Skip to content
ontologydriven
Sign out

Dictionary

Words, grammatical forms and meanings linked to the ontology.

on the bum en · ADP

Meanings

  1. (US, slang) Living as a vagrant; homeless.
    • Even now, though it was December, a few poor draggled old wrecks were settling down on the benches, tucking themselves up in sort of parcels of newspaper. Gordon looked at them callously. On the bum, they called it. 1936, George Orwell, Keep the Aspidistra Flying:
    • I ask, how many of these hobos, who are on the bum, have the courage to ask for the drink? 1870, M.P. Murphy, Iron Molders' Journal, volume 32, Iron Molders' Union of North America, page 518:
  2. (US, obsolete) On a drinking spree.
  3. (US, slang) Not working; out of order.
    • My typewriter's on the bum—and I'm just lost. One gets so used to one that you're very dependent. 1927, Hart Crane, letter, 28 March
  4. Used other than figuratively or idiomatically: see on, the, bum.