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Bum

adjective
1.
Of very poor quality; flimsy.  Synonyms: cheap, cheesy, chintzy, crummy, punk, sleazy, tinny.






WordNet 3.0 © 2010 Princeton University








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"Bum" Quotes from Famous Books



... to learn his attitude toward his own work and that of his master, and I attempted to draw him out with a crass compliment. He denied me gently. 'The best things I do, or rather did, young feller, are jest a little poorer than his worst. Between ourselves, he painted some pretty bum things. Some I suppose he did, like me, by lamplight. Some he sketched with one hand while he was lighting that there long pipe with the other. Sometimes, I guess, he was in a hurry for the money. Now, ...
— The Collectors • Frank Jewett Mather

... kind of man who need sleep out of doors," replied Standish, speaking slowly, as one who chooses his every word with care, and with his cold blue eyes unobtrusively scanning Gavin's battered face. "That's the bedroom for bums. You aren't a bum. Even if your manner, and the way you fought out yonder, didn't prove that. A bum doesn't walk all this way and back, on a hot day, unless for ...
— Black Caesar's Clan • Albert Payson Terhune

... something. It does not increase his respect for Christians to find them easily deceived, and it outrages his sense of justice to see that laziness, drunkenness, and vice are rewarded by church workers. Even among tramps, the variety known as the "mission bum" is looked down upon by his fellows, and there is a lesson for the mission worker ...
— Friendly Visiting among the Poor - A Handbook for Charity Workers • Mary Ellen Richmond

... see; let me think, reflect, cogitate, tickle the thinker. Best way is to start at the A, B, C—first principles, all that sort of thing. Supposin', supposin' you come into the room with that hat on—it's a bum hat, by the way—and some one pipes up; 'Get that at the fire sale?' What are ...
— The Varmint • Owen Johnson

... 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

... in the evening, and the cannons went off with a bum! bum! and the soldiers presented arms. That was a marriage! The princess and the shadow went out on the balcony to show themselves, and ...
— A Christmas Greeting • Hans Christian Andersen

... you've got 'em going,' said the bar-keep to the bum. 'But cheer up And beer up. The worst ...
— The Clarion • Samuel Hopkins Adams

... "craps." "I didn't have no more 'n you've got. I lived down South, clean off the track of ever'thing. I puts my foot in my hand and went out and seen the world. I tramps up to New York, works my way over to England, tramps and peddles, and gits enough dough to pay my way back. Say, it's bum slow over there. Why, they ain't even on to street-cars in London! I makes more in a week at home than I do in a month in England. Say, where you goin' at when ...
— Sandy • Alice Hegan Rice

... own affairs best. But with all your money, you'd better take to the tall pines yourself, like these old guys in the 'Lobster Club.' That's the advice of a man who's in the business for money not glory. This is a bum game. They'll get me some day, some of these yeggs or bunk artists that I've sent away for recuperation, as the doctors call it. But I'm doing it for bread and beefsteak, while it lasts. You run along and play—a good way from the fire, or you'll get more than your fingers burnt. Take ...
— The Voice on the Wire • Eustace Hale Ball

... they lived. I'm afraid I wasn't interested. Aren't you glad the fire didn't bum the cupola? I almost wish they could leave the house that lovely weathered brown tone, instead of painting it white with green blinds again. Dad would like it that way, too. I suppose everybody would say it was flying in the face of tradition, after the ...
— Kit of Greenacre Farm • Izola Forrester

... ran away with the circus," he soliloquized in the midst of the throng milling up the Elevated station stairs. "And later, when I had come back from the circus, I took that long bum on brake-beams. And when I had come back from that, a little later I went off in the forecastle of the 'Tropic Bird' to Tahiti. And each time that flapping business came first. Every time I've done ...
— The Trimming of Goosie • James Hopper

... Bum Bahadoor had acted as prime minister during the absence of his brother in England, and had just learnt to value the possession of power when the return of the minister put an end to his short-lived greatness, and he would have sunk at once into comparative insignificance, had not Jung, who ...
— A Journey to Katmandu • Laurence Oliphant

