bovver

bovver

English

Etymology

Represents a nonstandard or dialectal (in particular Cockney) pronunciation of bother.

Pronunciation

• Rhymes: -ɒvə(ɹ)

Noun

bovver (countable and uncountable, plural bovvers)

1. Pronunciation spelling of bother.
   • 1997, Patricia Guiver, Delilah Doolittle and the Purloined Pooch‎, 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.”

2. (Britain, 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

• bovver bird
• bovver boots
• bovver boy

Translations

bovver

Dutch: last (nl)

Verb

bovver (third-person singular simple present bovvers, present participle bovvering, simple past and past participle bovvered)

1. 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, 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:

     “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

bovver

1. Pronunciation spelling of bother.

Further reading

• Jonathon Green (2023), “bovver n.”, in Green's Dictionary of Slang