Learn English – Origin, meaning, and derivation of ‘boof’ as a verb in U.S. slang

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Recently, the following entry included in a page from a 1983 yearbook for a high school in the metropolitan Washington, D.C., area has gained considerable notoriety in U.S. politics:

Judge — Have You Boofed Yet?

Two major U.S. slang dictionaries—J. E. Lighter, Random House Historical Dictionary of Slang (1994) and Robert Chapman & Barbara Ann Kipfer, Dictionary of American Slang, third edition (1995) and fourth edition (2007)—have no entry for boof.

Pamela Munro, Slang U: The Official Dictionary of College Slang (1989), however, has entries for boofa and boofed:

boofa stupid person, loser, dork (pronounced {búfə}, like "boo" plus "fa" as in "sofa") | Jimmy's such a boofa! All he does is waste time playing with his Rubik's cube; he doesn't even speak!

boofed puffed out, bouffant (usually, of a hairdo; pronounced {búft}—rhymes with "poofed") | After she got a perm, Jan's hair was totally boofed. {[from] bouffant, perhaps influenced by poofed}

And Jonathon Green, Slang Dictionary (2008) has several potentially relevant entries:

boof n. {unknown} {2000s} (US prison) contraband hidden in the rectum.

boofa n. (also boofer) {BOOFHEAD n. (1) ["Lincolnshire dial. {1940s+} (orig. Aus[tralian]) a fool, an idiot, a simpleton"] or BUTTFUCKER n. ["one who engages in anal intercourse"]} {1970s+} (US) a fool, an incompetent.

boofed (out) adj. {S[tandard] E[nglish] bouffant} {1980s+} (US campus) puffed out, usu. of hair.

I have three questions:

  1. What is the earliest published instance of boof as a verb?

  2. What did boof as a verb originally mean?

  3. What source word or words (if any) is it derived from?

Best Answer

An Elephind newspaper database search turns up five matches for boofed as a past-tense verb during the period April 1983 to June 1987, at two university newspapers: the Stanford [California] Daily and the [Houston, Texas] Rice Thresher. Here they are, in chronological order.

From Tim Grieve, "Draw Is Over: The Wait Begins," a story about the annual student housing draw at Stanford University, in the Stanford [California] Daily (April 26, 1983):

Manual Morales, an unguaranteed junior and a self-described "victim of the draw," is a new member of the 14,000-cumulative-draw-number club.

Not surprisingly, Morales has some criticism for the draw system.

"Well, there are too many problems with it, like returning residence priority. Either you're really set for three years or you're boofed."

From Troy Eid, "Fall Housing Assignments Posted," in the Stanford [California] Daily (May 10, 1983):

"I'll be lucky to live in a doorway somewhere," said [Manuell] Morales of his present unassigned status. "It's really impractical for me to live off-campus. I don't have transportation."

"We were boofed royally," said Augie Martinez, a junior who drew 1732. "We were shooting for a six-person suite, but it looks like we don't have a chance."

From "Two More Softballers Protest Stroh's Ruling," a letter to the editor in the [Houston, Texas] Rice Thresher (May 18, 1984):

Let it be known that the real men's intramural champions are the Stroh's Pros (due credit goes to the Wombats). If Joe's Garage can live with the fact that they backed into the finals by a candy-ass maneuver, then so be it. The rest of us have more pride in ourselves. We have played intramural sports for four years, and unfortunately, our last game left a sour taste in our mouths. ... However, if Joe's wants to be known as the pansies of the league, that's fine. We know in our minds who really won the game.

P.S. Stroh's Pros 9. Joe's Garage 7

Someone call a proctologist, we've just been boofed.

From Jim Humes, "Mr. Owlook Says," No Undie-Munching Skinheads," in the [Houston, Texas] Rice Thresher (March 20, 1987):

Okay, let's talk some basketball. You know, hoops, roundball, like air-flying-Jordan. We're talking about the NCAA tournament here. ... I entered [a betting pool] this year planning to go with the seeds and pick just the right number of upsets to give me that intangible in my corner. But who ever heard of Austin Peay? I mean, jeez-o-Pete, come on. Illinois must have been playing with their hands in their pants or something. And Xavier kind of boofed me up, too. But the big momma of them all has to be Wyoming.

And from a headline in the Stanford [California] Daily (June 3, 1987):

Senate Approves Rock Concert in the Summer: But Then the University Boofed It. Thanks.

All five of these instances of boofed make sense if we read the word boofed as figuratively meaning "screwed" (in a sexual sense). Some or all of them do not make sense if we read the word boofed as meaning "puffed out like a bouffant hairdo," or "ingested alcohol or drugs anally," or "became extremely drunk," or "landed a kayak with the boat bottom flat to the river after free-falling over a waterfall," or "farted." The allusion, in the May 1984 Rice Thresher letter to the editor, to calling a proctologist suggests (figurative) anal intercourse. But none of the other examples imply that (or any other) specific form of sexual intercourse.

Another noteworthy aspect of these five instances is that the first three (from 1983–1984) are framed as passive constructions ("you're boofed," "We were boofed royally," and "we've just been boofed"), whereas the last two (both from 1987) are framed in active voice ("boofed me up" and "boofed it"). Of the definitions suggested above, only "screwed" works well in the context of both the active and the passive constructions recorded here. A later meaning of boof—"to steal"—works in some active and passive constructions, but when we replace boofed with stole or stolen in the examples from the 1980s, most of the resulting sentences don't make sense.

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