Green’s Dictionary of Slang

1. (US) a promiscuous woman; a prostitute [pun on sense 1, i.e. tramp and tramp n. (2)].

1732		Harlot’s Progress 16: He flies at all the Game that comes, / From Locket Miss to ragged Bums.
1825		Jamieson Etym. Dict. Scot. Lang (Supplement) n.p.: Bum, a lazy, dirty, tawdry, careless woman.
1833		Ely’s Hawk & Buzzard (NY) Sept. 21 n.p.: So rot em I always am cheated, / By hell I will smoke every bum.
1928		V. Delmar Bad Girl 60: You probably should have been married to him months ago, you little bum.
1930		J.T. Farrell ‘Well, That’s That’ in Short Stories (1937) 260: The bums are pretty maggoty, but a jane is a jane, and for the grand old purpose, they’re all the same.
1935		(con. 1920s) J.T. Farrell Judgement Day in Studs Lonigan (1936) 473: The only thing they got a place for in their lives is booze and female bums. Drunk and whoring all the time.
1940		W.R. Burnett High Sierra in Four Novels (1984) 397: What the hell did Marie think she was doing, rubbing up against the guy like that! Once a bum, always a bum.
1951		M. Spillane Long Wait (1954) 40: I want to know why she became nothing but a beautiful drunken bum.
1965		L. Bruce How to Talk Dirty 142: The real bums you can spot. They usually have babies in their bellies — that’s the real tramps.
1973		‘Gunboat’ Smith in Heller In This Corner (1974) 41: The second wife was a bum right out of a house.
1989		H. Rawson Dict. of Invective (1991) 65: The pejorative connotations carried over into the word’s secondary meanings; among them: a prostitute or other easily available woman, an inferior racehorse or animal, a poor prizefighter.

2. (US) a tramp, a vagrant.

1860		N.E. Police Gaz. (Boston, MA) 18 Aug. 6/1: The ‘bums’ around the stove suddenly make amovement of alarm.
1879		G.G. Hart E.C.B. Susan Jane 11: O, I’m the boy whose name is Nan, I’ve rescued many a drowning man, / And lots of ‘bums’ I’ve helped to land. Way down at Coney Island.
1886		Lantern (N.O.) 23 Apr. 2: Such ratty bums I never did see before in my life.
1896		Neihart Herald (MT) 18 Apr. 2/4: Ye don’t want ter call me a bum, see? [...] Ye don’t know what a bum is. I’m a hobo. When ye call a hobo a bum, yer takin’ chances, see?
1899		A. Binstead Houndsditch Day by Day 63: Two ragged, ex-racecourse roustabouts, known to the pavement-pacers of Fleet Street as Tinker and the Ball’s Pond Bum.
1902		F.P. Dunne Mr Dooley’s Opinions 171: Out here th’ floaters is all bums.
1903		Sydney Sportsman (Surry Hills, NSW) 7 Jan. 3/6: ‘That dirty loafer? That corner bum?’.
1904		Socorro Chieftain (NM) 12 Nov. 2/3: In America [...] we need bum-proof freight cars.
1910		Hawaiian Star (HI) 17 June 4/2: The fiend who smokes a rank cigar [...] the bum, the boozer and the beat — they say these men are hogs.
1916		J. Lait ‘Canada Kid’ in Beef, Iron and Wine (1917) 163: Gathered in a solid semicircle about the seat of justice was as fine a crew of porch-climbers, safe-crackers, crapshooters, and just plain bums.
1921		N. Putnam West Broadway 56: If she chose to drive to the coast in a flivver and dress like a bum that was her own business.
1926		J. Black You Can’t Win 61: The other bum came up with the can.
1931		Irwin Amer. Tramp and Und. Sl. 40: bum.–The tramp who does not travel and who will not work; one who lives on charity from choice, although in many cases able to earn a living. One of the most generally misapplied definitions in underworld and tramp argot, but clearly explained in the words of an experienced hobo: ‘Bums loafs and sits. Tramps loafs and walks. But a hobo moves and works, and he’s clean.’.
1933		Townsville Daily Bulletin 3 Aug. 5/1: ‘Dosser’ Doyle was a swagman [...] Mate to the ‘bum’ and the bagman.
1941		J.K. Butler ‘Saint in Silver’ in Goulart (1967) 54: Railroad bums who hiked up from the freight yards.
1956		F.O. Beck Hobohemia 25: Do you know that there are classes among the unemployed as well as among the employed? The unemployed is a worker without a job; the hobo is a homeless, migratory worker; the tramp is a migratory nonworker motivated by desire for adventure; the bum is a stationary nonworker often addicted to drink or drugs; a vagrant is a person without any visible means of support.
1957		C. Himes Imabelle 10: He’d be a bum, hungry, skinny, begging on the streets.
1965		C. Himes Rage in Harlem (1969) 11: [as 1957].
1970		G.V. Higgins ‘Dillon Explained That He Was Frightened’ in N. Amer. Rev. Fall 43/1: The young bum had cornered a middle-aged, rather stout businessman.
1989		M. Amis London Fields 262: I looked like a bum, in bum suit, under bum hair, on bum shoes.
1989		H. Huncke ‘Boxcar Bertha’ in Huncke Reader (1998) 336: This Boxcar Bertha commanded the respect of all the bums and yeggs and reds and grifters of the road.
1999		Indep. Rev. 9 Oct. 12: Gardeners had trouble stopping the bums urinating through the railings – although the bums would always claim it was good for the plants.
2000		Guardian G2 11 May 6: ‘A Coke is a Coke,’ said Warhol, ‘and no amount of money can get you a better Coke than the one the bum on the corner is drinking.’.
2019		N. Walker Cherry 74: A bum asked me for a cigarette.
2020		(con. 1991-94) W. Boyle City of Margins 15: This bum, drinking his bum wine.

