bog

• (General American): enPR: bôg, IPA^(key): /bɔɡ/
  • (cot-caught merger) enPR: bäg, IPA^(key): /bɑɡ/

  • Audio (US)

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• (Received Pronunciation) enPR: bŏg, IPA^(key): /bɒɡ/

• Audio (UK)

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• Audio (AU)

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• Rhymes: -ɒɡ

From Middle English bog, from Irish and Scottish Gaelic bogach (“soft, boggy ground”), from Old Irish bog (“soft”),[1] from Proto-Celtic *buggos (“soft, tender”) + Old Irish -ach, from Proto-Celtic *-ākos.

The frequent use to form compounds regarding the animals and plants in such areas mimics Irish compositions such as bog-luachair (“bulrush, bogrush”).[1]

Its use for toilets is now often derived from the resemblance of latrines and outhouse cesspools to bogholes,[2][3] but the noun sense appears to be a clipped form of boghouse (“outhouse, privy”),[4] which derived (possibly via boggard) from the verb to bog,[5] still used in Australian English.[3] The derivation and its connection to other senses of "bog" remains uncertain, however, owing to an extreme lack of early citations due to its perceived vulgarity.[6][7]

bog (plural bogs)

1. (originally Ireland and Scotland) An area of decayed vegetation (particularly sphagnum moss) which forms a wet spongy ground too soft for walking; a marsh or swamp.
   • 1599, William Shakespeare, “The Life of Henry the Fift”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies […] (First Folio), London: […] Isaac Iaggard, and Ed[ward] Blount, published 1623, OCLC 606515358, [Act III, scene vii], line 56:

     They that ride so... fall into foule Boggs.

   • 1612, John Speed, The Theatre of the Empire of Great Britaine, Vol. IV, Ch. iv, p. 143:

     Certaine... places [in Ireland]... which of their softnes are vsually tearmed Boghes.

   • 1912, Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, The Lost World‎:

     [W]e entered a region where the stream widened out and formed a considerable bog.

   • 2004 November 15, Retro Studios, Metroid Prime 2: Echoes, Nintendo, level/area: Main Energy Controller (Great Temple):

     U-Mos: 'The swamplands of Torvus are treacherous, and can hinder you considerably. Bear this in mind as you move through the bog.'

2. (figuratively) Confusion, difficulty, or any other thing or place that impedes progress in the manner of such areas.
   • 1614, John King, Vitis Palatina, p. 30:

     ...quagmires and bogges of Romish superstition...

   • a. 1796, Robert Burns, Poems & Songs, Vol. I:

     Last day my mind was in a bog.

   • 1841, Charles Dickens, Barnaby Rudge, Ch. lxxii, p. 358:

     He wandered out again, in a perfect bog of uncertainty.

3. (uncountable) The acidic soil of such areas, principally composed of peat; marshland, swampland.
   • a. 1687, William Petty, Political Arithmetick:

     Bog may by draining be made Meadow.

4. (UK, Ireland, Australia and New Zealand, slang) A place to defecate: originally specifically a latrine or outhouse but now used for any toilet.

   I'm on the bog ― I'm sitting on/using the toilet

   I'm in the bog ― I'm in the bathroom

   • 1665, Richard Head & al., The English Rogue Described in the Life of Meriton Latroon, Vol. I:

     Fearing I should catch cold, they out of pity covered me warm in a Bogg-house.

   • a. 1789, in 1789, Verses to John Howard F.R.S. on His State of Prisons and Lazarettos, p. 181:

     ...That no dirt... be thrown out of any window, or down the bogs...

   • 1864, J.C. Hotten, The Slang Dictionary, p. 79:

     Bog, or bog-house, a privy as distinguished from a water-closet.

   • 1959, William Golding, Free Fall, Ch. i, p. 23:

     Our lodger had our upstairs, use of the stove, our tap, and our bog.

5. (Australia and New Zealand, slang) An act or instance of defecation.
6. (US, dialect) A little elevated spot or clump of earth, roots, and grass, in a marsh or swamp.

