BUM • DICTIONARY ONE.COM • Definition of Bum

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/bəm/ Listen

Bum

noun

1.

A person who is deemed to be despicable or contemptible. Synonyms: crumb, dirty dog, git, lowlife, puke, rat, rotter, scum bag, skunk, so-and-so, stinker, stinkpot. "Kill the rat" , "Throw the bum out" , "You cowardly little pukes!" , "The British call a contemptible person a 'git'"

2.

A disreputable vagrant. Synonyms: hobo, tramp. "He tried to help the really down-and-out bums"

3.

Person who does no work. Synonyms: do-nothing, idler, layabout, loafer.

4.

The fleshy part of the human body that you sit on. Synonyms: arse, ass, backside, behind, bottom, buns, butt, buttocks, can, derriere, fanny, fundament, hind end, hindquarters, keister, nates, posterior, prat, rear, rear end, rump, seat, stern, tail, tail end, tooshie, tush. "Are you going to sit on your fanny and do nothing?"

verb

(past & past part. bummed; pres. part. bumming)

1.

Ask for and get free; be a parasite. Synonyms: cadge, grub, mooch, sponge.

2.

Be lazy or idle. Synonyms: arse about, arse around, bum about, bum around, frig around, fuck off, loaf, loll, loll around, lounge about, lounge around, waste one's time.

adjective

1.

Of very poor quality; flimsy. Synonyms: cheap, cheesy, chintzy, crummy, punk, sleazy, tinny.

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WordNet 3.0 © 2010 Princeton University

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"Bum" Quotes from Famous Books

... dyin' for a kind word, an' he sniffed the smell of the ink and the hot metal like it was June roses. He kind of wanders over to his old desk and slumps down in the chair, and tips it back, and puts his feet on the desk, with his hat tipped back, and a bum stogie in his mouth. And along came a kid with a bunch of papers wet from the presses and sticks one in his hand, and—well, girl, that fellow, he just wriggled he was so happy. You know as well as I do that every man on a ...

— Dawn O'Hara, The Girl Who Laughed • Edna Ferber

... all have our ups and downs," replied the dummy-chucker. "But don't get nervous. I ain't goin' to tell you that I was a millionaire's son, educated at Harvard. I'm a bum." ...

— The Best Short Stories of 1920 - and the Yearbook of the American Short Story • Various

... scout me for him at the corner of the orchard, like a bum-bailiff; so soon as ever thou seest him, draw; and as thou drawest, swear horrible; for it comes to pass oft that a terrible oath, with a swaggering accent sharply twanged off, gives manhood more approbation than ever proof itself would have earned ...

— Twelfth Night; or, What You Will • William Shakespeare [Collins edition]

... of no use, Senor," he said to Frank, who had jumped from the running board and stood beside him. "She is finish. The spark plug, she is on the—what you call it?—the bum." And with an air of finality, he closed the cover. At the same moment he turned to peer anxiously down the road ahead, whence came now on the still twilight the thudding hoofbeats of a ...

— The Radio Boys on the Mexican Border • Gerald Breckenridge

... said he, "and Elisha on the bum, I guess I'll take a night off. This Sherlock Holmes stuff ...

— Old Man Curry - Race Track Stories • Charles E. (Charles Emmett) Van Loan

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