3. (US) a term of abuse for anyone unpleasant.

[1540		D. Lyndsay Satyre of Thrie Estaits in Works 37 2772: Quhair Devil gat we this ill-fairde blaitie bum? ].
1863		letter q. in Wiley Life of Johnny Reb (1943) 311: Quite a number of Northern bums, called U.S. soldiers passed out camps.
1904		Number 1500 Life In Sing Sing 81: The ungrateful turnkey, in his expansive moods, calls all the convicts ‘bums’.
1916		R. Lardner ‘Champion’ in Coll. Short Stories (1941) 113: She’s no bum for looks.
1926		S. O’Casey Plough and the Stars Act II: G’way, you little sermonizing, little yella-faced, little consequential, little pudgy, little bum, you!
1927		(con. WW1) P. MacDonald Patrol 41: ‘You shut y’r north [...] You’re an iggerunt bum’.
1929		J. Lait Broadway Melody 73: ‘What’s the big idee?’ he shot at her. ‘I was on there downstage goin’ through my number, an’ here you were, holdin’ hands with that tailor-made bum.’.
1932		(con. 1919) Dos Passos Nineteen Nineteen in USA (1966) 602: I’m sick of hearing what bums the Boches are.
1946		Mezzrow & Wolfe Really the Blues 177: Get those bums out of here!
1953		‘William Lee’ Junkie (1966) 43: George did not like Louie and said he was just a bum.
1959		F. Norman Fings I i: Well, I’ll tell yer why. It’s because of bums like you.
1964		H. Selby Jr Last Exit to Brooklyn 14: Go get a job you no good bums.
1965		R.L. Pike Mute Witness (1997) 68: He snatches the hottest bum since Hitler, hides him [...] then he asks me just like this, what’s on my mind!
1973		M. Scorsese Mean Streets [film script] 40: I got a partner who’s a bum, who doesn’t help out.
1982		(con. 1970) J. Ehrlichman Witness to Power 150: The President had made an offhand comment that students who torch and destroy their campuses [....] were ‘bums’.
1989		Pileggi & Scorsese Goodfellas [film script] 12: He said they were bums.
1999		Guardian Sport 1 Jan. 16: To you bums I am Meester Boss.
2000		M. Dibdin Thanksgiving 95: Married a bum when she was still cute, then had a bunch of kids.
2008		A. Wheatle Dirty South 69: He was a low-down bum [...] He never gave my cousin a penny.
2010		K. Richards Life 62: I’ve got an elite patrol here and I’ve got to take this bum in?
2018		C. Hammer Scrublands [ebook] ‘Some of the greatest bums I’ve known were loaded. Rich scumbags’.
2020		D. Winslow ‘Sunset’ in Broken 186: ‘Did you know Terry?’ She nods. [...] ‘He’s a bum,’ she says.

4. (boxing) a poor, incompetent boxer; similarly used of a racehorse.

1907		B. Fisher A. Mutt in Blackbeard Compilation (1977) 18: The old man is bugs. Cloudlight’s a bum. Now let me see, Johnny Lyons looks the class.
1913–14		Van Loan ‘Out of His Class’ in Taking the Count 182: ‘Why not fight some of these guys? [...]’ ‘Dubs!’ interrupted the manager. ‘Bums!’.
1917		Van Loan ‘Eliphaz, Late Fairfax’ in Old Man Curry 161: A month ago Fairfax was a bum; now he’s pretty near a stake horse.
1927		H.C. Witwer Classics in Sl. 4: Dempsey would be a set-up for me on account of him bein’ nothin’ but a big over-rated bum which had never been in a real fight.
1938		D. Runyon ‘Undertaker Song’ in Runyon on Broadway (1954) 331: By the fourth round the customers are [...] saying throw these bums out.
1947		B. Schulberg Harder They Fall (1971) 11: A press agent for champions, deserved and otherwise, contenders and bums, plenty of the latter.
1955		Mad mag. Oct.–Nov. 48: The right guy is a bum your manager knows you can actually beat.
1969		L. Schecter Jocks 2126: Even Joe Louis has long lists of bums on his record.
1973		‘Gunboat’ Smith in Heller In This Corner (1974) 44: I wouldn’t be fighting those big bums that weighed two pounds less than a horse.
1989		H. Rawson Dict. of Invective (1991) 65: The pejorative connotations carried over into the word’s secondary meanings; among them: a prostitute or other easily available woman, an inferior racehorse or animal, a poor prizefighter.
1996		J. Byrell Lairs, Urgers & Coat-Tuggers 117: The Englishman [...] knew from the catalogue that he was by Musket out of Mersey, which meant that he was no bum as far as breeding was concerned.
2000		Indep. on Sun. Rev. 23 Jan. 6: Bugner, she says, was a ‘bum’.
2012		(con. 1954) ‘Jack Tunney’ Tomato Can Comeback [ebook] My editor canned it [i.e. a fight story] when he saw who it was about. ‘Don’t clutter up my page with bums’.

