bosom

Etymology

From Middle English bosom, bosum, from Old English bōsm, from Proto-West Germanic *bōsm, from Proto-Germanic *bōsmaz, from Proto-Indo-European *bʰewH- (“to swell, bend, curve”). Cognate with Saterland Frisian Bossem, Bousem (“bosom”), West Frisian boezem (“bosom”), Dutch boezem (“bosom”), German Busen (“bosom”). Related also to Albanian buzë (“lip”), Greek βυζί (vyzí, “breast”), Romanian buză (“lip”), Irish bus (“lip”), and Latin bucca (“cheek”).

noun

1. (anatomy, somewhat dated) The breast or chest of a human (or sometimes of another animal).
2. The seat of one's inner thoughts, feelings, etc.; one's secret feelings; desire.
   His uncle, a Cardinal, engages a Spanish youth of Moorish descent called Diego, an expert singer and player on the virginal,[…]to cleanse his bosom of the perilous stuff, and cure him by the spell of his music. 1932, Maurice Baring, chapter 16, in Friday's Business
3. The protected interior or inner part of something; the area enclosed as by an embrace.
4. The part of a dress etc. covering the chest; a neckline.
   She was always in a fearful hurry, and the lower the bosom was cut the more it was to be gathered she was wanted elsewhere. 1897, Henry James, What Maisie Knew
5. A breast, one of a woman's breasts
   I dont [sic] know that her bosoms were fuller than usual. 1833, E.K. Avery, B.F. Hallet, Trial of Rev. Mr. Avery, Boston, page 140
   The prevailing look at Aintree was of a well-upholstered woman wearing an outfit about three sizes too small for her; trouser suits so tight you could not only tell if the lady had a coin in her pocket but see if it was heads or tails, and skimpy tops proclaiming proudly that bosoms are back—and this time it's personal. 7 April 2003, Martin Kelner, The Guardian
   The baby was crammed against one of her bosoms. He was meant to be sucking milk out of it. The other bosom was hanging down, with a funny long red blob on the end. 2009, Emma Smith, The Great Western Beach, A&C Black, page 241
6. Any thing or place resembling the breast; a supporting surface; an inner recess; the interior.
   I observed, indeed, that the present war had filled the church with many of these uninhabited monuments, which had been erected to the memory of persons whose bodies were perhaps buried in the plains of Blenheim, or in the bosom of the ocean. 1711, Joseph Addison, The Spectator, number 26
   The appointed place was on the edge of a deep, rocky ravine, down in whose dark bosom brawled and foamed a little mountain torrent. 1864, George MacDonald, The Old Nurse's Story
7. A depression round the eye of a millstone.
   The bosom of the mill-stone is a central depression, and the staff is adjustable to test the symmetry of the concavity. 1884, Edward Henry Knight, Knight's New Mechanical Dictionary, page 123

adj

1. In a very close relationship.
   bosom buddies
   Lieut. Creecy of the navy, who has been detailed to the aerial experiments at the fort, and who was a bosom companion of young Selfridge, was brokenhearted. September 18, 1908, “Fatal fall of Wright airship”, in New York Times, Describing the death of Thomas Etholen Selfridge, first airplane fatality in history

verb

1. To enclose or carry in the bosom; to keep with care; to take to heart; to cherish.
   Bosom up my counsel, You’ll find it wholesome. c. 1612, William Shakespeare, Henry VIII, Act I, Scene 1
2. To conceal; to hide from view; to embosom.
   To happy Convents bosom’d deep in Vines, Where slumber Abbots, purple as their Wines; 1741, Alexander Pope, The New Dunciad: As it was Found in the Year 1741, Dublin: George Faulkner, published 1742, Book IV, p 29, lines 291-292
   Those whom you feared most are now bosoming themselves in the queen's grace; and though her highness signified displeasure in outward sort, yet did she like the marrow of your book. 1818, Lucy Aikin, Memoirs of the Court of Queen Elizabeth
   Beyond were the pines, and a rugged road, flint-edged, full of dips and rises, turns and twists, hovering on edges, or bosoming itself in deep rock-strewn cuts. 1901, Stewart Edward White, The Claim Jumpers
3. (intransitive) To belly; to billow, swell or bulge.
   Just above the recess the cliff bosomed out with a full swell for some two or three feet, effectually preventing any one’s looking down into the nest from above […] 1869, Allan Hume, “My first Nests of Bonelli’s Eagle”, in The Ibis, Series 2, Volume 5, p. 145
   1905, Alex Macdonald, In Search of El Dorado, London: T. Fisher Unwin, Part II, “The Five-Mile Rush,” p. 92, What Stewart called a “langtailie coat” spread out behind him like streamers in a breeze, a “biled” collar had, in the same gentleman’s terse language, “burst its moorings” and projected in two miniature wings at the back of his ears, and a shirt that had once been white, bosomed out expansively through an open vest.
4. (transitive) To belly; to cause to billow, swell or bulge.
   1822, James Hogg, The Three Perils of Man, London: Longman, Hurst, Rees, Orme & Brown, Volume 3, Chapter 12, pp. 440-441, I looked again, and though I was sensible it must be a delusion brought on by the stroke of his powerful rod, yet I did see the appearance of a glorious fleet of ships coming bounding along the surface of the firmament of air, while every mainsail was bosomed out like the side of a Highland mountain.
   1855, The Scald [pseudonym of George Smellie], “Sketches of a Voyage to Hudson’s Bay” in The Sea: Sketches of a Voyage to Hudson’s Bay, and Other Poems, London: Hope & Co., p. 45, Thus one by one they mount, and spreading wide, The transverse wings extend on either side, And, lightly bosomed by the gentle gale, She seems a moving pyramid of ail.