Bully

This word originally, from the early 16th century, meant lover, sweetheart or darling and was a general term of endearment for both men and women. The root of the word is Middle and modern Dutch boele, Middle High German buole and modern German buhle, all of which mean ‘lover’. By Shakespeare’s time, in the late 16th/early 17th century, it had become a laudatory term used more for men rather than women, especially when describing a close friend or companion. For example, Quince in Midsummer Night’s Dream Act 1V, scene II, exclaims, “O sweet bully Bottom!” A bully boy in Shakespeare’s time would have been a splendid fellow. By the late 17th/ early 18th century, the meaning started to evolve towards its more familiar meaning of someone who intimidates the weak and defenceless. How and why the word lost its original, positive connotations is not clear. Perhaps the over-exuberant and swashbuckling behaviour of bully boys went too far because, during the early 18th century, a bully boy had come to mean a hired ruffian. Shades of its original, positive meaning are still retained in expressions like ‘bully for you’ a form of bravo that dates from c. 1864. Bully as in hockey is thought to derive from its use in Eton Football from the mid-19th century when a bully meant a scrimmage into which the ball was fed, perhaps deriving from the earlier connotation of bully as in companionship. Bully as in bully beef comes from an entirely different root. This derives from the French bouilli, which means boiled. The word bouillon comes from the same source. Bouilli boeuf, which literally means boiled beef, first made its appearance in tins during the Franco-Prussian War in 1870-71. When it was later introduced to the British army during the Boer War, bouilli boeuf was corrupted to ‘bully beef’.