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 The medical instruments were originally made from waxed linen.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)

1. (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.

2. A wax candle.

Etymology 2

From bourgeoisie.

Adjective

bougie (comparative bougier, superlative bougiest)

1. (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 September 23, “Will Gets a Job”, in The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air, season 2, episode 3:

     Hey, look, man, I haven't changed, I'm not gonna change and I'm not down with this bougie stuff.

   • 2007 October 12, L. Kent Wolgamott, “Satire pervades the series of fictional magazine covers”, in The Lincoln Journal Star‎^[1]:

     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”, performed by Fergie:

     I'll be on the movie screens / Magazines and bougie scenes

   • 2010 February 1, “Gone With the Window”, in RuPaul's Drag Race, season 2, episode 1:

     Shangela is kind of bougie, but she's also your homegirl.

   • 2010, “Sleazy”, performed by Ke$ha:

     I don't need you or your brand new Benz / Or your bougie friends

   • 2023, “Outside”, performed by Br3nya:

     Bougie attitude, I'm from the West End / I want the finer things in life

2. (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
• snooty

Derived terms

• boughetto
• bougieness

Related terms

• bourgie

Noun

bougie (plural bougies)

1. (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)

1. candle
2. spark plug

Derived terms

• bougeoir
• bougie à boule

Descendants

• → Catalan: bugia
• → English: bougie
• → Greek: μπουζί (bouzí)
• → Gulay: bùjì
• → Romanian: bujie
• → Spanish: bujía
• → Turkish: buji

Further reading

• “bougie”, in Trésor de la langue française informatisé [Digitized Treasury of the French Language], 2012.
• “bougie” in Dico en ligne Le Robert.