... forget his promise: he sent us a good dinner, and a glass of grog each, which we discussed under the half-deck, between two of the guns. We had some money in our pockets, and we purchased some sheets of paper from the bum-boat people, who were on the main-deck supplying the seamen, and I wrote to Mr Drummond and Mr Turnbull, as well as to Mary and old Tom, requesting the two latter to forward our clothes to Deal, in case ...
— Jacob Faithful • Captain Frederick Marryat

... The bum's eyes cleared long enough for him to peer into Dewforth's eyes in order to see if his madness was worth sharing, then they filmed over again as he ...
— In the Control Tower • Will Mohler

... where's them people? (Looks about suspiciously.) Haven't skipped, I hope! (Goes to room Right.) Anybody in here? Humph! Looks like they're hard up! A bum lot! (Belle appears Left with shawl over shoulders and a loaf of bread in her hand.) Oh! Here you ...
— The Pot Boiler • Upton Sinclair

... you, mun! 'twould ha' look'd busy like, in me, to say a word; so I took up a warming pan, and I bang'd bum bailey, wi' the broad end on't, 'till he fell o' the floor as ...
— John Bull - The Englishman's Fireside: A Comedy, in Five Acts • George Colman

... lack of caribou, but because the cotton does not need continual watching to save it from the dogs. Of the fifty teepees at Fort Chipewyan, one or two only were of caribou but many had caribou-skin tops, as these are less likely to bum ...
— The Arctic Prairies • Ernest Thompson Seton

... night clerk for eight o'clock in the morning, she seems to drift off into a peaceful slumber, but awakens on the moment and hurrying all the way up to the other end of Main Street she slams the bass keys a couple of hard blows—bumetty-bum! And so it goes for quite a long spell after that: Tippy-tap!—off to the country for a week-end party, Friday to Monday; bumetty-bum!—six months elapse between the third and fourth acts; tippetty-tip!—two years later; dear me, how the old place has changed! Biffetty-biff! ...
— Cobb's Bill-of-Fare • Irvin Shrewsbury Cobb

... with care and caution, made his selections from it, and his remarks upon it, and the jackal assisted both. When the repast was fully discussed, the lion put his hands in his waistband again, and lay down to meditate. The jackal then invigorated himself with a bum for his throttle, and a fresh application to his head, and applied himself to the collection of a second meal; this was administered to the lion in the same manner, and was not disposed of until the clocks struck three ...
— A Tale of Two Cities - A Story of the French Revolution • Charles Dickens

... Hetty, poising her knife, "is it as bad art as that? I ain't a critic; but I thought it kind of brightened up the room. Of course, a manicure-painter could tell it was a bum picture in a minute. I'll take it down if you say so. I wish to the holy Saint ...
— Options • O. Henry

... enough to burn him but enough to make him good and mad, so he scrambled to my shoulder, ran down my arm, and sank his teeth in my hand. Then he ran up to the top of the shelves and sat there chattering and scolding until the Chief came home and gave him the bum's rush. This same fellow bit the Chief, too; but I always felt he had it coming to him. White Mountain had a glass jar of pinon nuts, and he would hold them while the squirrels came and packed their jaws full. They looked too comical with their faces puffed up ...
— I Married a Ranger • Dama Margaret Smith

... the bagnios, whose lives seem sweet and decorous when compared with those of a Sandwich or a Dashwood or a Duke of Grafton. Yet these men, whose companionship might be rejected by Jack Sheppard, and whose example might be avoided by Pompey Bum, are the men whose names are ceaselessly prominent in the early story of the reign, and to whose power and influence much of ...
— A History of the Four Georges and of William IV, Volume III (of 4) • Justin McCarthy and Justin Huntly McCarthy

... sorcerer, and frightened us out of our boots, and we loved it. And then it came in my mind how the master had once flogged that boy, and the surprise we were all in to see the sorcerer catch it and bum like anybody else. Thinks I to myself, “I must find some way of fixing it so for Master Case.” And the next moment ...
— Island Nights' Entertainments • Robert Louis Stevenson

... invasion and commotions at home; From our present distraction, and from work to come; From the same hand again Smectymnus, or the bum, And from taking Geneva in our way to Rome; From fools ...
— Cavalier Songs and Ballads of England from 1642 to 1684 • Charles Mackay

