bovver slang.
(ˈbɒvə(r))
Also (rarely) bovva.
[Repr. Cockney pronunc. of bother n.]
Trouble, disturbance, or fighting, esp. caused by skinhead gangs. Freq. in Comb., as bovver bird, the female counterpart of a bovver boy; bovver boot, a heavy boot with toe-cap and laces, of a kind characteristically worn by skinheads; bovver boy, a hooligan; spec. one of a gang of skinhead youths.
| 1969 New Society 13 Nov. 762/1 ‘We show 'em because they're useful if there's a bit of bovver.’ Bother is the crophead word for fight; indeed, a lot of them call their footwear ‘bovver boots’. 1970 Observer 11 Jan. 28/4 It was called The Aggro Boy and centred around a football match in general and two bovva boys in particular. 1970 Pix (Austral.) 29 Aug. 7/1 In Britain,..skinheads and their ‘bovver birds’ came into fashion around last April. 1972 Daniel & McGuire Paint House ii. 24 Around the Collinwood there was about twenty on average but with bovver there was sometimes more than that. 1977 Daily Express 29 Jan. 7/4 Tybalt... This most menacing of Verona's bovver-boys. 1980 Daily Tel. 6 May 19 Yesterday at Brighton..police..confiscated hundreds of pairs of laces from ‘bovver boots’ so that the youngsters wearing them could not kick anyone. 1983 Listener 20 Oct. 27/2 Mr Hanna is the nearest thing Newsnight has to a bovver boy, but that is not to say that he is a vulgar or crude person. |