bauchbaughadj.
/bɔːx/, /bɔːk/, /bɔː/, U.S. /bɔk/, /bɑk/, /bɔx/, /bɑx/, /bɔ/, /bɑ/, Scottish English /bɔx/ Scottish.
a. Weak, poor, pithless, without substance or stamina; ‘indifferent,’ ‘sorry,’ ‘shaky.’
ΚΠ
1575 J. Rolland Treat. Court Venus iv. f. 58 Thocht he and I throw play fell in bawch pleid?
a1603 J. Melville Mem. Own Life 37 He fond me bauche in the latin toung.
1725 A. Ramsay Gentle Shepherd iii. iv. 50 Without Estate, A Youth tho' sprung frae Kings, looks baugh and blate.
1866 N. Brit. Daily Mail 9 Mar. Though the ice was rather baugh.
b. The northern English dialect form is baff, as in baff week, ‘hard-up week’.
ΚΠ
1885 Weekly Times 21 Aug. 9/2 The workers in collieries receive their pay once a fortnight, and call the intervening no-pay week ‘baff-week.’ The expression ‘as long as a baff-week’ has become proverbial among them.
Derivatives
bauchly adv.
ΚΠ
a1687 R. McWard Επαγωνισμοι (1723) 155 How bluntly and bauchly soever the Matter be handled.
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bauchness n.
This entry has not yet been fully updated (first published 1887; most recently modified version published online December 2021).
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adj.1575