Borrowed from French bougie (“wax candle”), after the Algerian city Bougie (Béjaïa), and the tapered, hand-dipped candles it made. The medical instruments were originally made from waxed linen.

• IPA^(key): /ˈbuːʒi/, enPR: bo͞oʹzhē

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• Rhymes: -uːʒi

bougie (plural bougies)

1. (medicine) A tapered cylindrical instrument for introducing an object into a tubular anatomical structure, or to dilate such a structure, as with an esophageal bougie.
   • 1866, “Don Leon”, in Don Leon ; A Poem by the Late Lord Byron, Author of Childe Harold, Don Juan, &c., &c. and forming part of the private journal of His Lordship, supposed to have been entirely destoyed by Thos. Moore. To which is added Leon to Annabella; An epistle from Lord Byron to Lady Byron.‎^[1] (Poetry), →OCLC, pages 44, 51–52:

     "There, as my lord, with achromatic glass, / "O'erlooks St. James's Park, and on the grass, / "Beneath his mansion's half-closed window spies / "Two crouching urchins' gross obscenities, / "He turns his eager gaze, adjusts the screw, / "And brings their unwashed nudities in view. / "That spot, concealed by two o'er hanging hills, / "Foul sweat and fœtid excrement distils, / "Yet frowsy, there the pipe-clayed soldier sports, / "And bishops hold episcopalian courts. / "'Tis there the Bath empiric's finger guides, / "The oiled bougie ; and as the dildo slides / "Besmeared, to meet last night's descending meal, / "Oft makes the strictures he pretends to heal.

     Whoever has visited Bath must have heard of a surgeon, by the name of Hicks, who pretends to cure strictures in the rectum by the insertion of bougies of enormous dimensions up the anus in male and female patients. The morning meetings of ten or a dozen persons of both sexes, all waiting to undergo the same mode of cure (for he never fails to discover stricture or tendency to stricture, in all those persons who consult him), must be ludicrous and somewhat obscene. Why does he not follow the plan of Enothea, a harlot spoken of by Petronius? "Profert Enothea scorteum fascinum, quod, ut oleo et minuto pipere atque urticæ trito circumdedit semine, paulatim cœpit insere ano meo." It may not be amiss to observe that the fascinum (Gallice godmiché, Anglice dildo) was a substitute for the human penis, known to the ancients as well as to the moderns.

   • 2001, Oliver Sacks, Uncle Tungsten: Memories of a Chemical Boyhood, Alfred A. Knopf (2001), 12,

     I was not too sure, as a child, what doctors "did," and glimpses of catheters and bougies in their kidney dishes, retractors and speculums, rubber gloves, catgut thread, and forecepts - all this, I think, rather frightened me, though it fascinated me too.

2. A wax candle.

From bourgeoisie.

• IPA^(key): /ˈbuːʒi/, enPR: bo͞oʹzhē

bougie (comparative bougier, superlative bougiest)

1. (slang, usually derogatory) Behaving like or pertaining to people of a higher social status, middle-class / bourgeois people (sometimes carrying connotations of fakeness, elitism, or snobbery).
   • 1991 September 23, “Will Gets a Job”, in The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air, season 2, episode 3:

     Hey, look, man, I haven't changed, I'm not gonna change and I'm not down with this bougie stuff.

   • 2007 October 12, L. Kent Wolgamott, “Satire pervades the series of fictional magazine covers”, in The Lincoln Journal Star‎^[2]:

     Called “bougie” when she was growing up, even though she’d never considered herself close to that, Ewing has turned the word around, using it as the title of a fictitious magazine she has dreamed up.

   • 2007, “Glamorous”, performed by Fergie:

     I'll be on the movie screens / Magazines and bougie scenes

   • 2010 February 1, “Gone With the Window”, in RuPaul's Drag Race, season 2, episode 1:

     Shangela is kind of bougie, but she's also your homegirl.

   • 2010, “Sleazy”, performed by Ke$ha:

     I don't need you or your brand new Benz / Or your bougie friends

   • 2023, “Outside”, performed by Br3nya:

     Bougie attitude, I'm from the West End / I want the finer things in life

   • 2024 March 6, Giles Yeo, “Why the double standards on ultra-processed foods? Because some have better PR than others”, in The Guardian‎^[3], →ISSN:

     Sure, you can go to a bougie bakery and purchase an artisanal sourdough without any additives that will cost much more and taste better than a supermarket loaf. But ultimately, bread is made from flour, salt, water and yeast.

2. (British, Canada, slang) Fancy or good-looking, without the same connotations of snobbery or pretentiousness as in sense 1.

• bourgie, boojie, boujee

• chichi
• classy
• high and mighty
• ritzy
• saditty
• snobby
• snooty
• posh

• boughetto
• bougieness

• bourgie

bougie (plural bougies)

1. (chiefly African-American Vernacular, slang, usually derogatory) A person who exhibits bougie behavior.
   • 1991 [1965], Nathan Hare, “Introduction”, in The Black Anglo-Saxons, page iii:

     All in all, Black Anglo-Saxons today remain a variegated group, and their numbers continue, relentlessly, to multiply. / In the late 1960's^{[sic – meaning 1960s]} following the first appearance of this book, The Black Anglo-Saxons, street militants and conscious members of the Black middle class popularly called them "bougies."

bougie (plural bougies)

1. Alternative spelling of bowjy (“shed for cattle or sheep”)

From Bougie, the French name for the Algerian town of Béjaïa بجاية, formerly known for exporting candle wax. Attested 1300 for "fine candle wax", and 1493 for "candle made from such wax".

• IPA^(key): /bu.ʒi/

• Audio:

  (file)

bougie f (plural bougies)

1. candle
2. spark plug

• bougeoir
• bougie à boule

• chandelle
• cierge

• → Catalan: bugia
• → English: bougie
• → Greek: μπουζί (bouzí)
• → Gulay: bùjì
• → Romanian: bujie
• → Spanish: bujía
• → Turkish: buji

• “bougie”, in Trésor de la langue française informatisé [Digitized Treasury of the French Language], 2012.
• “bougie” in Dico en ligne Le Robert.