1823 Mechanic's Mag. No. 7. 108 The Shakers sometimes made use of what he called a buzz to cut iron. He made a circular plate of soft sheet-iron, and put it in his lathe, which gave it a very rapid rotary motion.

1944 in News Rev. 10 May (1945) 7/1 The Germans sent over 11 pilotless planes or ‘Buzz-bombs’.

1946 Amer. Speech 21 246 The V-1 was in the U.S. and British official parlance a flying bomb... The troops, however, generally called it a buzz bomb, probably because it normally came in at rather low altitude, reminiscent of an airplane buzzing the ground.

1920 ‘Sapper’ Bull-dog Drummond x. 264 How long will it take me to get the old buzz-box to Laidley Towers?

1934 Passing Show 12 May 10/1 Ring up Mason's yard..and ask 'em to send round the old buzz-box.

1848 E. A. Leatham Charmione (1858) I. 250 A great greedy buzzfly.

1868 Pall Mall Gaz. 1843/2 The only food for buzz~flies.

a1884 E. H. Knight Pract. Dict. Mech. Suppl. 433/1 Hand Jointer, a small machine for truing the edges of boards or staves. A buzz-planer.

1858 Varieties (San Francisco) 17 July 3/1 ‘Any taste for music?’ ‘Strong. Buzz and buck saws in the day time, and wolf howling and cat fighting nights.’

1860 J. G. Holland Miss Gilbert's Career xix. 350 If you'll take thunder and lightning and a steamboat and a buzz-saw and mix 'em up.

1882 Congress. Rec. 5240/2 Gentlemen may commiserate the South..and wish they might hear the ‘buzz-saw’ humming and the spindle twirling there.

1894 Harper's Mag. Apr. 807/2 A man..has got to..ride a race, or manage a buzz-saw, or be an expert farm hand.

1897 ‘M. Twain’ Following Equator xxxiv. 313 Whizzing green Ballarat flies..with..stunning buzz-saw noise.

1883 M. de L. Landon Wit & Humor 118 I was buzz-sawed, sure.

1914 Dial. Notes 4 104 Buzz-wagon, automobile.

1918 P. G. Wodehouse Piccadilly Jim xxi. 197 Dere's a buzz-waggon outside, waitin'.

1923 ‘I. Hay’ Lucky Number ix. 253 Let's go to the stable and start up your little friend's buzz-wagon.

1946 Amer. Speech 21 263/1 Students at the Graduate School of Business Administration at Harvard University use a specialized vocabulary known as ‘buzz words’ to describe the key to any particular course or situation.

1968 Scottish Daily Mail 7 Aug. 6 The possibilities of a send-up were spotted by the First National City Bank of America which gives its customers what it calls the Instant Buzzword Generator. ‘Technology’, it says, ‘has created a new type of jargon that is nearly as incomprehensible as it is sophisticated.’ With the card ‘you can generate an almost endless variety of intelligent-sounding technical terms’.

1980 Time 28 Jan. 90/1 The air is thick with devalued buzz words, including ‘buzz words’.

1977 Canadian 12 Nov. 19/2 For a lot of us, Affirmative Action was very much an IWY buzz-phrase like Total Fulfillment, Consciousness raising or even that tired old tease Why-Not!

1612 N. Field Woman a Weather-cocke ii. sig. D3^v All your Vertues Are like the Buzzes, growing in the fields.

1877 F. Ross et al. Gloss. Words Holderness (E.D.S.) Buzzes, the burrs of the teazel.

1816 W. Scott Antiquary II. ii. 28 The reverend gentleman was equipped in a buzz wig.

1832 M. R. Mitford Our Village V. 84 (note) The full swelling burly buzz wig.

1854 T. De Quincey Spanish Mil. Nun in Wks. III. 69 Whom the old Spanish buzwigs doated on.

1859 W. Irving in Life IV. 283 Old Dr. Rodgers with his buzz wig.

1798 Anti Jacobin 22 Jan. (1852) 47 Parr's buzz prose. [Note] This is an elegant metonymy... Buzz is an epithet usually applied to a large wig. It is here used for swelling, burly, bombastic writing.

1495 [implied in: Trevisa's Bartholomeus De Proprietatibus Rerum (de Worde) xviii. xii. sig. aa.v^v/2 They..reste all nyghte vnto it be daye: tyll one bee wake them all with twyes bussyng [a1398 BL Add. wiþ twey bimynges] or thryes. (at buzzing n.¹ 1)].

