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bum

Pronunciation: /bʌm/

The English word “bum” has 20 meanings listed here.

noun

  1. The buttocks.
  2. The anus.
  3. An act of anal sex.
  4. A homeless person, usually a man.
  5. A lazy, incompetent, or annoying person, usually a man.
  6. A player or racer who often performs poorly.
  7. A drinking spree.
  8. A humming noise.
  9. A bumbailiff.

verb

  1. To sodomize; to engage in anal sex.
  2. [with off or (nonstandard) off of] To ask someone to give one (something) for free; to beg for something.
  3. To stay idle and unproductive, like a hobo or vagabond.
  4. To wet the end of a marijuana cigarette (spliff).
  5. To depress; to make unhappy.
  6. To make a murmuring or humming sound.

interjection

  1. An expression of annoyance.

adjective

  1. Of poor quality or highly undesirable.
  2. Unfair.
  3. Injured and without the possibility of full repair, defective.
  4. Unpleasant or unhappy.

Etymology

Attested since the 1300s, as Middle English bom (found in John Trevisa's 1387 Translation of the 'Polychronicon' of Ranulph Higden, "his bom is oute"), of uncertain origin. Sometimes suggested to be a shortening of botme, botom, bottum (“bottom”), but this is contradicted by the fact that bottom is not attested in reference to the buttocks until the late 1700s. Suggested by some old and modern…

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Definitions are from Wiktionary, extracted by Kaikki.org, and are available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 licence.