bosser

From boss +‎ -er?

bosser (plural bossers)

1. (rare) A bossy person, one who orders others around.
   • 1985, Gertrude Story, The Need of Wanting Always, page 160:

     They were all bossers here. Especially the women. They were bossy even when they deared her.

2. (UK, dialect) A large marble in children's games.
   • 1953, Arthur Beckett, The Sussex County Magazine, volume 27, page 60:

     […] the ultimate winner is the man with the greatest number of marbles when play comes to an end. The games at Battle at the present time are played with glass marbles and locally made “bossers” of concrete.

   • 1997, Iona Archibald Opie, Peter Opie, Children's games with things, page 54:

     Modern children, having only machine-made glass marbles, are restricted to names describing their size, or the names under which they are sold, or fanciful names of their own inventing. Thus big marbles are big 'uns, bossers, bulls or bullies […]

3. An instrument used to push clay into a mold.

• Bosers, Sobers, broses, sobers

bosser ?

1. (Sauris) water

• Umberto Patuzzi, ed., (2013) Ünsarne Börtar, Luserna: Comitato unitario delle linguistiche storiche germaniche in Italia / Einheitskomitee der historischen deutschen Sprachinseln in Italien.

• IPA^(key): /bɔ.se/

First attested in 1878.

Probably from bosse +‎ -er (see below) with some sort of semantic shift. It has been suggested that in western France, the verb came to mean "to bend over for work"; alternately, that sailors raising an anchor was considered typical "hard work", or that the word came from the sense of "to emboss" and was originally cant used by artisans.

bosser

1. (Europe, informal) to work, labour, do a day's work

   Synonym: travailler

   • 2023 August 6, “Qui sont ces 627.000 étudiants-travailleurs, et pourquoi sacrifient-ils leur été?”, in Le Soir:

     Il n’y a jamais eu autant de jobistes en Belgique. La conséquence d’un assouplissement de la législation ces dix dernières années face à la pénurie dans certains secteurs. Mais qui sont ces étudiants-travailleurs et pourquoi sacrifient-ils leur été, et de plus en plus l’année entière, à bosser ?

     There have never been so many working students in Belgium. The consequence of a relaxation of legislation over the last ten years in the face of shortages in certain sectors. But who are these student workers and why do they sacrifice their summer, and increasingly the entire year, to work?

   • Toute la journée il bosse, et pour que dalle.

     He works all day long, and all that for nothing.

2. (Europe, informal) to train (for something), work on (something), study, improve (on something)

   Synonyms: potasser, réviser, s’entraîner, bûcher

   • Je dois encore bosser (sur) mon solfège ce weekend.

     I still need to work on music theory this weekend.

   • Va bosser tes maths au lieu de jouer aux jeux vidéos!

     Get back to your maths and study instead of playing video-games!

From bosse +‎ -er; cf. bossoir.

bosser (transitive)

1. to emboss
2. to dent; to cause a dent
3. (nautical) to raise an anchor over the davit(s)

• “bosser”, in Trésor de la langue française informatisé [Digitized Treasury of the French Language], 2012.
• “bosser” in Dictionnaire français en ligne Larousse.

• brosse, brossé