... the pot was on the fire, a little old man came into the house. "Bum-bum," he said; "give me something to eat ...
— Poets and Dreamers - Studies and translations from the Irish • Lady Augusta Gregory and Others

... who always counted themselves a free people, and could never abide to be in bondage to any. And this was something of the reason, that they were so generally, by all the Jews, counted so vile and base, and reckoned among the worst of men, even as our informers and bum bailiffs are ...
— The Works of John Bunyan • John Bunyan

... "Messenger, send Mr Portfire here." The gunpowder functionary, he of the flannel cartridge, appeared. "Gunner, send one of your mates into the maintop, and let him bum a blue light." ...
— Tom Cringle's Log • Michael Scott

... why I'm here to-day. I knew you were thinking that. I knew it all the time I was in Colorado, growing up from a sickly kid, with a bum lung, to a heap big strong man. It forced me to do things I was afraid to do. It goaded me on to stunts at the very thought of which I'd break out in a clammy sweat. Don't you see how I'll have to turn handsprings in front of you, like the school-boy in the McCutcheon cartoon? Don't you see ...
— Fanny Herself • Edna Ferber

... superior acumen that she saw even vaguely the real Bill Siddall, the money-maker, beneath the General William Siddall, raw and ignorant and vulgar—more vulgar in his refinement than the most shocking bum at home and at ease in foul-smelling stew. Every man of achievement hides beneath his surface—personality this second and real man, who makes the fortune, discovers the secret of chemistry, fights the battle, carries ...
— The Price She Paid • David Graham Phillips

... thrust himselfe in betwixt the legat, and the archbishop of Canturburie. And where belike the said archbishop of Canturburie was loth to remooue, he set his buttocks iust in his lap, but he scarslie touched the archbishops skirt with his bum, when the bishops and other chapleins with their seruants stept to him, pulled him away, and threw him to the ground, and beginning to lay on him with bats and fists, the archbishop of Canturburie yeelding good for euill, sought to saue him from their hands. Thus was verified in him that sage ...
— Chronicles of England, Scotland and Ireland (2 of 6): England (5 of 12) - Henrie the Second • Raphael Holinshed

... hook-nosed man. "Pleased to have you come, fellow-bum. My name's Crook McKusick. I'm kind of camp boss. The boys call me 'Crook' because I'm so honest. You can ...
— The Innocents - A Story for Lovers • Sinclair Lewis

... switched from one tune to another. "Don't that sound like the Plaza Major in old Chihuahua by moonlight?" cried McKinney, as a swinging band march came squealing out through the door. "That's a piece by a Mexican band. Can't you hear the choo-choo, and the wee-wee, and the bum-bum? They're all ...
— Heart's Desire • Emerson Hough

... sometimes they saw very funny things. They were up so high that they could look down and see everything, you know. They could see the big ponds up in the sky where the rain is made, and the awful big windmills up there where the wind blows from, and the cannons that bum ...
— Hoodie • Mary Louisa Stewart Molesworth

... I ain't got rights to even lay my hands on 'em! O-h-h!" he shuddered, and agonizedly pulled taut on every tired, aching muscle. "Yuh oughter be beat up with a club. Yuh oughter get pounded with a rawk. You're a rotten, whisky-soaked bum, that's all yuh are now, and yuh oughter be killed and kicked out in ...
— McClure's Magazine, Vol. 31, No. 1, May 1908 • Various

... you a real old bear-hug, but I've got a bum wing and I can't. Gee, we musta passed each other on the road somewhere, because I was streaking it down here to see you—gee, but you look good to me!—and you were streaking it up there to see me—" The adorable young voice hesitated and deepened to ...
— The Lookout Man • B. M. Bower

... sorrows ever helped to flow in sparkling jets. Dinah, happy in seeing Etienne taking his ease, smoking a cigar after breakfast, his face beaming as he basked like a lizard in the sunshine, could not summon up courage enough to make herself the bum-bailiff ...
— Parisians in the Country - The Illustrious Gaudissart, and The Muse of the Department • Honore de Balzac

