buxom
/ˈbʌks(ə)m
/- There are indeed western women - blonde, buxom women - who lead open, flirtatious and glamorous lives.
- Men of a certain age wooed blonde, buxom women a generation younger.
- So how then did the cited unmentionables, including a prized photograph of the buxom lady at age 22, become interred with someone else's bones?
Synonyms
Derivatives
buxomness
- It is not only a matter of broad-shoulders and buxomness, but a matter of convention and stereotype.
- Hey, I'm a red-blooded male, and I appreciate gratuitous buxomness as much as the next guy.
- She was always a proudly curvy girl and toned her buxomness with vigorous exercise.
Origin
Middle English: from the stem of Old English būgan 'to bend' (see bow2) + -some1. The original sense was 'compliant, obliging', later 'lively and good-tempered', influenced by the traditional association of plumpness and good health with an easy-going nature.
Today buxom describes a woman's physical appearance, but originally it would have described her character. From the early Middle Ages and into the 19th century buxom meant ‘obedient, compliant’ and applied to both sexes. The word comes from the root of bow, ‘to incline the head or body’ and originally ‘to bend’. From ‘compliant’ it moved to ‘obliging, amiable’, and then in the 16th century it became more active and positive, taking in ‘bright, cheerful, lively’. Good spirits depend on good health, and soon a buxom woman was one full of health, vigour, and good temper. And since plumpness has a traditional association with health, she became plump or large-breasted.