| The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language: Fourth Edition. 2000. |
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| bum1 |
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| PRONUNCIATION: |  b m |
| NOUN: | 1. A tramp; a vagrant. 2. A lazy or shiftless person, especially one who seeks to live solely by the support of others. 3. An incompetent, insignificant, or obnoxious person: The batter called the pitcher a bum. 4. One who is devoted to a particular activity or milieu: a beach bum. | | VERB: | Inflected forms: bummed, bum·ming, bums
| | INTRANSITIVE VERB: | 1. To live by begging and scavenging from place to place. Often used with around. 2. To loaf. | | TRANSITIVE VERB: | 1. To acquire by begging; cadge. See synonyms at cadge. 2. Slang To depress, dishearten, or dismay. Often used with out. | | ADJECTIVE: | 1. Inferior; worthless: gave me bum advice; did a bum job of fixing the car. 2. Disabled; malfunctioning: a bum shoulder. 3. Unfavorable or unfair: got a bum deal on my final grade for the course. 4. Unpleasant; lousy: had a bum time at the party. | | IDIOM: | on the bum 1. Living as a vagrant or tramp. 2. Out of order; broken. | | ETYMOLOGY: | Back-formation from bummer.
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| The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition. Copyright © 2000 by Houghton Mifflin Company. Published by the Houghton Mifflin Company. All rights reserved. |
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