... Get to hell out of here. You'll be hung yet, you loafer. A good-for-nothing bum, that's what. ...
— Cheerful—By Request • Edna Ferber

... table sits a Knight, And here a grave old man ore right Against his worship, then perhaps That by and by a Drawer claps His bum close by them, there down squats A dealer in old shoes and hats; And here withouten any panick Fear, dread or ...
— All About Coffee • William H. Ukers

... certain," said Penhallow, "but who could have wanted to do it. You and I, Rivers, know every one in Westways. Can you think of any one with malice enough to make him want to bum a house and risk the possibility ...
— Westways • S. Weir Mitchell

... you do, Lee?" said Manning. "Report me to the Council? They'll listen to me before they'd pay attention to complaints from a nobody who's been drifting around the outworlds for most of his life. That's all you are, you know, Lee—a drifter, a bum, like the rest of them. That's what everybody out here on the Edge is ... unless he ...
— Warlord of Kor • Terry Gene Carr

... round us, mostly French warships, there being at least a dozen of that nationality, the only British men-of-war being the two we saw enter. The transparency and greenness of the water are remarkable. The whole harbour is dotted over with "bum boats" which are said to be peculiar to Malta, and have high boards at their stem and stern, and are worked by one or two men standing upright. Most sell fruits and odds and ends to those on board, ...
— The Incomparable 29th and the "River Clyde" • George Davidson

... cannon, bum! bum! Outside her window, and she wouldn't wake up," she said. Then holding out a newspaper, she asked whether the gentlemen had heard of the sinking of the Roland and the few survivors. When Willy, with his dilating nostrils and his characteristic half-serious, half-comic expression, ...
— Atlantis • Gerhart Hauptmann

... Mike's place, not wishin' to deprive you of your share o' the sport. But I met a big policeman who said: 'Tell that red-headed Irish bum that it'll be better for his health to stay ...
— The Winning of Barbara Worth • Harold B Wright

... und Paukenkrach, Noch aus der Ferne toent es schwach, Ganz leise bumbumbumbum tsching; Zog da ein bunter Schmetterling, Tschingtsching, bum, um ...
— A Book Of German Lyrics • Various

... life!" cried the prisoner. "I'm not anxious to get away. I was shanghaied on the Shark, and it's glad I am to be out of that bum crowd." ...
— Boy Scouts in a Submarine • G. Harvey Ralphson

... gun quit firing and his propeller wasn't turning and yet the darn fool just hung up there as if he were tied to a cloud. Say, I was so sure I had him it made me sore—felt like running into him and yelling, 'Now, you fall, you bum!'" ...
— Flying for France • James R. McConnell

... I said. "Charlie says it's a good Monday night town because two through freights lay over there till daylight. Tuesday night we have to double back to Greenwich, and that's where Charlie gave us the bum deal. This gag of chasing us back over the same route is rotten, because somebody may be sitting up for us with a rock. But Charlie says Greenwich has developed into a great show town since five new families' moved there last summer. Wednesday we get ...
— You Can Search Me • Hugh McHugh

... at him with her large, spiritual eyes, whose fire seemed now to bum into his soul, ...
— The Cryptogram - A Novel • James De Mille

... table, and mounting the ladder, "On second thought," said he, addressing Skysail again, "I won't throw the cats overboard; the sailors have a foolish superstition about that animal—its d——d unlucky. No; put them alive in a bread-bag, and send them on shore in the bum-boat." ...
— Frank Mildmay • Captain Frederick Marryat

... got and kept most unaccountably drunk. The officers tried every method to solve the mystery, but without effect. The truth was, the men became suddenly fond of cocoa-nuts, selecting them from the bum-boats in preference to any other fruit. The secret was, that the shell was bored before the nut was quite ripe, the juice poured out, and Arrack substituted in its place. Our next place of stopping was Madras, where we took in more cargo, but no more cocoa-nuts, ...
— The Knickerbocker, or New-York Monthly Magazine, February 1844 - Volume 23, Number 2 • Various

