Dictionary of Contemporary Slang (28 page)

bubkes
n American See
bupkes

buck
n

1.
American
a dollar. A buckhorn knife handle was used apparently as a counter in 19th-century card games and ‘buckskins' were earlier traded and used as a unit of exchange in North America.

2.
a young male gang member. A term adopted by British black youth and football hooligans from the street gangs of the USA, who themselves appropriated a word applied to young Red Indian braves.

bucket
¹
n

1.
a pejorative or humorous term for a car or boat

2.
British
the mouth. In this sense the word is typically heard in working-class speech in such phrases as ‘shut your bucket!' or ‘stick this in your bucket!', recorded in the mid-1990s.

3.
American
an unfortunate person. An item of possibly ersatz slang from the lexicon of the cult 1992 film,
Wayne's World
.

Pail
is a synonym.

4.
British
the vagina. A vulgarism used by males and females since around 2000.

bucket
²
vb

1a.
to move quickly. Usually, but not always, in the phrase ‘bucketing along'. This usage dates from the 19th century.

1b.
to pour (with rain). Usually heard in the expression ‘it's bucketing down'.

2.
Australian
to criticise or denigrate. This use of the word probably arose from the image of tipping a bucket, e.g. of excrement, over a victim, although the noun ‘bucketing' was recorded in England in 1914 in the sense of a harsh or oppressive task.

bucket shop
n

an establishment selling cheap and/or low quality items in large quantities. The phrase has become a standard British colloquialism for a cut-price travel agency. The expression originated in the USA in the 1880s when it referred to share-selling operations, by analogy with cheap saloons.

Buckley's hope/chance
n Australian

no chance at all or very little chance. The eponymous Buckley was an escaped convict who surrendered to the authorities after 32 years on the run, dying one year later in 1956.

bucko
n

a term of address or affection between males. The word was popular in club culture from around 2000.

buckshee
adj

free, without charge. Like baksheesh, meaning a bribe or tip, this word derives from the Persian
bakshish
, denoting something given or a gift, and dates from the colonial era.

buck-wild
adj American

uncontrolled, uncontrollable, running amok. The term uses the intensifying combining form ‘buck-' which probably originated in the speech of the southern USA.

bucky
n British

a gun. An item of black street-talk used especially by males, recorded in 2003. The same word is a term of endearment or address among males in the southern USA.

‘Like for a gun, you could say a gat but that's quite an old term. Most young people now would say stralley, a tool or a bucky.'
(BBC News website, 21 October 2011)

bud
n American

cannabis, marihuana. The use of the word is probably inspired by the appearance of the flowering heads and round seeds of marihuana plants.

bud (accent)
n

used by young British Asians to describe a very strong Indian accent. It comes from the racist term ‘bud bud' denoting any Indian or Pakistani accent.

buddha
n

marihuana. In the 1970s ‘Thai sticks', then one of the strongest strains of marihuana, were also known as ‘Buddha sticks'.

buddy
n

a.
American
a male friend, from ‘butty', a British dialect or gypsy diminutive of brother. ‘Butty', or ‘but', is heard in parts of Wales to mean a close friend (of either sex).

b.
a volunteer companion to an AIDS patient

budgered
adj British

drunk. Probably a comical mispronunciation of
buggered
, it is an item of student slang in use in London and elsewhere since around 2000.

buff
¹
n

1.
an enthusiast, expert or aficionado. An American term which, in forms such as
film-buff, opera-buff, etc., has become established in other English-speaking countries. The word is said (by American lexicographer Robert L. Chapman among others) to be inspired by the buff-coloured raincoats worn by 19th-century New York firemen, later applied to watchers of fires, hence devotees of any activity.

‘Having your life dragged through the popular press for scrutiny by a nation of voyeurs and trivia-buffs…'
(
London Australasian Weekly
, 4 September 1989)

2. the buff
the nude. From the colour of (white) skin.

buff
²
adj American

a.
excellent, attractive. A vogue term of appreciation or approval in use among adolescents since the early 1990s, first associated with the
slacker
and
grunge
subcultures as well as the language of college students.
Boff
is a variant form.

‘She's buff!'
(
Sneakers
, US film, 1993)

b.
physically fit

In both senses, the word had been adopted by UK adolescents by 2000. The superlative form is
buffest

buffage
n American

an attractive person or persons. A vogue term of 1993 using the
-age
suffix, as in
grindage, tuneage
, etc., with the vogue term
buff
, especially in the appreciative description or exclamation ‘major buffage!', popular particularly among females.

buffaloed
adj American

a.
bullied, cowed, overwhelmed or bamboozled

b.
knocked flat or knocked out Both senses of the word evoke the crushing force of a stampede.

buffet
vb American

to have sex. The term was recorded on campuses in the 1990s.

buffing
n

female masturbation

bufty
n British esp. Scottish

a male homosexual. It is possibly an altered pronunciation of
poof(tah)
.

bug
¹
n

a.
an insect

b.
a covert listening device

c.
a virus or infection

d.
a fault or flaw in a machine or system

e.
an enthusiast, devotee. A racier synonym of
buff
.