• (wet spongy areas or ground): bogg, bogge, boghe (all obsolete)

• (wet spongy areas or ground): bogland, bogmire, fen, marsh, marshland, mire, morass, peat bog, slough, swamp, swampland, quagmire, wetlands; moss (Scottish); pakihi (NZ); muskeg (Canadian)
• (any place or thing that impedes progress): mire, quagmire
• (toilet): See also Thesaurus:toilet and Thesaurus:bathroom

• (small marsh): boglet

• (like a marsh): boggy, boggish
• (marshy quality): bogginess
• (to create a marsh): boggify

• bog-standard

bog (third-person singular simple present bogs, present participle bogging, simple past and past participle bogged)

1. (transitive, now often with "down") To sink or submerge someone or something into bogland.
   • 1928, American Dialect Society, American Speech, Vol. IV, p. 132:

     To be 'bogged down' or 'mired down' is to be mired, generally in the 'wet valleys' in the spring.

2. (figuratively) To prevent or slow someone or something from making progress.
   • 1605, Ben Jonson, Seianus His Fall, Act IV, Scene i, l. 217:

     […] Bogg'd in his filthy Lusts […]

   • 1641, John Milton, Animadversions, p. 58:

     […] whose profession to forsake the World... bogs them deeper into the world.

3. (intransitive, now often with "down") To sink and stick in bogland.
   • a. 1800, The Trials of James, Duncan, and Robert M'Gregor, Three Sons of the Celebrated Rob Roy, p. 120:

     Duncan Graham in Gartmore his horse bogged; that the deponent helped some others to take the horse out of the bogg.

4. (figuratively) To be prevented or impeded from making progress, to become stuck.
5. (intransitive, originally vulgar UK, now chiefly Australia) To defecate, to void one's bowels.
6. (transitive, originally vulgar UK, now chiefly Australia) To cover or spray with excrement.
7. (transitive, Britain, informal) To make a mess of something.

• bogg, bogue (both obsolete)

See bug[8]

bog (plural bogs)

1. (obsolete) Alternative form of bug: a bugbear, monster, or terror.

• bogge; see also bug

• take bog

Uncertain,[9] although possibly related to bug in its original senses of "big" and "puffed up".

• (all senses): bug (Derbyshire & Lincolnshire)

bog (comparative bogger, superlative boggest)

1. (obsolete) Bold; boastful; proud.
   • 1592, William Warner, Albions England, Vol. VII, Ch. xxxvii, p. 167:

     The Cuckooe, seeing him so bog, waxt also wondrous wroth.

   • 1691, John Ray, South and East Country Words, p. 90:

     Bogge, bold, forward, sawcy. So we say, a very bog Fellow.

• boggish, boggishly

bog (plural bogs)

1. (obsolete) Puffery, boastfulness.
   • 1839, Charles Clark, "John Noakes and Mary Styles", l. 3:

     Their bog it nuver ceases.

bog (third-person singular simple present bogs, present participle bogging, simple past and past participle bogged)

1. (transitive, obsolete) To provoke, to bug.
   • 1546 in 1852, State Papers King Henry the Eighth, Vol. XI, p. 163:

     If you had not written to me... we had broke now, the Frenchmen bogged us so often with departing.

   • 1556, Nicholas Grimald's translation of Cicero as Marcus Tullius Ciceroes Thre Bokes of Duties to Marcus His Sonne, Vol. III, p. 154:

     A Frencheman: whom he [Manlius Torquatus] slew, being bogged [Latin: provocatus] by hym.

From bug off, a clipping of bugger off, likely under the influence of bog (coarse British slang for "toilet[s]").

bog (third-person singular simple present bogs, present participle bogging, simple past and past participle bogged)

1. (euphemistic, slang, Britain, usually with "off") To go away.

• bog off

• spag bog

• gob

• IPA^(key): /bɔːˀɣ/, [ˈb̥ɔ̝ːˀw], [ˈb̥ɔ̝ːwˀ], [ˈb̥ɔ̽wˀ]

From Old Norse bók (“beech, book”), from Proto-Germanic *bōks, from Proto-Indo-European *bʰeh₂ǵos (“beech”).

bog c (singular definite bogen, plural indefinite bøger)

1. book

• ordbog c
• salmebog c
• årbog c

Maybe from Middle Low German bōk.

bog c (singular definite bogen, plural indefinite bog)

1. beechnut, beech mast

• bogfinke c
• boghvede c

• “bog” in Den Danske Ordbog

• bog on the Danish Wikipedia.Wikipedia ^da
• Bog (flertydig) on the Danish Wikipedia.Wikipedia ^da
• Bog (bøgens nødder) on the Danish Wikipedia.Wikipedia ^da

bog m (plural bogs)

1. (ecology) an ombrotrophic peatland

   Antonym: fen

• “bog”, in Trésor de la langue française informatisé [Digitized Treasury of the French Language], 2012.

