bougie
See also: Bougie
English
Pronunciation
- IPA(key): /ˈbuːʒi/, enPR: bo͞oʹzhē
Audio (Southern England) (file) - Rhymes: -uːʒi
Etymology 1
Borrowed from French bougie (“wax candle”), after the Algerian city Bougie (Béjaïa), and the tapered, hand-dipped candles it made. The medical instruments were originally made from waxed linen.
Noun
bougie (plural bougies)
- (medicine) A tapered cylindrical instrument for introducing an object into a tubular anatomical structure, or to dilate such a structure, as with an esophageal bougie.
- 2001, Oliver Sacks, Uncle Tungsten: Memories of a Chemical Boyhood, Alfred A. Knopf (2001), 12,
- I was not too sure, as a child, what doctors "did," and glimpses of catheters and bougies in their kidney dishes, retractors and speculums, rubber gloves, catgut thread, and forecepts - all this, I think, rather frightened me, though it fascinated me too.
- 2001, Oliver Sacks, Uncle Tungsten: Memories of a Chemical Boyhood, Alfred A. Knopf (2001), 12,
- A wax candle.
Etymology 2
From bourgeoisie.
Adjective
bougie (comparative bougier, superlative bougiest)
- (chiefly African-American Vernacular, slang, usually derogatory) Behaving like or pertaining to people of a higher social status, middle-class / bourgeois people (sometimes carrying connotations of fakeness, elitism, or snobbery).
- 1991, The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air, Season 2, Episode 3, Will Gets a Job, airdate September 23, 1991:
- Hey, look, man, I haven't changed, I'm not gonna change and I'm not down with this bougie stuff.
- 2007, Satire pervades the series of fictional magazine covers , L. Kent Wolgamott, The Lincoln Journal Star, October 12, 2007, :
- Called “bougie” when she was growing up, even though she’d never considered herself close to that, Ewing has turned the word around, using it as the title of a fictitious magazine she has dreamed up.
- 2007, "Glamorous" by Fergie:
- I'll be on the movie screens
- Magazines and bougie scenes
- I'm not clean, I'm not pristine
- I'm no queen, I'm no machine
- 2010, RuPaul's Drag Race, Season 2, Episode 1, Gone With the Window, airdate February 1, 2010:
- Shangela is kind of bougie, but she's also your homegirl.
- 2010, "Sleazy" by Ke$ha:
- I don't need you or your brand new Benz
- Or your bougie friends
- I don't need love lookin' like diamonds
- Lookin' like diamonds
- 1991, The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air, Season 2, Episode 3, Will Gets a Job, airdate September 23, 1991:
- (Britain, Canada, slang) Fancy or good-looking, without the same connotations of snobbery or pretentiousness as in sense 1.
Alternative forms
- bourgie, boojie, boujee
Synonyms
- chichi
- classy
- high and mighty
- ritzy
- saditty
- snobby
Derived terms
- bougieness
Related terms
- bourgie
Noun
bougie (plural bougies)
- (chiefly African-American Vernacular, slang, usually derogatory) A person who exhibits bougie behavior.
- 1991 [1965], Nathan Hare, “Introduction”, in The Black Anglo-Saxons, page iii:
- All in all, Black Anglo-Saxons today remain a variegated group, and their numbers continue, relentlessly, to multiply. / In the late 1960's[sic – meaning 1960s] following the first appearance of this book, The Black Anglo-Saxons, street militants and conscious members of the Black middle class popularly called them "bougies."
-
French
Etymology
From Bougie, the French name for the Algerian town of Béjaïa بجاية, formerly known for exporting candle wax.Attested 1300 for "fine candle wax", and 1493 for "candle made from such wax".
Pronunciation
- IPA(key): /bu.ʒi/
audio (file)
Noun
bougie f (plural bougies)
- candle
- spark plug
Derived terms
- bougeoir
- bougie à boule
Descendants
- → Catalan: bugia
- → English: bougie
- → Gulay: bùjì
- → Romanian: bujie
- → Spanish: bujía
Further reading
- “bougie”, in Trésor de la langue française informatisé [Digitized Treasury of the French Language], 2012.
- “bougie” in Dico en ligne Le Robert.