... nice, it well may chance, when you are old, and in your veins the blood runs cold, there'll come your way some dismal wreck, who'll roast you sore, and cry: "By heck! And also I might say, by gum! 'Twas you that put me on the bum! Your writings got me headed wrong; you threw it into Virtue strong; and in the prison that you see, I'm ...
— Rippling Rhymes • Walt Mason

... replied the tall tramp, climbing upon the end of a car. "But don't ever call me Kersh any more. After this I'm always Bill the Bum. Bill Kershaw's dead—" and he added to himself, "and decently buried on the hill over there ...
— Tales From Bohemia • Robert Neilson Stephens

... a gineral coon-hunt," said Fortner, "on'y over thar hit's the coons, an' not the hunters, that hev the torches. I wish I could put a bum-shell inter ...
— The Red Acorn • John McElroy

... exist by the law, I say that we brisk boys of the Fleet live in spite of it; and thrive best when we are in right opposition to sign and seal, writ and warrant, sergeant and tipstaff, catchpoll, and bum-bailey." ...
— The Fortunes of Nigel • Sir Walter Scott

... on the screen snapped off, and Malone sat back in his chair and sighed. He spent a few minutes regretting that he hadn't chosen, early in life, to be a missionary to the Fiji Islanders, or possibly simply a drunken bum without any trouble, and then the report Mitchell had mentioned arrived. Malone picked it up without much eagerness, and began going ...
— Occasion for Disaster • Gordon Randall Garrett

... been counted on both to keep the secret and to help him. They always stuck together, he and Cathy, until she had changed. Now half the time she acted as if she were against him. Look at the way she had snooped around the attic like a bum detective. If she had found the money she would have very likely said it was her duty to tell on him. Jerry almost never could know in advance how she was going to act. Almost he did not like her ...
— Jerry's Charge Account • Hazel Hutchins Wilson

... I told him that I had a great fear of going to gaol, and asked him if he would go and ask his brother, Mr W. M. Scott, the high bailiff, to allow me until 9 o'clock on the following morning in which to make an effort to raise the money. The "bum" had scarcely got out of sight ere I was in consultation with John Parker, the landlord of the Bay Horse Inn. John rather pitied me. He agreed to lend me his horse, and I borrowed a van from Mr Joseph Wright, cabinet maker, ...
— Adventures and Recollections • Bill o'th' Hoylus End

... fellow took the lead, and the rest marched after. He moved off down the street, shouting through his closed lips "Bum, bum, bum, bum, bum!" The rest took up the drum-like cry, and marched after him two and two. They made straight toward Judge Brown's office, where they knew Bradley was. They halted and raised ...
— A Spoil of Office - A Story of the Modern West • Hamlin Garland

... thought refusing to aid the deputy marshal in kidnapping was not an act of levying war, or treason against the United States. "In so doing he is not acting the part of an honest, loyal citizen [who ought to do any wickedness which a bum-bailiff commands]; he may be liable to be punished for a misdemeanor for ...
— The Trial of Theodore Parker • Theodore Parker

... crab; And, when she drinks, against her lips I bob, And on her withered dewlap pour the ale. The wisest aunt, telling the saddest tale, Sometime for three-foot stool mistaketh me; Then slip I from her bum, down topples she, And 'tailor' cries, and falls into a cough; And then the whole quire hold their hips and loffe, And waxen in their mirth, and neeze, and swear A merrier hour was never wasted there.— But room, fairy, ...
— A Midsummer Night's Dream • William Shakespeare [Collins edition]

... now thrown into the maelstrom of contradictory historical data, some of which credits Wiglaf with being the greatest ruler Mercia ever had and some of which indicates that he was nothing but a royal bum. It is not the purpose of this biography to try to settle the dispute. All we know for a fact is that he was a very human man who had faults like the rest of us and that shortly after becoming king ...
— Love Conquers All • Robert C. Benchley

... here to tell you what I've seen wasn't any nightmare," returned Pepper, with his shrewd gaze on Lane. "But we needn't discuss that. If it made an old bum like me sick what might not it do to a sensitive high-minded chap like you.... The question is are you going ...
— The Day of the Beast • Zane Grey

