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Dictionary

Words, grammatical forms and meanings linked to the ontology.

buzzie en · NOUN

Pronunciation

  • /ˈbʌze/ (Scotland)
  • /-zi/ (Scotland)
  • /ˈbʌzi/
  • /ˈbʊzi/ (Northern-England)
  • /-zɪ/ (Scotland)

Etymology

From buzz + -ie.

Meanings

  1. (slang) A hand-held pneumatic drill used in mining.
    • Both buzzies were broke down. Burke left me alone to do my work. I disconnected teh compressed-air lines, opened my tool box and got at it. 1980, Donald McCaig, The Butte Polka: A Novel, page 114:
    • Dredging wasn't mining. A man had to know something about lode mining, and could Andy name a man working on the boat who knew a muckstick from a buzzie? 1950, Helen Rich, The Willow-bender: A Novel, page 236:
    • Technology such as steam-powered hoists and "buzzies," hand-held, two-man air drills, speeded up production but did nothing to improve working conditions. The buzzies, in fact, produced so much fine dust that they led to a higher rate of silicosis, a debilitating respiratory disease, and were soon dubbed "widowmakers." 2006, Clemens P. Work, Darkest Before Dawn: Sedition and Free Speech in the American West, →ISBN:
  2. (slang) A woman's breast.
    • A nod an carry on dancing, bouncin about madly, glad a wore me sports bra - if a hadn't've then me buzzies'd be in agony by now. 2000, Niall Griffiths, Grits, page 229:
    • That's a fair pair of buzzies you've got there. 1992, Mike Harding, Last Tango in Whitby, page 27:
  3. A capped double-reed instrument.
    • ...a large family of capped reeds, often referred to collectively and affectionately as buzzies, which contains many straight, cylindrical bore instruments such as Cornemusen (a term sometimes applied in general to the family), Schreierpfeiffen, and a modern generic reproduction known as the Glastonbury Pipe, to be discussed in more detail further on. 1991, Suzanne Eve Hirschman, Digital waveguide modeling and simulation of reed woodwind instruments:
    • The brilliant qualities of the Diritto and the Curvo seem to lend themselves to use with sackbutts or large mixed ensembles composed of "buzzies" such as shawms, racketts, and crumhorns. 1976, International Trumpet Guild, ITG Journal - Volumes 1-5, page 32:
    • The “buzzies,” capped double-reed instruments like the crumhorn, the dulcian, the rankett (or “rackett”), provide a change of sonority, and sometimes an outburst of hilarity, when one of them is used or a consort is played together. 2011, Thomas Forrest Kelly, Early Music: A Very Short Introduction, →ISBN, page 47:
  4. A bur.
    • So, instead, he took to hoeing weeds — thistles and buzzies — from the nearer paddocks. 1952, John Rowland Skemp, Memories of Myrtle Bank:
    • If there are idle times in my day Ms Tia certainly knows how to fill them, applying her weedicide program to padddocs she returned on two occasions with fur covered in buzzies. 2011, Susan Lucas, Inside my Skin, →ISBN, page 291:
    • The high spot of the week was when they combed the contents of her bottle-brush head—burrs and buzzies, various creepy-crawlies dislodged from the greenery as she tripped past—out onto an old copy of the Sydney Morning Herald and burned the result. 2011, Helen Hodgman, Jack and Jill, →ISBN, page 9:
    • That triangle of tangled undergrowth was infested with clothes-grabbing burdocks (“buzzies” we called them) and beggar's ticks. 2015, Jim Bennet, South End Boy: Growing up in Halifax in the tumultuous '30s and '40s, →ISBN:
  5. A buzzing insect.
    • A few of the little yellow buzzies were climbing in and out. 2014, Carolyn Long Silvers, My Walls Speak, →ISBN, page 135:
    • But be they flies or be they wasps, I neither care for buzzies nor stings. 1846, John Campbell, The Lives of the Lord Chancellors and Keepers of the Great Seal of England:
    • Sue had climbed up to the rafters and attached her mosquito netting over one of the exposed beams in the ceiling, and Edgar had climbed into the bed under it so no flying buzzies would mess with his ears. 2011, Sharon S. Delaney, Celestial Mesa: 2012, →ISBN, page 120:
  6. (Ireland) A gypsy.
    • Actually, the Irish don't trouble themselves with which is which, but you buzzies get mighty frustrated trying to figure it out. 2008, Suzanne Supplee, When Irish Guys Are Smiling, →ISBN, page 42:
  7. (Scotland) Police officer.
    • "We're no buzzies!' Manuel says, but the slit scrapes shut. 2017, Denise Mina, The Long Drop, →ISBN, page 122:
  8. (informal) Anything that produces a buzzing sensation.
    • Uppers, downers, mood-altering buzzies. Junk. 2002, Lindsay Longford, Lover in the Shadows, →ISBN, page 85:
    • When Nix got sick, he didn't feel like other people felt. He didn't get sluggish or throw up. He buzzed. It wasn't anything someone could hear, just an intense humming that sizzled all over. His sister couldn't hear it, but she could tell just by looking at him. The buzzies are back. 2012, Tony Bertauski, Halfskin: A Technothriller, →ISBN:
    • “I want to show you this thing that I have.” The therapist brings out the EMDR NeuroTek machine with buzzies. 2016, Robbie Adler-Tapia, Carolyn Settle, EMDR and the Art of Psychotherapy with Children, →ISBN:

Forms

SpellingFeaturesLabelsSource
buzzies Number=Plur lexicographic