1728 R. Ashton Battle of Aughrim i. i. 8 I will..bear my Troops away, Confound the Booger e're I do retire, And set Olympus on a flame of Fire.

1811 S. Reynolds Diary 3 Aug. in F. W. Howay Voy. New Hazard to N.W. Coast (1938) 37 He jawed us, called us thieves, country boogars, infernal scoundrels.

1873 C. H. Smith Bill Arp's Peace Papers 14 The great Amerikan guvernment sees him and skorns him, and ses ‘support yerself’, you dirty booger.

1938 M. K. Rawlings Yearling xxxiii. 420 If I was a scrawny little big-eyed booger like you, I'd stay home.

1989 R. Hansen Nebraska Stories 133 You have to watch the little booger every second because she'll put in her mouth what most people wouldn't step on.

2003 G. Keillor Love Me (2004) xiv. 129 I went to clean out Mr. Hoffstadter's apartment today, having succeeded in putting the old booger into a nursing home.

1827 Christian Intelligencer & Eastern Chron. 10 Aug. 126/1 Mrs. Johnson..seized two of her little ones violently..and shut them down cellar, where she said the ‘booger’ was.

1866 C. H. Smith Bill Arp, so Called 78 They can't sleep for imagining..that their bones are..to rot in some thicket, far, far away, where ghosts and boogers go dodging around.

1917 Lincoln (Nebraska) Sunday Star 14 Jan. (Society & Fashion section) 6/7 Ghosts and powers of darkness and black things and boogers and goberlins that'll git you ef—you—don't—watch out.

1971 Foxfire Spring–Summer 28 My grandmother always used the times to the best advantage by telling ghost stories—or ‘booger’ tales.

2000 D. Ing Loose Cannon 80 He would fumble to his booger-zapper..and let fly under his bed with a cat-piss cocktail potent enough to have sent any self-respecting booger lurching toward some other kid's bed.

1892 Dial. Notes 1 214 Boogie... Some called it a boogher (pronounced so as to rhyme with cougar by some, with sugar by others)... Called bugger in the South, the u sounded like oo short [u].

1951 T. Roethke Praise to End! i. 22 Put your finger in your face, And there will be a booger.

1984 L. Rooke Bolt White Cloth 27 He had a booger hanging from his nose and snot smeared across his cheek.

2016 Edmonton (Canada) Examiner (Nexis) 10 Aug. a 5 I was on a live national news show with a clearly visible booger hanging out of my nose.

1847 Portland Advertiser in Littell's Living Age 27 Nov. 413/1 They had heard him scream ‘the booger man has got me,’ but thought nothing of it.

1937 Z. N. Hurston Their Eyes were watching God xiv. 198 De boogerman liable tuh tote yuh off whilst Ah'm gone.

1999 M. H. Wright Sounds like Home iii. 38 Then I shot past them, running as though the boogerman was after me.

1893 H. A. Shands Some Peculiarities Speech Mississippi 70 Booger...The word is used also, by illiterate whites, as a verb, meaning to shy, to get slightly frightened, and is said of a horse.

1925 H. Hughes Ruint ii. 83 His horse kind o' boogered at him.

1944 Lubbock (Texas) Avalanche-Jrnl. 6 Feb. 14/4 The farmer..then turned directly westward when ‘boogered’ by lights of an approaching automobile.

1969 B. K. Green Wild Cow Tales 226 The night the steers boogered they didn't see me and I didn't think that they had quite figured out where I was.

1993 Seguin (Texas) Gaz.-Enterprise 29 Sept. 3/2 Cows boogered at the spot forever, it seemed.

2007 J. C. Wofford Take Good Look Around 85 Horses everywhere, boogering and snorting at all the confusion.