buggy

See also: Buggy

English

A horse and buggy.

A dune buggy.

Pronunciation

• (UK) IPA^(key): /bʌ.ɡi/

• Audio (Southern England)

  (file)

• Rhymes: -ʌɡi

Etymology 1

Origin unknown.

Noun

buggy (plural buggies)

1. A small horse-drawn cart.
   • 1897 December (indicated as 1898), Winston Churchill, chapter II, in The Celebrity: An Episode, New York, N.Y.: The Macmillan Company; London: Macmillan & Co., Ltd., →OCLC:

     I had occasion […] to make a somewhat long business trip to Chicago, and on my return […] I found Farrar awaiting me in the railway station. He smiled his wonted fraction by way of greeting, […], and finally leading me to his buggy, turned and drove out of town.

2. A small motor vehicle, such as a dune buggy.
   • 2022 November 26, Virginia Feito, “Sweating Through a Honeymoon in Paradise”, in The New York Times‎^[1]:

     I casually let this information drop as our concierge drives us through the resort in a buggy, a frangipani flower tucked behind his ear. He promises to fix the bug problem and drops us off at the lobby.

3. A hearse.
   • 1920's arr: Jimmie Rogers Frankie and Johnnie

     Bring out the rubber tired buggy/Bring out the rubber tired hack/I'm takin' my Johnny to the graveyard/But I ain't gonna bring him back

4. (UK, Western Pennsylvania) A pushchair; a stroller.

   Synonym: stroller

   • 2020 January 2, “New entrance at Finsbury Park”, in Rail, page 12:

     The wider station upgrade has provided lifts to the Piccadilly and Victoria lines, as well as Network Rail platforms, to make it easier for passengers with mobility needs, buggies or heavy luggage to use London Underground.

5. (Canada, Southern US, Western Pennsylvania) A shopping cart or trolley.

Derived terms

• baby buggy
• beach buggy
• buggy whip
• bundle buggy
• Concord buggy
• golf buggy
• horse and buggy
• Irish buggy
• Moon buggy
• punch buggy
• rubber baby buggy bumper
• sand buggy
• struggle-buggy

 

Descendants

• → Gulf Arabic: بقي (bagi, “ATV”)

Translations

A small horse-drawn cart

• Bulgarian: кабриолет m (kabriolet)
• Finnish: vaunut (fi), rattaat (fi), kärryt (fi)
• French: calèche (fr) f
• Hebrew: כִּרְכָּרָה (he) f (kirkará)
• Hungarian: bricska (hu)
• Macedonian: кабриоле́т m (kabriolét)
• Maori: paki
• Norman: tchéthiole f (Jersey), cariole f (Guernsey)
• Plautdietsch: Bogge m
• Yiddish: פֿור m (fur)

A small motor vehicle, such as a dune buggy

• Bulgarian: бъги n (bǎgi)
• Finnish: mönkijä (fi)
• French: quad (fr) m
• Hungarian: homokfutó (hu)
• Macedonian: ба́ги n (bági)
• Portuguese: bugue (pt) m

pushchair — see pushchair

shopping cart — see shopping cart

Etymology 2

bug +‎ -y

Adjective

buggy (comparative buggier, superlative buggiest)

1. Infested with insects.
2. (computing) Containing programming errors.

   This software is so buggy that I don't know how anyone can use it!

3. Resembling an insect.
4. (slang) Crazy; bughouse.
   • 2011, Beverley Armstrong-Rodman, Nightmare in the Everglades, page 106:

     You have to help me get out of here. They want to keep me longer, but I can't stay. This place is driving me buggy.

Derived terms

• bugginess
• buggy eyes

Translations

infested with insects

• French: infesté (fr) m
• Turkish: böcekli (tr)

containing programming errors

• Czech: chybový m
• Finnish: buginen (fi)
• French: buggé (fr) m
• Hungarian: bugos, programhibás
• Portuguese: bugado (pt)
• Spanish: tarado (es)

Further reading

• “buggy”, in Lexico, Dictionary.com; Oxford University Press, 2019–2022.

Dutch

Etymology

Borrowed from English buggy.

Pronunciation

• (Netherlands) IPA^(key): /ˈbʏ.ɡi/

• Audio

  (file)

• Hyphenation: bug‧gy

Noun

buggy m (plural buggy's, diminutive buggy'tje n)

1. A baby buggy, a pushchair, a stroller.
2. A buggy (small motor vehicle).

Derived terms

• strandbuggy

Adjective

buggy (not comparable)

1. Buggy, containing programming errors.

Inflection

Inflection of buggy
uninflected	buggy
inflected	buggy
comparative	—
		positive
predicative/adverbial		buggy
indefinite	m./f. sing.	buggy
	n. sing.	buggy
	plural	buggy
definite		buggy
partitive		buggy's

French

Etymology

From English buggy.

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /bœ.ɡi/

• Audio (Paris)

  (file)

Noun

buggy m (plural buggies or buggys)

1. buggy (small vehicle)

Further reading

• “buggy”, in Trésor de la langue française informatisé [Digitized Treasury of the French Language], 2012.