Etymology: < Anglo-Norman and Middle French bugre, bougre (French bougre ) heretic (1172 in Old French as bogre ), person who performs acts classed as ‘buggery’ (see buggery n. 2) (2nd half of the 13th cent.), Bulgarian (early 14th cent.), general term of abuse or contempt for a person (late 15th cent.) < post-classical Latin Bulgarus Bulgarian (see Bulgar n.; also Bugarus , Bugaris , Bugerus ), a name given to a sect of heretics thought to have come from Bulgaria in the 11th cent. (probably ultimately referring to the Bogomils), and afterwards extended to other heretics (to whom various deprecated sexual practices were attributed) (13th cent. in British and continental sources), and also to usurers (13th cent. in British sources). Compare Old Occitan bolgre and also ( < French) Middle Dutch buggere heretic (early 14th cent.), person who performs acts classed as ‘buggery’ (see buggery n. 2) (late 14th cent.; Dutch bogger).In the Middle Ages, anal sex and various other sexual practices which were deprecated (including bestiality, pederasty, and incest) were attributed to members of various, especially dualist, heresies, such as the Bogomils and the Albigenses (or Cathars). Such charges were common during the period of the Albigensian Crusade (1209–29), a military campaign initiated by Pope Innocent III to eliminate Catharism from Languedoc, and appear to have been based on Cathar avoidance of marriage and procreation on the grounds that they led to a continuation of the physical world, which was held to be intrinsically evil. Similar charges were associated with accusations of heresy at other times, as for instance during the suppression of the Knights Templars in the early 14th cent. For possible evidence of euphemistic abbreviation of this word in 19th-cent. and later printed sources, compare b n. at B n. Initialisms 1. With use in sense 3 compare also euphemistic substitution of beggar at beggar n. Additions, and variation shown by the phrase to play silly buggers (also beggars, bleeders, etc.) at silly adj., n., and adv. Phrases 2.

Etymology: < bug v.¹ + -er suffix¹.

Etymology: < bugger n.¹ Compare Italian buggerare to have anal intercourse with (14th cent.; now usually ‘to cheat, swindle’ (1505–9)). Compare earlier buggerer n., buggery n.With to bugger about at Phrasal verbs 1 perhaps compare the following example, although the glossary cited interprets this as a suffixed form (compare -er suffix⁵) of a verb bug or bog meaning ‘to go’:1887 T. Darlington Folk-speech S. Cheshire 132 To ‘bugger about’ is to knock about, to lounge about.Perhaps compare also buggerlug v. 2.

Etymology: Either < bugger v., or < bugger n.¹