English
bog
see also: BOG
Pronunciation Noun

bog (plural bogs)

  1. (Originally Irish & Scottish) An area of decayed vegetation (particularly sphagnum moss) which forms a wet spongy ground too soft for walking; a marsh or swamp.
    • a. 1513, William Dunbar, Poems:
      ...Chassand cattell throu a bog...
    • c. 1599, William Shakespeare, The Chronicle History of Henry the Fift, Act III, Scene vii, l. 56:
      They that ride so... fall into foule Boggs.
    • 1612, John Speed, The Theatre of the Empire of Great Britaine, Vol. IV, Ch. iv, p. 143:
      Certaine... places [in Ireland]... which of their softnes are vsually tearmed Boghes.
  2. (figuratively) Confusion, difficulty, or any other thing or place that impedes progress in the manner of such areas.
    • 1614, John King, Vitis Palatina, p. 30:
      ...quagmires and bogges of Romish superstition...
    • a. 1796, Robert Burns, Poems & Songs, Vol. I:
      Last day my mind was in a bog.
    • 1841, Charles Dickens, Barnaby Rudge, Ch. lxxii, p. 358:
      He wandered out again, in a perfect bog of uncertainty.
  3. (uncountable) The acidic soil of such areas, principally composed of peat; marshland, swampland.
    • a. 1687, William Petty, Political Arithmetick:
      Bog may by draining be made Meadow.
  4. (UK, Ireland, AU, &, NZ colloquial) A place to defecate: originally specifically a latrine or outhouse but now used for any toilet.
    • 1665, Richard Head & al., The English Rogue Described in the Life of Meriton Latroon, Vol. I:
      Fearing I should catch cold, they out of pity covered me warm in a Bogg-house.
    • a. 1789, in 1789, Verses to John Howard F.R.S. on His State of Prisons and Lazarettos, p. 181:
      ...That no dirt... be thrown out of any window, or down the bogs...
    • 1864, J.C. Hotten, The Slang Dictionary, p. 79:
      Bog, or bog-house, a privy as distinguished from a water-closet.
    • 1959, William Golding, Free Fall, Ch. i, p. 23:
      Our lodger had our upstairs, use of the stove, our tap, and our bog.
  5. (AU & NZ colloquial) An act or instance of defecation.
  6. (US, dialect) A little elevated spot or clump of earth, roots, and grass, in a marsh or swamp.
Synonyms Related terms Translations Verb

bog (bogs, present participle bogging; past and past participle bogged)

  1. (transitive, now often with "down") To sink or submerge someone or something into bogland.
    • 1928, American Dialect Society, American Speech, Vol. IV, p. 132:
      To be 'bogged down' or 'mired down' is to be mired, generally in the 'wet valleys' in the spring.
  2. (figuratively) to prevent or slow someone or something from making progress.
    • 1605, Ben Jonson, Seianus His Fall, Act IV, Scene i, l. 217:
      […] Bogg'd in his filthy Lusts […]
    • 1641, John Milton, Animadversions, p. 58:
      […] whose profession to forsake the World... bogs them deeper into the world.
  3. (intransitive, now often with "down") To sink and stick in bogland.
    • a. 1800, The Trials of James, Duncan, and Robert M'Gregor, Three Sons of the Celebrated Rob Roy, p. 120:
      Duncan Graham in Gartmore his horse bogged; that the deponent helped some others to take the horse out of the bogg.
  4. (figuratively) To be prevented or impeded from making progress, to become stuck.
  5. (intransitive, originally coarse UK, now, chiefly, AU) To defecate, to void one's bowels.
  6. (transitive, originally coarse UK, now, chiefly, AU) To cover or spray with excrement.
  7. (transitive, British, informal) To make a mess of something.
Translations Translations Noun

bog (plural bogs)

  1. (obsolete) Alternative form of bug#English|bug: a bugbear, monster, or terror.
Adjective

bog (comparative bogger, superlative boggest)

  1. (obsolete) Bold; boastful; proud.
    • 1592, William Warner, Albions England, Vol. VII, Ch. xxxvii, p. 167:
      The Cuckooe, seeing him so bog, waxt also wondrous wroth.
    • 1691, John Ray, South and East Country Words, p. 90:
      Bogge, bold, forward, sawcy. So we say, a very bog Fellow.
Noun

bog (plural bogs)

  1. (obsolete) Puffery, boastfulness.
    • 1839, Charles Clark, "John Noakes and Mary Styles", l. 3:
      Their bog it nuver ceases.
Verb

bog (bogs, present participle bogging; past and past participle bogged)

  1. (transitive, obsolete) To provoke, to bug.
    • 1546 in 1852, State Papers King Henry the Eighth, Vol. XI, p. 163:
      If you had not written to me... we had broke now, the Frenchmen bogged us so often with departing.
    • 1556, Nicholas Grimald's translation of Cicero as Marcus Tullius Ciceroes Thre Bokes of Duties to Marcus His Sonne, Vol. III, p. 154:
      A Frencheman: whom he [Manlius Torquatus] slew, being bogged [Latin: provocatus] by hym.
Verb

bog (bogs, present participle bogging; past and past participle bogged)

  1. (euphemistic, slang, British, usually with "off") To go away.
BOG
Noun

bog

  1. (military) Initialism of boots on the ground


This text is extracted from the Wiktionary and it is available under the CC BY-SA 3.0 license | Terms and conditions | Privacy policy 0.004
Offline English dictionary