The origin of ‘bum’

I was asked the other week to find out the origin of the word “bum”. ‘I write a serious blog about language!’ I spluttered in indignation. But, today, bored on a lunchbreak, I decided that there’s nothing undignified in pursuing the etymological explanation of a mildly provocative expletive.

So here we go: the meaning behind the behind.

(And for any non-British readers who don’t already know, a bum is what we call a posterior, ass, arse, butt, bottom. You get the idea.)

It seems that ‘bum’ was used by none other than a Mr William Shakespeare. The passage is in Measure to Measure, when Escalus asks Pompey his surname. “Bum, Sir” replies Pompey. To which Escalus says, “Troth, and your bum is the greatest thing about you; so that in the beastliest sense you are Pompey the Great.” Hilarious.

So that’s proof that bums existed in Sheakespeare’s day. Disappointingly, my Chambers’ Dictionary of Etymology is clearly and firmly American. Hence bum only appears in the sense of a vagrant or loafer, which can be traced to the German bummeln, ‘to loaf’.

However, the Oxford English Dictionary says that bum heralds from 1387, and is “probably onomatopoeic, to be compared with other words of similar sound and with the general sense of ‘protuberance, swelling.’

Looking up bums was fun, and I’d like to do more. So every now and then I will find another word and look up its origins. It’ll probably be when I have either found a particularly delightful etymology, or when I have nothing else to blog about. And I will also take requests…

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• Heads I Win, Tales You Lose
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