Forms: 6–7 bogg, bogge, 7 boghe, 6– bog. [ad. Ir. or Gael, bogach a bog, f. bog soft, used in composition in the sense of ‘bog,’ as bog-luachair bulrush. In Scotland apparently from Gaelic, in England from Irish.]
I. 1. A piece of wet spongy ground, consisting chiefly of decayed or decaying moss and other vegetable matter, too soft to bear the weight of any heavy body upon its surface; a morass or moss.
c. 1505. Dunbar, Of James Dog, 15. Chassand cattell through a bog.
a. 1552. Leland, Brit. Coll. (1774), II. 545. They … fledde alle, and levyng theyr Horses, tooke the Marresis, or Bogges.
1599. Shaks., Hen. V., III. vii. 61. They that ride so … fall into foule Boggs.
1611. Speed, Theat. Gt. Brit. (1614), 143/1. Certain places [of Ireland] … which of their softnesse are usually termed Boghes.
1631. Star Chamb. Cases (1886), 34. The Country of Ireland is full of boggs on the ground and mists in the aire.
1667. Milton, P. L., II. 592. That Serbonian Bog Betwixt Damiata and mount Casius old, Where Armies whole have sunk.
1751. Chambers, Cycl., s.v., The inconveniences of Bogs are … that they are a great destruction to cattle: they are also a shelter to Tories and Thieves.
1810. Scott, Lady of L., III. xiii. The trembling bog and false morass.
1846. M’Culloch, Acc. Brit. Empire (1854), I. 325. These bogs are included under the general designation of the Bog of Allen.
b. (without pl.) Bog-land, boggy soil.
a. 1687. Petty, Pol. Arith. (1690), 2. Bog may by draining be made Meadow.
1846. M’Culloch, Acc. Brit. Empire (1854), I. 269. A large extent of hill pasture, moor, and bog.
1861. Times, 29 Aug., 12/1. Long brown gaps of stagnant-looking bog, where the piles of neatly-cut turf were stacked out in rough black cones.
c. fig. (Cf. ‘fog.’)
1614. Bp. J. King, Vitis Palatina, 30. Quagmires and bogges of Romish superstition this house was neuer acquainted with.
1787. Burns, To Miss Ferrier, iii. Last day my mind was in a bog.
1840. C. Dickens, Barn. Rudge (1849), 331/1. He wandered out again, in a perfect bog of uncertainty.
1878. Morley, Diderot, I. 331. The Serbonian bog of dramatic rules.
II. Attrib. and Comb.
2. General comb., as bog-bred adj.; -hay, -pit, -plant, -stalker, -turf, -water, -way.
1850. Marg. Fuller, Wom. 19th C. (1862), 324. Because that *bog-bred youth … tells you lies.
1799. J. Robertson, Agric. Perth, 222. In general *bog hay, as it is called, is about one third inferior in quality to that from sown grass.
1820. Scott, Abbot, xvi. The kelpie must flit from the black *bog-pit.
1854. S. Thomson, Wild Fl., III. (1861), 138. Our common *bog-plants.
a. 1758. Ramsay, Poems (1800), II. 338. Ill-bred *bog stalker.
1866. Carlyle, Remin., I. 205. A gush of *bog-water.
1869. Blackmore, Lorna D., iii. (ed. 12), 12. Before coming to the black *bog-way.
3. In many names of plants growing in bogs: as Bog Asphodel, Cinquefoil, Pimpernel, etc.; bog bean, bog nut, or bog trefoil, also called BUCKBEAN; bog berry, the Cranberry; bog moss, various species of Sphagnum, by the growth and decay of which bogs are chiefly formed; bog myrtle, Sweet Gale (Myrica Gale); bog orchis, Malaxis paludosa; bog pink, Lady’s Smock (Cardamine pratensis); bog rush, Schœnus nigricans; bog violet = BUTTERWORT (Pinguicula).
