bum

Meanings

1. 1
   noun

   The part of the body you sit on; the buttocks

   Sit on your bum and try to touch your toes.

2. 2
   noun

   A person who is lazy and does no work

   Get off the sofa, you lazy bum.

3. 3
   verb

   To get something from someone for free, especially by asking

   Can I bum a cigarette off you?

4. 4
   verb

   To spend time doing nothing useful

   I'll probably just bum around the house all weekend.

Multiword verbs with bum

• bum around Phrasal verb B2

  to spend time idly without doing useful work

Appears in

Simplified etymology

Bum meaning “buttocks” dates from late Middle English and is of unknown origin, though it may belong with other words beginning bu- that suggest roundness. The unrelated American bum, “vagrant,” appeared in the mid-19th century and is probably derived from the verb bum, “to loaf or hang around.” That verb is probably from bummer, originally an American word for a vagrant, which in turn probably comes from German Bummler, “unemployed person, vagrant.”

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 references to be onomatopoeic. Compare also Old Irish, Scottish Gaelic bun (“base, bottom”). The anal sex senses (noun and verb), as well as the adjective (esp. the first) sense, are expletive-avoiding (…

Topics

External links

• Google Images
• Cambridge Dictionary
• Wiktionary