5. (US Und.) a travelling thief.

1926

(ref. to 1900s) J. Black You Can’t Win 93: The term ‘bum’ is not used here in any cheap or disparaging sense. In those days [i.e. 1900s] it meant any kind of traveling thief. It has long since fallen into disuse.

6. (US) a worldly, promiscuous man.

1910		Committee of Fourteen Social Evil in N.Y. City 54: He is an expert dancer and is very popular because of this fact. In many halls he is the type of ‘bum’ who has led girls astray. [Ibid.] 57: A spieler connected with one of the dance halls said that in order to be a successful manager, a man must be a ‘bum,’ or in other words, one who can get acquainted with women, play cards and is accustomed to vice.
1922		Broadway Brevities Aug. 32: THE BROADWAY BUM.:— ‘Well— Gimme another drink’.

7. a thug, a member of a criminal gang.

1914		H. Hershfield Abie the Agent 10 Sept. [synd. cartoon strip] This [hat] is maybe stylish, but I call it bummish. Believe me I look like from a tough neighborhood a inhebitent!
1960		P. Rabe Murder Me for Nickels (2004) 45: They give stable jobs to their bums what’s on the lam from someplace. [Ibid.] 55: An operator has troubles with Benotti’s bums [...] and a flying squad of our very own bums comes barreling down for a free-for-all.

8. an incompetent sportsman (other than a boxer).

1915		R. Lardner ‘Alibi Ike’ in Coll. Short Stories (1941) 39: That lucky bum busted two pair.
1920		R. Lardner Big Town iii: I’m a bum myself. I just play shinny, you might say.
1955		L. Allen Hot Stove League 196: ‘You lug! You should have lifted the bum in the sixth!’.
1961		L. Schecter Roger Maris 144: [of a baseball star] ‘Why don’t you go back to Kansas City, you bum ya!’ one noisy gentleman roared.
1972		(con. c. 1953) R. Kahn Boys of Summer 242: A final fast ball is inside. The batter walks, forcing in a run. ‘Hey, Dressen,’ screams the constant fan, ‘take that bum out’.

9. something worthless or unsatisfactory.

1925		R. Lardner ‘Women’ in Coll. Short Stories (1941) 151: They’ve made a bum out of my life. They’ve wrecked my — what-do-you-call-it?
1951		H. Boyle Associated Press 1 May n.p.: Money is a bum, a no-good [W&F].

10. a general term of address, as often affectionate as hostile.

1926		Van Vechten Nigger Heaven 37: You bum, you!
1935		J. Conroy World to Win 346: Wassa matter, bum, no comin?

11. (US) a fan or obsessive; usu. of a specified sport, e.g. scuba bum, surf bum.

1944		J.T. Farrell To Whom It May Concern 108: The old man said he didn’t want his son to be a football bum.
1957		F. Kohner Gidget (2001) 28: ‘Ever heard of a surf-bum?’ ‘I know some ski-bums,’ I said.
1963		H.S. Thompson letter 22 Nov. in Proud Highway (1997) 418: The ski bums are still living it up in the Red Onion.
1976		N. Thornburg Cutter and Bone (2001) 52: A ragtag school of scuba bums was preparing to go into the water.
1980		H. Ellison All the Lies in Shatterday (1982) 186: You can keep that ski bum of yours on a string a little longer.
1999		Guardian G2 29 July 3: Outside magazine has grown from a rough and ready fanzine for adventure bums.
2000		Indep. Rev. 24 May 7: James, who [...] subscribes to the dress code of the surf-bum, wears a woolly sock-hat.

12. (US Und.) an experienced criminal.

1935

A.J. Pollock Und. Speaks n.p.: Bum, a safeblower, yeggman; an experienced crook.

13. a semi-professional athlete who makes a living training others rather than entering high-grade competitions, e.g. tennis bum, ski bum, surf bum.

1940

G. Marx letter in Groucho Letters (1967) 38: For a tennis bum, you’re certainly leading a luxurious life.

14. an incompetent.

1940		E.F. Frazier Negro Youth 106: ‘[T]eachers usually set up some dumb-Dora or bum as the best liked and most popular individual [...] some real fair boy or girl from some big shot’s family’.
1953		I. Hamilton Till Human Voices Wake Us 24: The rest of the screws were downtrodden bums.
c.1973		J. Thompson ‘Sunrise at Midnight’ in Fireworks (1988) 153: Jo’na was a bum [...] Alla time make big mess, foul up ever’ting.