Definitions

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 5th Edition.

  • noun An area having a wet, spongy, acidic substrate composed chiefly of sphagnum moss and peat in which characteristic shrubs and herbs and sometimes trees usually grow.
  • noun Any of certain other wetland areas, such as a fen, having a peat substrate.
  • noun An area of soft, naturally waterlogged ground.
  • noun Chiefly British Slang A restroom or toilet.
  • intransitive verb To cause to sink in a bog.
  • intransitive verb To hinder or slow.
  • intransitive verb To be hindered and slowed.

from The Century Dictionary.

  • To sink or submerge in a bog, or in mud and mire: used chiefly in the passive, to be bogged.
  • To sink or stick in a bog; hence, to flounder among obstacles; be stopped.
  • noun Wet, soft, and spongy ground, where the soil is composed mainly of decayed and decaying vegetable matter; a quagmire covered with grass or other plants; a piece of mossy or peaty ground; a moss.
  • noun A little elevated piece of earth in a marsh or swamp, filled with roots and grass.
  • noun A specter; a bugbear.
  • Bold; sturdy; self-sufficient; petulant; saucy.
  • noun Brag; boastfulness.
  • To boast.
  • To provoke.
  • To ease the body by stool.

from the GNU version of the Collaborative International Dictionary of English.

  • transitive verb To sink, as into a bog; to submerge in a bog; to cause to sink and stick, as in mud and mire.
  • noun A quagmire filled with decayed moss and other vegetable matter; wet spongy ground where a heavy body is apt to sink; a marsh; a morass.
  • noun Local, U. S. A little elevated spot or clump of earth, roots, and grass, in a marsh or swamp.
  • noun See Buck bean.
  • noun [Prov.] the bittern.
  • noun a hydrocarbon of butterlike consistence found in the peat bogs of Ireland.
  • noun (Min.) a soil composed for the most part of silex and partially decomposed vegetable fiber.
  • noun (Bot.) Same as Sphagnum.
  • noun (Bot.) the sweet gale.
  • noun (Min.) Bog manganese, the hydrated peroxide of manganese.
  • noun (Bot.) any rush growing in bogs; saw grass.
  • noun See under Spavin.

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.

  • noun An expanse of marshland.
  • noun Ireland, UK, New Zealand, vulgar, slang A toilet.
  • verb intransitive, informal To become (figuratively or literally) mired or stuck.
  • verb transitive, UK, informal To make a mess of something.
  • verb euphemistic, slang, UK, with "off" To go away.

from WordNet 3.0 Copyright 2006 by Princeton University. All rights reserved.

  • verb get stuck while doing something
  • noun wet spongy ground of decomposing vegetation; has poorer drainage than a swamp; soil is unfit for cultivation but can be cut and dried and used for fuel
  • verb cause to slow down or get stuck

Etymologies

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 4th Edition

[Irish Gaelic bogach, from bog, soft; see bheug- in Indo-European roots.]

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License

Irish and Scottish Gaelic bogach ("soft, boggy ground"), from bog ("soft")

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License

by shortening and euphemistic alteration from bugger

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Examples

  • "Book" is also derived from the Danish word bog, the bark of the beech.

    Forty Centuries of Ink 1904

  • The student bog is appropriate because it lets students express themselves and teach other students things.

    Literacy News – 51th Edition « News « Literacy News 2009

  • The peat-bog is formed of Juncus effusus with Spagnum rugegense.

    Kahuzi-Biéga National Park, Democratic Republic of Congo 2009

  • The student bog is appropriate because it lets students express themselves and teach other students things.

    Literacy News – 50th Edition « News « Literacy News 2009

  • Ermm I will probably be in a boX when this happens, although bog is probably appropriate for me. on October 19, 2007 at 1: 35 pm | Reply Deborah Parr

    Monday morning, five nineteen. « POLICE INSPECTOR BLOG Inspector Gadget 2007

  • "How about that, Josh; wouldn't you call a bog a swamp, too?" asked

    The Boy Scouts of Lenox Frank V. Webster

  • The tops of the downs in Southern England still show the scars where primitive men fought their wars or grew their scanty crops; and in the lowland plains an unusual abundance of trees will show you where once a dense forest grew, or you may infer an impassable bog from a muddy field alongside some meandering brook.

    English Landscape and Personality 1931

  • They say, wherever water is found, some or other species of these minute wonders may be met with; standing pools, and rivers, and ditches all have them; and some particularly beautiful are to be found in bog water; so with, I am afraid you will think, a not very commendable impatience, I am pointing my steps towards a bog that I know – in the wish to get some of the best first.

    The Old Helmet 1864

  • You may get some truly bizarre planetary climate models, involving such things as water soaking up through the ground to keep plants alive let’s see–if there is so much water underground that it soaks UP to the surface, isn’t that what we call a bog?

    The Glory - The Panda's Thumb 2010

  • You may get some truly bizarre planetary climate models, involving such things as water soaking up through the ground to keep plants alive let’s see–if there is so much water underground that it soaks UP to the surface, isn’t that what we call a bog?

    The Glory - The Panda's Thumb 2010

Comments

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  • Gob in reverse.

    November 3, 2007

  • After being sick

    in the bog, he writes,

    in green felt-tip on

    a machine that sells

    contraceptives, quips...

    - Peter Reading, 5x5x5x5x5, 1983

    July 1, 2008

  • Citation on tweely.

    June 19, 2009

  • Means "god" in Russian.

    July 13, 2009