... To tell you my master has sent again for you; And has such a longing to have you his guest, That I, with these ears, heard him swear and protest, He would neither say grace, nor sit down on his bum, Nor open his napkin, until you do come.' With that I perceived no excuse would avail, And, seeing there was no defence for a flail, I said I was ready master may'r to obey, And therefore desired him to lead me the way. We went, and ere Malkin could well lick her ...
— Specimens with Memoirs of the Less-known British Poets, Complete • George Gilfillan

... carriage in the freight-yards of a thriving town some fifty or sixty miles north of their starting-point. Austin was so chilled he could hardly walk, but managed to follow the other fellows up-town. It is needless to say that his initiation into the life of a "bum" was not pleasant. But his companions seemed not to mind their discomfort, and he trudged along with them. When they reached town, they first got something warm to eat, then inquired for a place to stay. The man of whom they asked understood their circumstances, for he had seen many of their ...
— The Hero of Hill House • Mable Hale

... to his guest with a deprecating wave of the hand. "A cook what sings! Which in the old days I wouldn't have had a bum like that around my place, but there ain't ...
— Trailin'! • Max Brand

... by his oratory, you thought him a creature poisoned through and through, a soul turned rancid with envy, hatred and malice and all uncharitableness. But now the tears came into his eyes, and he put his arm over Jimmie's shoulder. "Say, old pal, that's bum luck! By God, I'm sorry!" And Jimmie, who wanted nothing so much as somebody to be sorry with, clasped Bill in his arms, and burst into tears, and told over and over again how he had gone to what had been his home, and found only a huge crater blown out by the explosion, ...
— Jimmie Higgins • Upton Sinclair

... Well, I'm Sam Clark, dealer in hardware, sporting goods, cream separators, and almost any kind of heavy junk you can think of. You can call me Sam—anyway, I'm going to call you Carrie, seein' 's you've been and gone and married this poor fish of a bum medic that we keep round here." Carol smiled lavishly, and wished that she called people by their given names more easily. "The fat cranky lady back there beside you, who is pretending that she can't hear me giving her away, is Mrs. Sam'l Clark; and this hungry-looking squirt up here beside me is ...
— Main Street • Sinclair Lewis

... ain't." Hegner turned a glance of contempt on Smith. "He's a bum an' a loafer, He won't learn an' he won't try to work. Why, Braun, who'd ought to be in bed instead of at a lathe, turns out half as much again as him. How can I jack the other men up if I let him lag behind? An' this morning I told him I'd ...
— The House of Toys • Henry Russell Miller

... particular guilt or the particular innocence of either—Judas, immaculately attired in a white coat, arrived from downstairs with a step ladder and proceeded with everyone's assistance to reconstruct the original pipe. And a pretty picture Judas made. And a pretty bum job he made. But anyway the stove-pipe drew; and everyone thanked God and fought for places about le poele. And Monsieur Pet-airs hoped there would be no more fights for ...
— The Enormous Room • Edward Estlin Cummings

... it will stop," replied her new acquaintance. "You don't suppose a New York conductor'd miss a chance to put his passengers more on the bum than ever?" ...
— Susan Lenox: Her Fall and Rise • David Graham Phillips

... crude element of anarchism is to be excluded as much as possible, but what cannot be excluded is to be subdued. If this is impossible, it shall be expelled. All illustrious lights will speak there. Terry has been invited, but has refused on democratic grounds, and sticks to that 'bum' society, ...
— An Anarchist Woman • Hutchins Hapgood

... "They're Frenchmen. We'll follow them. They have two packs on their backs! Grub! And maybe we can bum them for ...
— The Escape of a Princess Pat • George Pearson

... to live; I will not touch thine eyes For all the treasure that thine uncle owns: Yet I am sworn, and I did purpose, boy, With this same very iron to bum them out. ...
— Characters of Shakespeare's Plays • William Hazlitt

... thudded into his flesh. The degenerate fell to his knees, his broken face blowing out bloody air. Finally he rolled over onto his side with a long sighing moan, lay limply, very still. Doctor Spechaug's lips were thin, white, as he kicked savagely. He heard a popping. The bum flopped sidewise into a ...
— Strange Alliance • Bryce Walton