• IPA^(key): [boːk]

• Audio (Austria)

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• Audio

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bog

1. preterite tense of biegen

Probably from Proto-Finno-Ugric *poŋka (“knot, knob, protuberance, unevenness”). Cognates include Estonian pung.[1][2]

• IPA^(key): [ˈboɡ]
• Rhymes: -oɡ

bog (plural bogok)

1. knot

   Synonym: csomó

• bog in Bárczi, Géza and László Országh. A magyar nyelv értelmező szótára (‘The Explanatory Dictionary of the Hungarian Language’). Budapest: Akadémiai Kiadó, 1959–1962. Fifth ed., 1992: →ISBN
• bog in Ittzés, Nóra (ed.). A magyar nyelv nagyszótára (’A Comprehensive Dictionary of the Hungarian Language’). Budapest: Akadémiai Kiadó, 2006–2031 (work in progress; published A–ez as of 2023)

From Old Irish boc (“soft, gentle, tender; tepid”), from Proto-Celtic *buggos.

The verb is from Old Irish bocaid (“softens, makes soft; moves; shakes”), from the adjective.

• (Munster, Connacht) IPA^(key): /bˠɔɡ/
• (Ulster) IPA^(key): /bˠʌɡ/

bog (genitive singular masculine boig, genitive singular feminine boige, plural boga, comparative boige)

1. soft; yielding; tender; (of physical condition) flabby; (of disposition) indulgent, lenient, soft, foolish; (of living, conduct, etc.) easy; (of sound, voice) soft, mellow; (of weather) soft, wet; (of winter) mild, humid

   Synonym: tláith

   • 2015, Proinsias Mac a' Bhaird, transl.; Maura McHugh, editor, Amhrán na Mara (fiction, paperback), Kilkenny, County Kilkenny; Howth, Dublin: Cartoon Saloon; Coiscéim, translation of Song of the Sea by Will Collins, →ISBN, page 2:

     Briseann tonnta boga in aghaidh na gcarraigeacha thíos faoi.

     Waves gently lap against the rocks below.

2. loose
3. lukewarm

   Synonyms: alabhog, alathe, bogthe

• an rud a fhaightear go bog caitear go bog é (“easy come, easy go”)
• bog- (“soft, mild; nearly; easy”)
• casacht bhog (“loose cough”)
• bogearraí (“software”)

bog m (genitive singular boig)

1. something soft
2. (anatomy, of ear) lobe

   Synonyms: liopa, maothán

bog (present analytic bogann, future analytic bogfaidh, verbal noun bogadh, past participle bogtha) (transitive, intransitive)

1. soften, become soft; (of pain) ease; (of milk) warm; (of weather) get milder; soften, move (someone's heart)
2. move, loosen; (of a cradle) rock

• casacht a bhogadh (“to loosen a cough”)

• Ó Dónaill, Niall (1977), “bog”, in Foclóir Gaeilge–Béarla, Dublin: An Gúm, →ISBN
• G. Toner, M. Ní Mhaonaigh, S. Arbuthnot, D. Wodtko, M.-L. Theuerkauf, editors (2019), “1 boc”, in eDIL: Electronic Dictionary of the Irish Language
• G. Toner, M. Ní Mhaonaigh, S. Arbuthnot, D. Wodtko, M.-L. Theuerkauf, editors (2019), “bocaid”, in eDIL: Electronic Dictionary of the Irish Language
• Finck, F. N. (1899), Die araner mundart, Marburg: Elwert’sche Verlagsbuchhandlung, vol. II, p. 47.
• Sjoestedt, M. L. (1931) Phonétique d’un parler irlandais de Kerry (in French), Paris: Librairie Ernest Leroux, page 14

From Proto-Slavic *bogъ.