1881. G. Allen, in Academy, 13 Aug., 113/3. A little marsh … made room for *bog-asphodel.
1794. Martyn, Rousseau’s Bot., xvi. 176. Marsh Trefoil, Buckbean or *Bogbean will discover itself to you immediately.
1857. Hughes, Tom Brown, i. What the bog-bean and wood-sage are good for.
1858. Eliz. Twining, Lect. Plants, 345. Our marsh Bog-bean which I described to you as an intensely bitter herb.
1884. Q. Victoria, More Leaves, 290. Bonnets with a black cock’s tail and *bog-myrtle.
4. Special comb.: bog-blitter, -bluiter, -bumper, provincial names of the Bittern; bog-butter, a fatty hydrocarbon found in the peat-bogs of Ireland; bog-deal = bog-pine; bog-down, Cotton-grass (Eriophorum); bog-earth, earth composed of, or largely mixed with, peat; bog fir = bog pine; bog iron, bog iron ore, a brittle, porous variety of brown hæmatite found in bogs; bog-jumper, (local) the Bittern; bog-land, marshy land, a boggy country; humorously, Ireland, hence bog-lander; bog manganese (see quot.); † bog-mine, bog-mine-ore, bog ore = bog iron ore; † bog-mire, a quagmire; bog-mould = bog-earth; bog oak, the wood of oak preserved in a black state in peat-bogs, etc.; bog-pine, pine-wood found buried in peat-bogs; bog-spavin, an encysted tumor on the inside of the hock of a horse; bog-timber, bog-wood, the trunks of trees found buried in peat-bogs.
1815. Scott, Guy M., i. The deep cry of the *bog-blitter, or bull-of-the-bog.
1866. Inverness Courier, 4 Jan. The bittern of British Zoology; provincially the *bog-bumper and mire-drum.
1863. Watts, Dict. Chem., I. 612. *Bog-butter, a fatty substance found in the peat-bogs of Ireland.
1794. G. Adams, Nat. & Exp. Philos., IV. xlvii. 301. Touch the needle with a piece of *bog-down, or a cork ball.
1865. Pall Mall Gaz., 24 Oct., 5. Cloth made of bog-down (Anglice, cotton grass).
1787–8. Botan. Mag., II. 46. Soil, a mixture of loam and *bog earth.
1769. Barrington, in Phil. Trans., LIX. 33. Why these *bog-firs may be found in places where there is no such tree at present.
1789. Mills, in Phil. Trans., LXXX. 89. *Bog iron ore is met with in the mosses.
1690. Dryden, Prol. to Prophetess, 31. Men without hearts, and women without hose. Each bring his love a *Bogland captive home.
1689. [Farewell], Irish Hudibras, 23.
| There grows a Bunch of Three-leav’d-grass, | |
| Call’d by the *Boglanders Shamrogues. |
1730–6. Bailey, Dict., Bog-Landers, a nick-name given Irish-men.
1875. Ure, Dict. Arts, III. 200. Wad, or *Bog Manganese, is the old English name of the hydrated peroxide of manganese.
1590. R. Payne, Descr. Irel. (1841), 6. There is … greate plentie of Iron stone, and one sort more than we have in England, which they call *Bogge myne.
1762. Eliot, in Phil. Trans., LIII. 56. Add some bog mine ore, which abounds with cinder.
1624. Capt. Smith, Virginia, II. 32. They slew my men, and tooke me prisoner in a *Bogmire.
1834. Brit. Husb., I. 414. When brought to the decayed condition of *bog-mould, or rich earth.
1857. Parsons, in Phil. Trans., L. 398. This is called *bog-oak, or bog deal, well known to country people in many places.
Mod. An extensive manufactory of bog-oak ornaments, as bracelets, brooches, etc.
1772. Pennant, Tours Scotl. (1774), 219. That species of iron called *bog-ore.
1842. S. Lover, Handy Andy, xxxv. 336. A torch made of *bog-pine.
1631. Brathwait, Whimzies, 76. His stable is a very shop of all diseases; glanders, yellowes … *bogspavings, with a myriad more.
1802. D. Blaine, Veterinary Art (ed. 2), 499. Bog Spavin. This is only a bursal enlargement of the mucous capsule on the inner side of the hock.
1807. Vancouver, Agric. Devon (1813), 52. These morasses are found frequently to abound with *bog-timber.
1828. Scott, F. M. Perth, III. 107. A piece of lighted *bog-wood which he carried in a lantern.
1883. C. G. Leland, in Longm. Mag., III. 48. A generation ago the old art of carving bog-wood was revived in Dublin and its vicinity.
