bovver
English edit
Etymology edit
Represents a nonstandard or dialectal (in particular Cockney) pronunciation of bother.
Pronunciation edit
- Rhymes: -ɒvə(ɹ)
Noun edit
bovver (countable and uncountable, plural bovvers)
- Pronunciation spelling of bother.
- 1997, Patricia Guiver, Delilah Doolittle and the Purloined Pooch[1], page 27:
- No need to tell me, I'd recognize that Cockney accent anywhere! “I'm in a bit of bovver,” he said. “Do me a favour and go to the shelter and do the necessary for Trixie.”
- (British, slang) Violence, especially that associated with youth gangs.
- 1976, Freda Adler, Herbert Marcus Adler, Sisters in Crime: The Rise of the New Female Criminal, page 100:
- In London there are some thirty gangs of “bovver birds,” violence-prone girls who roam the streets in packs attacking almost any vulnerable object for no apparent reason other than the sheer thrill of it.
Derived terms edit
Translations edit
Verb edit
bovver (third-person singular simple present bovvers, present participle bovvering, simple past and past participle bovvered)
- Pronunciation spelling of bother.
- 1990, Linda Svendsen, Words We Call Home: Celebrating Creative Writing at UBC, University of British Columbia Press, page 38:
- "You specials," Nigel said disgustedly. "I don't know why I bovver, really I don't."
- 2007, Hugh Walpole, The Golden Scarecrow[2], page 83:
- "I don't bovver," he said, with a cross look in the direction of his brother and sister Rochesters.
- 2007, Julie Burchill, Daniel Raven, Made in Brighton […] , Virgin Books, pages 60–61:
- […] in Brighton & Hove, where the council were not above attempting a sort of half-hearted, class-based ethnic-cleansing-without-violence, wherein families who have been in Brighton for generations—who could probably even trace their lineage right back to Brighthelmstone if they could be bovvered […]
- 2018 September 18, Brian Logan, “Catchphrase comedy is dead. Am I bovvered?”, in The Guardian[3]:
- “Playgrounds and canteens are denied catchphrases,” he writes in the Radio Times, fretting that “the art will be lost.” Which begs the question: am I bovvered?
Interjection edit
bovver
Further reading edit
- Jonathon Green (2024) “bovver n.”, in Green’s Dictionary of Slang