The word ‘bug' originates in the Middle English
bugge
, meaning a hobgoblin or scarecrow.

bug
²
vb American

to irritate or annoy. The image is of a crawling, buzzing or biting insect. The use of this term spread to Britain in the
beatnik
era but has never fully established itself.

‘Stephenson said Mark Allen had “kept bugging them to burn down his neighbour's flat”.'
(
Independent
, 1 November 1989)

bug
³
n
,
adj American

(something) excellent, superlative. In the expression ‘it's the bug!'.

bugged
adj

1.
angry, irritated. From the verb to
bug
.

2.
suffering from abscesses. A prisoners' and drug addicts' term.

bugger
¹
n

1.
a sodomite. The Bogomil (‘lovers of God') heretics sent emissaries from their base in Bulgaria in the 11th and 12th centuries to contact heretics in Western Europe. These travellers were known as
Bulgarus
(late Latin), and
bougre
(Middle French), a name which was imported into Middle English along with a loathing of the heretics and their practices. One offence which heretics of all persuasions were accused of was unnatural vice, hence the transformation of Bulgarians into buggers. The word is now a very mild pejorative often meaning little more than ‘fellow'.

2.
an awkward or difficult task or person

      
This is a bugger to get open.

bugger
²
vb

1.
to sodomise

2.
to ruin, wreck, incapacitate, thwart. This figurative application of the term is several hundred years old.

bugger-all
n British

nothing, none. A synonym of
sod-all
and
fuck-all
. It occasionally denotes almost or virtually nothing.

buggeration
n, exclamation British

ruin, confusion. The word is often used as an exclamation of impatience by middle-class and upper-class speakers.

buggered
adj

incapacitated, ruined, useless. This usage is encountered in British and Australian speech.

buggerise
vb Australian

to damage, mishandle, etc. The term is also used in the phrase ‘to buggerise around', meaning to waste time

bugger off
vb, exclamation

to leave, go away. A common verb and expletive in British and Australian speech.

buggery
n

1.
anal intercourse. The word is still, in Britain, the official designation of the act in legal terminology.

2.
British
oblivion, destruction, ruin. The word usually appears in phrases such as ‘all to buggery'.

bugging
adj American

irritated, agitated, discomfited. This vogue term, fashionable among adolescents at the end of the 1990s, may have originated in prison or underworld usage, itself derived from the verb to
bug
or the adjective ‘bugs' in the sense of crazy.

‘Those guys were all looking at me like I was a freak and I didn't belong there and I was like totally bugging…'
(Recorded, female student, California, 1995)

Buggins' turn
n British

an automatic privilege that comes in turn to members of a group, regardless of merit, seniority, etc. A piece of bureaucrats' slang. Buggins is an imaginary name, perhaps inspired by
muggins
. The term probably dates from the 1940s and is still heard in local government and civil-service circles.

‘The committee's leader is still selected on the principle of Buggins' turn.'
(Recorded, member of Brent Council, London, 1987)

bug house, bug hutch
n American

a mental hospital

bugle
n

the nose. An old London working-class usage, paralleled in Canada, Australia and elsewhere.

‘If you go on doing all that cocaine, you'll perforate your bugle!'
(Recorded, artist, Vauxhall, London, 1976)

bug out
vb American

1.
to leave hurriedly. The
bug
component in this adolescent expression is essentially meaningless.

2.
to go crazy, become enraged. A
hipsters
' expression revived by clubbers and
hip hop
aficionados since 2000.

bugs bunny
n British money
.

A rhyming-slang term heard in raffish and underworld use since the 1960s.

buick
vb
,
n

(to) vomit. An imitative term employing the name of an American make of automobile and recalling such words as
puke
and
hoick
.

builder's bum
n British

a visible buttock cleft above trousers, as often revealed by labourers, etc. bending over in public places

builds
n British

the components needed to construct a
joint
. The term may apply to cigarette papers alone or to the tobacco, cardboard, etc. required.

‘I've got the puffy, I just need the builds.'
(Recorded, university student, London, 1995)

built
adj

physically well-developed; statuesque or strong. An American term of the 1970s, now heard in Australia and Britain. It is used to express appreciation of sexual attractiveness by men of women and vice versa.

Man, is she built.

bulb
n Australian

nitrous oxide (‘laughing gas'), or a canister containing it. The items, used for whipping cream, can be bought legally and inhaled for their narcotic effect.
Nang
and
whippit
are synonyms.

bull
¹
n

1.
a uniformed policeman. A 200-year-old term still heard in North America and Australia, but never in Britain.

2.
a shorter and more acceptable version of
bullshit
. In armed-service usage it particularly refers to excessive regimentation of unnecessary formalities; in civilian speech it often denotes empty talk.