... suit, and his derby was a marvel of dust-covered crown and torn rim. He was going forth to eat as the wanderer may eat, and sleep as the homeless sleep. By the time he had reached City Hall Park he was so completely plastered with yells of "bum" and "hobo," and with various unholy epithets that small boys had applied to him at intervals, that he was in a state of the most profound dejection. The sifting rain saturated the old velvet collar of his overcoat, ...
— Men, Women, and Boats • Stephen Crane

... which I cannot but recognise. M. S—-, with his pince- nez, the Doctor, and, above all, the rapids of the Ogowe, rolling his hands round and round each other and clashing them forward with a descriptive ejaculation of "Whish, flash, bum, bum, bump," and then comes what evidently represents a terrific fight for life against terrific odds. Wish to goodness I knew French, for wishing to see these rapids, I cannot help feeling anxious and worried at not fully understanding this dramatic entertainment ...
— Travels in West Africa • Mary H. Kingsley

... know that his name is Jack Hoag; he's a little bit of a trapper and a big bit of a bum; stuck me last year. He doesn't come out this way; they say he goes out by the west side ...
— Rolf In The Woods • Ernest Thompson Seton

... this proposition: if, in the dispensing of punishment, undue leniency is extended to an individual who has already proved that he merits no special consideration, in the next round a bum rap will be given some lesser offender who is morally deserving of a real chance. The Italians have an epigram: "The first time a dog bites a man, it's the dog's fault; the second time, it's ...
— The Armed Forces Officer - Department of the Army Pamphlet 600-2 • U. S. Department of Defense

... Bobs o' vinegar, gentleman, Kiss, toss, mouse, fat, Bore a needle, bum a fiddle, Jink ma jeerie, jink ma jye, Stand ...
— Children's Rhymes, Children's Games, Children's Songs, Children's Stories - A Book for Bairns and Big Folk • Robert Ford

... Our whole Movement is devoted to the destruction of social-label judgments. It's all very well to say: You should not judge your fellow men but when it comes to accepting another man's personal check, friend, you damn well have to! The bum check artist might have a field day to begin with—but ...
— Status Quo • Dallas McCord Reynolds

... Ale-draper near New-palace-yard, Who used to Jerk the Bum of his Wife; And she was forced to stand on her Guard, To keep his Clutches from her Quoiff: She poor Soul the weaker Vessel, To be reconcil'd was easily won; He held her in scorn, But she Crown'd him with Horn, Without Hood or Scarff, ...
— Wit and Mirth: or Pills to Purge Melancholy, Vol. 5 of 6 • Various

... Beef-eaters, Tramps, Life-Guards, Washerwomen, Ghosts, Clowns and God-knows-what, armed with jezails, umbrellas, brooms, catapults, pikes, brickbats, kukeries,[52] pokers, clubs, axes, horse-pistols, bottles, dead fowls, polo-sticks, assegais and bombs. They were commanded by a Highlander in a bum-bee tartan kilt, top-hat and one sock, with a red nose a foot long, riding on a rocking horse and brandishing a dem great cucumber and a tea-tray made into a shield. There was a thundering great drain-pipe mounted on a bullock-cart and a naked man, painted ...
— Driftwood Spars - The Stories of a Man, a Boy, a Woman, and Certain Other People Who - Strangely Met Upon the Sea of Life • Percival Christopher Wren

... fame, the nations meet, From near Bunhill, and distant Watling-street. No Persian carpets spread th' imperial way, But scatter'd limbs of mangled poets lay; From dusty shops neglected authors come, Martyrs of pies, and reliques of the bum. Much Heywood, Shirley, Ogleby, there lay, But loads of Shadwell almost chok'd the way. Bilk'd stationers, for yeomen, stood prepar'd, And Herringman was captain of the guard. The hoary prince in majesty appear'd, High on a throne of his own labours rear'd; At his right hand our young Ascanius ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 58, Number 358, August 1845 • Various

... that!" wailed the invalid. He wheeled his chair toward his nephew. "You wouldn't do that if my friend Lopez was here, you big bum!" he ended, as ...
— The Bad Man • Charles Hanson Towne

