adj. (common).—A generic intensive: very; great; excessive: cf. BLOODY; FUCKING, etc. [A comparatively recent coinage, it is said, of The Sporting Times (see TERMINAL ESSAY) from ‘ballyhooly.’]
1889. The Sporting Times, 6 July (Answers to Correspondents). H. G. Steele.—Thanks. What a BALLY idiot you must be.
1889. Bird o’ Freedom, 7 Aug., 5. You can BALLY well take it yourself.
1897. MARSHALL, Pomes, 19. They lump the BALLY lot in one. Ibid., 39. If I meet the BALLY old bounder.
1901. Troddles, 77. He … asked Murray plaintively if we wanted all the BALLY carriage to ourselves.
