bovver
/ˈbɒvə/
Word Rarity
Very rare
Frequency: Zipf frequency 1.52 in modern English
14
Scrabble Score
6
Letters
1
Syllables
5
Unique Chars
Meaning
noun
Violence, especially that associated with youth gangs.
British usage; Countable; Slang; Uncountable
verb
intj
Example Sentences
- "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.”"
- "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."
- ""You specials," Nigel said disgustedly. "I don't know why I bovver, really I don't.""
- ""I don't bovver," he said, with a cross look in the direction of his brother and sister Rochesters."
- "[…] 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 […]"
- "“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?"
Etymology
Usage
- Countable
- Uncountable
- British usage
- Slang