... drawled Blanche LeHaye. "I wouldn't go's far's that, kid. Say, when I was your age I didn't plan to be no bum burlesquer neither. I was going to be an actress, with a farm on Long Island, like the rest of 'em. Every real actress has got a farm on Long Island, if it's only there in the mind of the press agent. It's a kind of a religion with 'em. I was goin' to build a house on mine that was ...
— Roast Beef, Medium • Edna Ferber

... its inquietudes and its persecutions!—that mistaken zeal should follow them down to the very tomb—as if earthly passion could glimmer, like a funeral lamp, amid the damps of the charnel-house, and "even in their ashes bum their ...
— Seeing Europe with Famous Authors, Volume 3 • Various

... red tie" (that was my cosmopolite), said he, "got hot on account of things said about the bum sidewalks and water supply of the place he come ...
— The Four Million • O. Henry

... you, Luck, I'll take that there camery and bust it over your danged head!" he spluttered. "I'll show ye! Call me a bum that's wearin' a shurf's star fer the first time in his life, will ye! Why, I'll jest about ...
— The Phantom Herd • B. M. Bower

... to kiss my sweet Money. Varewell, Vortune; and, Vortune, che thank thee alway. Come on, surrah, chill make you vast, bum vay. ...
— A Select Collection of Old English Plays, Vol. VIII (4th edition) • Various

... than words, "So you're up against it, too, eh!" We introduced all hands around, and about nine o'clock the curtain went up. After we had waited fully ten minutes, out came a big, fat, greasy looking Dago with nothing on but a bear robe. He went over to the side of the stage and sat down on a bum rock. It was plainly to be seen, even from my true lovers' seat, that his bearlets was sorer than a dog about something. Presently in came a woman, and none of the true lovers seemed to know who she was. Some said it was Melba, others Nordica. Bud and I decided that it was May Irwin. We were mistaken, ...
— The Wit and Humor of America, Volume IV. (of X.) • Various

... a no good fellow," he confided glibly. "Just a bum—that's all he is. Stays out all night and sleeps all morning. His wife is a fine woman and I don't see how she stood for him all this time. Six weeks ago everybody around here knew that they had separated. She went to ...
— The Substitute Prisoner • Max Marcin

... bum second act, with somebody throwing a handful of torn paper down from the wings!" Billy observed. But his tone was kinder than his words, and Susan, laying a hand on his coat sleeve, told him the story of the afternoon; of Mrs. Fox, with her supercilious smile; of the ...
— Saturday's Child • Kathleen Norris

... Roberts," Kelly broke the hostile silence. "He ought to be here. I've sent for him. Sit down and wait, though f rom the looks of you, you haven't got a chance. I can't throw the public down with a bum fight. Ringside seats are selling at fifteen dollars, you ...
— The Night-Born • Jack London

... is playing all the tunes in the world, ringing such peals. It has just finished the "Merry Christ Church Bells," and absolutely is beginning "Turn again, Whittington." Buz, buz, buz: bum, bum, bum: wheeze, wheeze, wheeze: feu, feu, feu: tinky, tinky, tinky: craunch. I shall certainly come to be damned at last. I have been getting drunk for two days running. I find my moral sense in the last stage of a consumption, and my religion burning as blue and faint ...
— The Works of Charles and Mary Lamb, Vol. 5 • Edited by E. V. Lucas



Words linked to "Bum" :   ne'er-do-well, body part, dallier, shirker, drifter, obtain, disagreeable person, body, stagnate, trifler, goldbrick, hobo, mooch, daydreamer, goof-off, street person, vagabond, trunk, slugabed, lagger, lounge around, sluggard, hind end, derriere, prat, dilly-dallier, idle, cheap, loon, drone, sunbather, lounger, dillydallier, puke, colloquialism, floater, laze, behind, no-account, rotter, dawdler, spiv, laggard, skunk, clock watcher, tail end, slacker, lazybones, nonworker, git, slug, vagrant, trailer, good-for-naught, torso, lie-abed, freeload, couch potato, chintzy, inferior, good-for-nothing, seat, mope, unpleasant person, whittler, grub, dosser, frig around, arse, woolgatherer, stinker, poke



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