bog
UK /bɒɡ/ · US /bɔɡ/ noun, verb, adjective
Forms bogs bogging bogged bogger boggest bogg bogge boghe bogue bug
- noun An area of decayed vegetation (particularly sphagnum moss) which forms a wet spongy ground too soft for walking.
- noun (wetland science, specifically) An acidic, chiefly rain-fed (ombrotrophic), peat-forming wetland. (Contrast an alkaline fen, and swamps and marshes.)
- noun (uncountable) Boggy ground.
- noun (figuratively) Confusion, difficulty, or any other thing or place that impedes progress in the manner of such areas.
- noun (UK, Ireland, Australia and New Zealand, slang) A place to defecate: originally specifically a latrine or outhouse but now used for any toilet. “I'm on the bog”
- noun (Australia and New Zealand, slang) An act or instance of defecation.
- noun (US, dialect) A little elevated spot or clump of earth, roots, and grass, in a marsh or swamp.
- noun (US) Chicken bog.
- verb (transitive, now often with "down") To sink or submerge someone or something into bogland.
- verb (figuratively) To prevent or slow someone or something from making progress.
- verb (intransitive, now often with "down") To sink and stick in bogland.
- verb (figuratively) To be prevented or impeded from making progress, to become stuck.
- verb (intransitive, originally vulgar UK, now chiefly Australia) To defecate, to void one's bowels.
- verb (transitive, originally vulgar UK, now chiefly Australia) To cover or spray with excrement.
- verb (transitive, UK, informal) To make a mess of something.
- adjective (obsolete) Bold; boastful; proud.
- noun (obsolete) Puffery, boastfulness.
- verb (transitive, obsolete) To provoke, to bug.
- verb (euphemistic, slang, UK, usually with "off") To go away.
- verb (4chan, Internet slang, transitive) To perform excessive cosmetic surgery that results in a bizarre or obviously artificial facial appearance.
Synonyms
marsh swamp mire fen slough moor quagmire morass morass. See swamp peat bog bog down
Etymology
Inherited from Middle English bog (originally chiefly in Ireland and Scotland), from Irish and Scottish Gaelic bogach (“soft, boggy ground”), from Old Irish bog (“soft”), from Proto-Celtic *buggos (“soft, tender”) + Old Irish -ach, from Proto-Celtic *-ākos.
The frequent use to form compounds regarding the animals and plants in such areas mimics Irish compositions such as bog-luachair (“bulrush, bogrush”).
Its use for toilets is now often derived from the resemblance of latrines and outhouse cesspools to bogholes, but the noun sense appears to be a clipped form of boghouse (“outhouse, privy”), which derived (possibly via boggard) from the verb to bog, still used in Australian English. The derivation and its connection to other senses of "bog" remains uncertain, however, owing to an extreme lack of early citations due to its perceived vulgarity.
Uncertain, although possibly related to bug in its original senses of "big" and "puffed up".
From bug off, a clipping of bugger off, likely under the influence of bog (coarse British slang for "toilet[s]").
From an abbreviation of Bogdanoff, in reference to Igor and Grichka Bogdanoff.
Webster’s 1913
- noun A quagmire filled with decayed moss and other vegetable matter; wet spongy ground where a heavy body is apt to sink; a marsh; a morass.
- noun A little elevated spot or clump of earth, roots, and grass, in a marsh or swamp. [Local, U. S.] Bog bean. See Buck bean.
- verb To sink, as into a bog; to submerge in a bog; to cause to sink and stick, as in mud and mire.
Etymology [Ir. & Gael. bog soft, tender, moist: cf. Ir. bogach bog, moor, marsh, Gael. bogan quagmire.]
Sources: Wiktionary · WordNet 3.0 · Webster’s 1913 — from the Wiktionary entry “bog”, CC BY-SA 4.0. Details