bovver

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English[edit]

Etymology[edit]

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

Pronunciation[edit]

Noun[edit]

bovver (countable and uncountable, plural bovvers)

  1. Pronunciation spelling of bother.
    • 1997, Patricia Guiver, Delilah Doolittle and the Purloined Pooch‎[1], 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. (British, 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[edit]

Translations[edit]

Verb[edit]

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[2], 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[3]:
      “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[edit]

bovver

  1. Pronunciation spelling of bother.

Further reading[edit]

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