▪ I. bossy, a.1
(ˈbɒsɪ)
[f. boss n.1 + -y1.]
1. Swelling in, or like, a boss; projecting in rounded form.
| 1543 Traheron Vigo's Chirurg. i. iii. 3 The fourme of the heed..is also bossie, and bouncheth out in the fore and in the hynder partes. 1667 Milton P.L. i. 716 Nor did there want Cornice or Freeze, with bossy Sculptures grav'n. 1668 Culpepper & Cole Barthol. Anat. i. xiv. 33 The tuberant or bossie part of the Liver. 1879 T. Hardy Ret. Native i. 20 This bossy projection..occupied the loftiest ground of the heath. |
2. Having bosses or prominences.
| 1812 H. & J. Smith Rej. Addr. ix. (1873) 75 Survey this shield, all bossy bright. 1851 Ruskin Stones Ven. II. vi, Bossy beaten work of mountain chains. 1876 Geo. Eliot Dan. Der. ii. xviii. 146 Mab had..a bossy irregular brow and other quaintnesses. |
▪ II. bossy, a.2
(ˈbɒsɪ)
[f. boss n.6]
Given to acting as ‘boss’ or leader. colloq. (orig. U.S.).
| 1882 Harper's Mag. Dec. 108/1 There was a lady manager who was dreadfully bossy. 1902 Westm. Gaz. 16 June 3/1 They cannot forget his often irritating ways and his decided tendency to be ‘bossy’. 1933 N. Coward Design for Living i. i. 7 Personally, I never cared for her very much. A bossy woman. |
Move colloq. to precede etym. and add: 2. Special collocation. bossy-boots, a domineering person (see boots n.1 3).
| 1983 Observer 24 July 7/3 Politics..has caused these two amiable and bookish characters—neither of them a natural bossyboots—to fall out with each other. 1986 Times 31 May 8/6 She had not done so, she said, because everyone would have accused her of being a ‘bossy-boots’. |
▪ III. bossy, n. U.S.
(ˈbɒsɪ)
[Eng. dial. (south-western), dim. of boss, boss n.7]
= boss n.7; a calf or cow. Also bossy-calf, bossy-cow.
| 1844 ‘J. Slick’ High Life N.Y. II. 181 She only bust out in a new spot; and, like a great bossy calf, I had to jine in again. 1848 Bartlett Dict. Amer., Bossy, a familiar name applied to a calf. 1863 ‘G. Hamilton’ Gala-Days 95 Bossy starts from the post, tail up in a hand gallop. 1907 N.Y. Even. Post 25 Feb. 3 He..will go out to interview a bossy [cow] who has eaten her last wisp of hay. 1911 H. Quick Yellowstone N. xii. 314 A notion o' what it means to incorporate the fruit of the nest [sc. eggs] with the bossy. 1927 H. Crane Let. 19 Mar. (1965) 291, I had just landed in town after three months with the bossy cows. |