buxom

Etymology

From Middle English buxum, buhsum, bucsum, also ibucsum, ibuhsum (“bendsome, flexible, pliant, obedient”), from Old English bōcsum, *būhsum, *ġebūhsum (“bendsome, pliant, obedient”), from Proto-West Germanic *beuhsam, *beugsam, equivalent to bow (“to bend, bow at the waist”) + -some or buck (“to bend, buckle, kick”) + -some. Cognate with Scots bowsome (“compliant”), West Frisian bûgsum (“flexible, bendy”), Dutch buigzaam (“flexible, pliant”), German biegsam (“flexible, pliant”).

adj

1. (of a woman) Having a full, voluptuous figure, especially possessing large breasts.
   DIED. Robert Brooks, 69, canny businessman who, as chairman of Hooters, turned the bar-restaurant chain, famed for buxom waitresses in orange hot pants, into an international success. July 23, 2003, “Milestones”, in Time, archived from the original on 2008-06-23
2. (dated) Full of health, vigour, and good temper.
   Claypole, the buxom novelist,...[his] bubbling utterances.... 1932, John Buchan, chapter IV, in The Gap in the Curtain
   So heated and impassioned, indeed, would they become, that the lady hardly felt herself safe in their company at such times, notwithstanding that she was a brave and buxom damsel, not easily put out, and with a daring spirit of humour in her composition. 1896, Thomas Hardy, “Dame the Eighth: The Lady Penelope”, in A Group of Noble Dames
   He had not seen Zilla since Paul had shot her, and he still pictured her as buxom, high-colored, lively, and a little blowsy. 1922, Sinclair Lewis, “26”, in Babbitt
3. (obsolete) Physically flexible or unresisting.
   Their substance is of a middle Nature betwixt bones and gristles moderately hard, the better to beare the violence of outward iniures, flexible or buxome that they should not breake but giue way to violence, pellucide or transparant and therefore they are either red or liuid according to their flesh vnder them. 1615, Helkiah Crooke, Mikrokosmographia
4. (obsolete, by extension) Morally pliant; obedient and easily yielding to pressure.
   They downe him hold, and fast with cords do bynde, / Till they him force the buxome yoke to beare […]. 1596, Edmund Spenser, The Faerie Queene, VI.8:
   You will certainly be rewarded for this improvement in your conduct by a notable increase of tranquillity and cheerfulness in your view both of the past and of the future; and in the hope that you will be buxom and good, I conclude by New Year's lecture. 1869, Newell Connop Thirlwall, Letters