kirk & Madsen After The Ball 183: This means that cocky mustachioed leather-men, drag queens and bull dykes would not appear in gay commercials.
1992		S.L. Hills Tragic Magic 173: I stopped by Lila’s house, a female customer of mine who was a bull dyke.
1998		R. Scott Rebecca’s Dict. of Queer Sl. 🌐 bull — 1) (n) short for bulldyke or bulldagger.
2002		J. Lerner You Got Nothing Coming 216: What? You gonna tell me she’s a fat, fucking bull dyke or something?
2010		L. Redhead Thrill City [ebook] They hate me [...] especially that bull-dyke Dianne Talbot.
2010		J. Ellroy Hilliker Curse 13: She lived [...] with four other nurses. A beefy bull dyke ruled the roost.
2017		D. Winslow The Force [ebook] ‘[Y]our wife will be in Danbury with the diesels and the bull dykes’.
2020		S.A. Crosby Blacktop Wasteland 50: ‘The manager is this big bull dyke who probably got a strap-on pecker bigger than yours and mine put together’.

2. attrib. use of sense 1.

1935		Lucille Brogan / ‘Bessie Jackson’ ‘B.D. Woman’s Blues’ 🎵 B.D. women, B.D. women, you know they sure is rough / They are drink up many a whiskey, and they sure can strut their stuff […] Comin’ a time, B.D. women ain’t gonna need no men.
1967		in S. Harris Hellhole 82: I found out later some of them were gay, but they didn’t wear bulldyke haircuts and you wouldn’t know.
2012		(con. 1980s) I. Welsh Skagboys 219: Bulldyke Screw briefly stirs from her Ken Follett novel.
2023		(con. 1962) J. Ellroy Enchanters 44: Bull dyke jumpsuits by Large Marge of Huntington Beach.
2024		J. Meades Empty Wigs (t/s) 797: [A] custodial sentence with bulldyke warders with moustaches.