1530 J. Palsgrave Lesclarcissement 473/1 Harke how this fleshe flye busseth.

1556 J. Heywood Spider & Flie lvii. 241 As if ten milions of flies had ben buzzing.

1604 T. Wright Passions of Minde (new ed.) vi. 334 Winds do buzze about it.

1623 W. Shakespeare & J. Fletcher Henry VIII iii. ii. 55 Waspes that buz about his Nose. View more context for this quotation

1707 J. Swift Tritical Ess. in Misc. (1711) 254 Flies..buz..about the Candle, till they burn their Wings.

1790 R. Burns Tam o' Shanter 193 in Poems & Songs (1968) II. 563 As bees bizz out wi' angry fyke.

1820 W. Irving Sketch Bk. II. 280 A fly cannot buzz..without startling his repose.

1833 M. Scott Tom Cringle's Log II. iv. 135 The water was buzzing under our bows.

1879 R. Jefferies Wild Life 202 If a humble-bee buzzes in at the window.

1583 P. Stubbes Anat. Abuses sig. Civ Hauing buzzed his venemous suggestions into their eares.

1609 G. Paule Life Whitgift 9 Buzzing these conceipts into the heads of diuers young preachers.

a1625 J. Fletcher Noble Gentleman i. iii, in F. Beaumont & J. Fletcher Comedies & Trag. (1647) sig. Dd3^v/1 To undermine me, And buz love into me.

1747 S. Richardson Clarissa I. xxxvi. 240 My brother continually buzzing in my father's ears, that my cousin Morden would soon arrive.

1879 F. W. Farrar Life & Work St. Paul I. vi. xxi. 385 Buzzing their envenomed slanders into the ears of these country people.

1616 S. Purchas Descr. India in Pilgrimage (1864) 30 Buzzing the neerenesse and Greatnesse of the Kings power.

1639 T. Fuller Hist. Holy Warre iv. xx. 205 A bruit constantly buzzed.

1723 R. Steele Conscious Lovers i. i I soon heard it buzz'd about, she was the daughter of a famous Sea-Officer.

1752 H. Fielding Amelia I. ii. iii. 114 Our Amour had already been buzzed all over the Town.

1859 J. Lang Wanderings in India 403 It was very soon ‘buzzed about’ who was the artist.

1863 ‘G. Eliot’ Romola I. xvi. 284 Stories..beginning to be buzzed about.

1637 J. Bastwick Answer to Exceptions against Letany ii. 27/2 They all buzze Nobles and Princes in the eare, that are enimyes to the Hierarchy, they indeed would disthrone Kings and haue no gouernment.

1665 T. H. Exact Surv. Affaires Netherlands 162 The nicities of Priviledges and Liberty..shall buzze the people..to Mutinies.

1692 T. Wagstaffe Vindic. King Charles xii. 83 They..buzze the people, that it was done with the Kings Privity.

1925 Brit. Weekly 5 Mar. 554/5 His home-built contraption for ‘buzzin'’ wood.

1890 R. Kipling Many Inventions (1893) 35 Dennis buzzed his carbine after him, and it caught him on the back of his head.

a1917 E. A. Mackintosh War, the Liberator (1918) 113 If we cannae throw a live We can aye buzz a dud.

1948 C. Day Lewis Otterbury Incident i. 10 The Prune buzzed a half-brick at Ted.

1927 I. Gershwin How Long has this been going On? in Compl. Lyrics (1993) 110/2 What a kick—How I buzz! Boy, you click as no one does!

1950 R. Starnes And when she was Bad 33 Deane, comfortably buzzed by his cocktails, monopolized what conversation there was.

1983 L. Thomas Youngest Sci. xx. 231 Me lying on my stomach buzzing with morphine, with the left arm hanging down.

1995 FourFourTwo Oct. 64/1 When I do play well, I'm passing well and when we win I'm buzzing as if I've scored a hat-trick.

1996 P. Potterfield Into Zone (2000) 114 Fischer clearly is deeply moved by great mountains. He admits he gets buzzed by their mere proximity.

2002 Time Out N.Y. 25 Apr. 93/1 He's..skidded headlong into a lucid nightmare of methamphetamine addiction, buzzing for days on end.

1785 F. Grose Classical Dict. Vulgar Tongue at Buzza To Buzza one, is to challenge him to pour out all the wine in the bottle into his glass, undertaking to drink it, should it prove more than the glass would hold.

1817 T. L. Peacock Melincourt II. 28 Buz the bottle..The Baronet has a most mathematical eye..buzzed to a drop.

1847 W. M. Thackeray Vanity Fair (1848) xxxiv. 305 Get some more port..whilst I buzz this bottle.

1848 Blackwood's Edinb. Mag. 63 366 Buzza that jug..and touch the bell for another.

1819 J. H. Vaux New Vocab. Flash Lang. in Memoirs II. 161 Buz, to buz a person is to pick his pocket.

1603 W. Shakespeare Hamlet ii. ii. 395 Cor. The Actors are come hither, my lord. Ham. Buz, buz.

1608 T. Middleton Mad World, my Masters v. sig. H She was married yesterday. Sir Boun. Buz.

1612 B. Jonson Alchemist i. ii. sig. C2 Cry Hum, Thrise; and then Buz, as often. View more context for this quotation

1689 R. Milward Selden's Table-talk 59 If one should profess that by turning his Hat thrice, and crying Buz; he could take away a man's life.

1830 W. Scott Lett. Demonol. & Witchcraft 226 Wave his hat and cry Buzz!