Also boguey, bogie. Pl. bogies. [Found in literature only recently; old people vouch for its use in the nursery as early as 1825, but only as proper name (sense 1). Possibly a southern nursery form of bogle, boggle, and boggard, or going back like them to a simpler form which, as mentioned under BOG and BOGLE, may be a variant of bugge, BUG ‘terror, bugbear, scarecrow.’ But in the absence of evidence, positive statements concerning its relation to these words cannot be made. (That they are connected with the Slavonic bog ‘god,’ is a mere fancy from the similarity of form, without any evidence.)]
1. As quasi-proper name: The evil one, the devil.
1836–40. Barham, Ingol. Leg., Witches’ Frolic. But hears the words ‘Scratch’ and ‘Old Bogey’ and ‘Nick.’ Ibid. (1840), 322. Then Boguey ’d have you sure as eggs is eggs.
1840. Gen. P. Thompson, Exerc. (1842), V. 88. To admit to evidence such as avow their credence in ‘old Bogie.’
1851. Thackeray, Eng. Hum., v. (1858), 239. The people are all naughty and Bogey carries them all off.
1865. Ellen C. Clayton, Cruel Fortune, III. 85. I’ll put out the light and go away, and leave you all by yourself with Bogie.
1879. M. Conway, Demonol., I. I. iii. 16.
2. A bogle or goblin; a person much dreaded.
1857. S. Osborn, Quedah, ii. 17. Malay pirates … those bogies of the Archipelago.
1863. Kingsley, Water Bab. (1878), 19. On the top of each gate post a most dreadful bogy.
1863. Baring-Gould, Iceland, 118. The sheepwalks have got a bad name for bogies.
3. fig. An object of terror or dread; a bugbear.
1865. Daily Tel., 27 Nov., 2/3. Reform is not a bogy to cheat, but a blessing to recognise and regulate.
1878. N. Amer. Rev., 135. Men … who discover bogies in every measure.
Hence Bogydom, the domain of Old Bogy. Bogyism, the recognition of bogies. Bogyphobia, dread of bogies.
1880. Daily Tel., 2 Dec., 4/1. A sulphurous odour pervading the air so suggestive of bogeydom that it seemed quite befitting there should be so many little chapels and prayer-meeting places.
1876. Athenæum, 14 Oct., 495/3. The author seems to be a spiritualist, or, at least, to have a leaning to banshees and bogyism.
1872. Livingstone, in Daily Tel., 29 July, 5/3. I am not liable to fits of bogiephobia, in which disease the poor patient believes everything awful if only it is attributed to the owner of a black skin.
