LOVE or hate it, the word boobs continues to be used as a synonym for breasts – but why? And where did this word come from?
There’s a saying that the origin of the word comes from the appearance of breasts – with B looking like breasts from above, oo looking like a pair of breasts, and looking at breasts from the side.
This actually isn’t believed to be the case though and seems to just be a strange coincidence.
According to the Oxford English Dictionary the first use of the word boobs to describe breasts came from Henry Miller.
In his 1934 novel, Tropic of Cancer Miller wrote the line: “She was lying on the divan with her boobies in her hands.” Then in his 1949 book Sexus he wrote: I felt her sloshy boobs joggling me but I was too intent on pursuing the ramifications of Coleridge’s amazing mind to let her vegetable appendages disturb me…”
We’re just glad that it was boobs that caught on and not “vegetable appendages.”
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However, according to Today I Found Out the word boobs had previously been used in in the lesser known 1932 novel Young Lonigan, by James T. Farrell.
Etymologists believe that the use of “boobs” to mean breasts came about due to the word “bubby” which also means breast.
Where bubby came from has experts somewhat divided – with some thinking it derives from the German word “bübbi” meaning teat, while others think it may have just developed from baby talk.
The first recorded use of the term bubby to mean breasts can be found in a 1686 poem by Thomas D’urfey, who wrote the lines: “The Ladies here may without Scandal shew / Face or white Bubbies, to each ogling Beau.”
So it seems that the word boobs, or bubbies, has been dividing opinion since at least the late 1600s.
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While there are many people who dislike the use of the word boobs, there are many who still use it – with some using it to describe their own breasts.
Many find it preferable to other synonyms, such as “titties”, “jugs” or Henry Miller’s long-forgotten “vegetable appendages.”
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