bog

Etymology 1

From Middle English bog, from Irish and Scottish Gaelic bogach (“soft, boggy ground”), from Old Irish bog (“soft”), from Proto-Celtic *buggos (“soft, tender”) + Old Irish -ach, from Proto-Celtic *-ākos. The frequent use to form compounds regarding the animals and plants in such areas mimics Irish compositions such as bog-luachair (“bulrush, bogrush”). Its use for toilets is now often derived from the resemblance of latrines and outhouse cesspools to bogholes, but the noun sense appears to be a clipped form of boghouse (“outhouse, privy”), which derived (possibly via boggard) from the verb to bog, still used in Australian English. The derivation and its connection to other senses of "bog" remains uncertain, however, owing to an extreme lack of early citations due to its perceived vulgarity.

noun

1. (originally Ireland and Scotland) An area of decayed vegetation (particularly sphagnum moss) which forms a wet spongy ground too soft for walking; a marsh or swamp.
   Certaine... places [in Ireland]... which of their softnes are vsually tearmed Boghes. 1612, John Speed, chapter IV, in The Theatre of the Empire of Great Britaine, volume IV, page 143
   U-Mos: 'The swamplands of Torvus are treacherous, and can hinder you considerably. Bear this in mind as you move through the bog.' November 15, 2004, Retro Studios, Metroid Prime 2: Echoes, Nintendo, level/area: Main Energy Controller (Great Temple)
2. (figurative) Confusion, difficulty, or any other thing or place that impedes progress in the manner of such areas.
   ...quagmires and bogges of Romish superstition... 1614, John King, Vitis Palatina, page 30
   Last day my mind was in a bog. a. 1796, Robert Burns, Poems & Songs, volume I
   He wandered out again, in a perfect bog of uncertainty. 1841, Charles Dickens, chapter LXXII, in Barnaby Rudge, page 358
3. (uncountable) The acidic soil of such areas, principally composed of peat; marshland, swampland.
   Bog may by draining be made Meadow. a. 1687, William Petty, Political Arithmetick
4. (UK, Ireland, Australia and New Zealand, slang) A place to defecate: originally specifically a latrine or outhouse but now used for any toilet.
   I'm on the bog ― I'm sitting on/using the toilet
   I'm in the bog ― I'm in the bathroom
   Fearing I should catch cold, they out of pity covered me warm in a Bogg-house. 1665, Richard Head et al., The English Rogue Described in the Life of Meriton Latroon, volume I
   ...That no dirt... be thrown out of any window, or down the bogs... a. 1789, Verses to John Howard F.R.S. on His State of Prisons and Lazarettos, published 1789, page 181
   Bog, or bog-house, a privy as distinguished from a water-closet. 1864, J.C. Hotten, The Slang Dictionary, page 79
   Our lodger had our upstairs, use of the stove, our tap, and our bog. 1959, William Golding, chapter I, in Free Fall, page 23
5. (Australia and New Zealand, slang) An act or instance of defecation.
6. (US, dialect) A little elevated spot or clump of earth, roots, and grass, in a marsh or swamp.

verb

1. (transitive, now often with "down") To sink or submerge someone or something into bogland.
   To be 'bogged down' or 'mired down' is to be mired, generally in the 'wet valleys' in the spring. 1928, American Dialect Society, American Speech, volume IV, page 132
2. (figurative) To prevent or slow someone or something from making progress.
   […] Bogg'd in his filthy Lusts […] 1605, Ben Jonson, Seianus His Fall, act IV, scene i, line 217
   […] whose profession to forsake the World... bogs them deeper into the world. 1641, John Milton, Animadversions, page 58
3. (intransitive, now often with "down") To sink and stick in bogland.
   Duncan Graham in Gartmore his horse bogged; that the deponent helped some others to take the horse out of the bogg. a. 1800, The Trials of James, Duncan, and Robert M'Gregor, Three Sons of the Celebrated Rob Roy, page 120
4. (figurative) To be prevented or impeded from making progress, to become stuck.
5. (intransitive, originally vulgar UK, now chiefly Australia) To defecate, to void one's bowels.
6. (transitive, originally vulgar UK, now chiefly Australia) To cover or spray with excrement.
7. (transitive, Britain, informal) To make a mess of something.

Etymology 2

See bug

noun

1. (obsolete) Alternative form of bug: a bugbear, monster, or terror.

Etymology 3

Uncertain, although possibly related to bug in its original senses of "big" and "puffed up".

adj

1. (obsolete) Bold; boastful; proud.
   The Cuckooe, seeing him so bog, waxt also wondrous wroth. 1592, William Warner, chapter XXXVII, in Albions England, volume VII, page 167
   Bogge, bold, forward, sawcy. So we say, a very bog Fellow. 1691, John Ray, South and East Country Words, page 90

noun

1. (obsolete) Puffery, boastfulness.
   Their bog it nuver ceases. 1839, Charles Clark, John Noakes and Mary Styles, l. 3

verb

1. (transitive, obsolete) To provoke, to bug.
   If you had not written to me... we had broke now, the Frenchmen bogged us so often with departing. 1546, State Papers King Henry the Eighth, volume XI, published 1852, page 163
   A Frencheman: whom he [Manlius Torquatus] slew, being bogged [Latin: provocatus] by hym. 1556, Nicholas Grimald's translation of Cicero as Marcus Tullius Ciceroes Thre Bokes of Duties to Marcus His Sonne, Vol. III, p. 154

Etymology 4

From bug off, a clipping of bugger off, likely under the influence of bog (coarse British slang for "toilet[s]").

verb

1. (euphemistic, slang, Britain, usually with "off") To go away.