Green’s Dictionary of Slang

1. rubbish, nonsense; also as attrib.

1879		see bullshit n. (1)
1900		‘Terms Peculiar to West Point’ Howitzer 118: B.S. [...] volubility of discourse, or verbosity.
1915		P.W. Long ‘Semi-Secret Abbreviations’ in DN IV:iii 246: b.s. Bovine excrescence.
1917		A.D. Boyd letter 25 Nov. 🌐 That stuff about us needing clothes and blankets is B.S.
1928		M. Bodenheim Georgie May 73: They love to haind out that ol’ b.s.
1933		(con. WWI) F. Richards Old Soldiers Never Die (1964) 134: This [...] war correspondent [...] was a great romancer and wrote the biggest B.S. of them all.
1958		‘Ed Lacy’ Room to Swing 60: Sybil would have loved this kind of b.s.
1965		C. Brown Manchild in the Promised Land (1969) 269: The psychiatrist would say that I had complexes and all this. That was a lot of B.S.
1971		I. Faust Willy Remembers 161: I know, he said with a pre-b.s. smile.
1987		‘Joe Bob Briggs’ Joe Bob Goes to the Drive-In 171: I told Bobo to hold off on the b.s.
1993		T. Jones Pugilist at Rest 11: After the usual what’s-been-happening? b.s., he got down to business.
1996		Atlantic Online June 🌐 Cadets at West Point called voluble talk B.S. as early as 1900 – evidently a transparent abbreviation even then.
2005		P. Howard Curious Incident of the Dog in the Nightdress 28: ‘That’s total BS and you know it.’ [Ibid.] 144: [He]’s spouting all sorts of BS about the Armenian Quarter.
2008		Simon & Mills ‘React Quotes’ Wire ser. 5 ep. 5 [TV script] They know that these charges ain’t nothin’but B.S.
2011		Sowetan (SA) 9 May 🌐 I see a man sitting on his stoep and talking BS about the k****** [i.e. kaffirs].
2015		I. Welsh Decent Ride 5: Fucking Mortimer, can’t see to anything. Puts me through this BS.
2017		T. Spicer Good Girl Stripped Bare 222: There’s no BS with these women. They’re honest as the day is long.
2023		Rayman & Blau Riker’s 314: My dad said, ‘This is bullshit. You killed my son. This is BS. [...] I don’t have to listen to this’.

2. in fig. use.

1972

O. Hawkins Ghetto Sketches 196: Fergy [...] hits the bottom step of the front stoop, heading for the great b.s.

3. see brown shower under brown adj.²