• IPA^(key): [bɔk]
• Homophones: Bog, bok

bog m (feminine equivalent bogowka)

1. god

• bóžy (“godly, divine”)

• Muka, Arnošt (1921, 1928), “bog”, in Słownik dolnoserbskeje rěcy a jeje narěcow (in German), St. Petersburg, Prague: ОРЯС РАН, ČAVU; Reprinted Bautzen: Domowina-Verlag, 2008
• Starosta, Manfred (1999), “bog”, in Dolnoserbsko-nimski słownik / Niedersorbisch-deutsches Wörterbuch (in German), Bautzen: Domowina-Verlag

From Old Norse bógr, from Germanic.

bog m (definite singular bogen, indefinite plural boger, definite plural bogene)

1. shoulder (of an animal)

• “bog” in The Bokmål Dictionary.
• “bog” in Det Norske Akademis ordbok (NAOB).

• IPA^(key): /buːɡ/

From Old Norse bógr, from Proto-Germanic *bōguz, from Proto-Indo-European *bʰeh₂ǵʰús.

bog m (plural bogen)

1. shoulder, primarily of an animal

From Old Norse bók, from Proto-Germanic *bōks.

bog f (definite singular bogjå)

1. (dialectal) alternative form of bok
   • 1996, Skretting, Tobias, Attemed ånå, page 90:

     Takk for bogjå

     Thanks for the book

   • 1957, Ersdal, Reinert, quoting Andreas Mjaasund, Bakke kyrkje: Krosskyrkja 200 år, [Flekkefjord]:

     Eg kan nok bli frelst etter bogjå, men ikkje ette det vonde hjerta mitt.

     I might be saved by the book, but not by my evil heart.

• “bog” in The Nynorsk Dictionary.

• bōh

From Proto-Germanic *bōguz. Cognate with Old Saxon bōg, Old High German buog, Old Norse bógr.

• IPA^(key): /boːɡ/, [boːɣ]

bōg m

1. a branch or bough of a tree
2. the arm or shoulder

• bēag
• bīeġan
• bīeġels
• boga
• būgan
• byġe
• byht
• ġebīeġednes

• Middle English: boȝ, bogh
  • English: bough
  • Scots: beuch

From Old Irish boc (“soft, gentle, tender; tepid”).

• IPA^(key): [b̊oɡ̊]

bog (comparative buige)

1. soft
2. wet, damp, moist

• Edward Dwelly (1911), “bog”, in Faclair Gàidhlig gu Beurla le Dealbhan [The Illustrated Gaelic–English Dictionary], 10th edition, Edinburgh: Birlinn Limited, →ISBN
• G. Toner, M. Ní Mhaonaigh, S. Arbuthnot, D. Wodtko, M.-L. Theuerkauf, editors (2019), “1 boc”, in eDIL: Electronic Dictionary of the Irish Language

From Proto-Slavic *bogъ.

• IPA^(key): /bôːɡ/

bȏg m (Cyrillic spelling бо̑г)

1. god, deity
2. (colloquial) idol, god

• bȍgovskī / bogòvskī
• božànstvo
• bȍžjī

• Bȏg
• bògat

From Serbo-Croatian bog.

• IPA^(key): /bôːɡ/

bog m

1. god

• Walter Breu and Giovanni Piccoli (2000), Dizionario croato molisano di Acquaviva Collecroce: Dizionario plurilingue della lingua slava della minoranza di provenienza dalmata di Acquaviva Collecroce in Provincia di Campobasso (Parte grammaticale)., pp. 394

From Proto-Slavic *bogъ.

• IPA^(key): /bóːk/

bọ̑g m anim (female equivalent bogínja)

1. god

• “bog”, in Slovarji Inštituta za slovenski jezik Frana Ramovša ZRC SAZU, portal Fran

From Old Swedish bōgher, from Old Norse bógr, from Proto-Germanic *bōguz, from Proto-Indo-European *bʰāǵʰus.

• IPA^(key): /buːɡ/

bog c

1. shoulder (of an animal)
2. bow (front of boat or ship)

• bogvisir (“bow visor”)