bogie

plural bogies · alternative bogey · alternative bogy

1. Northern EnglandA low, hand-operated truck, generally with four wheels, used for transporting objects or for riding on as a toy; a trolley.First known use 19th c.
2. alsoattributivebroadlyrail transportOne of two sets of wheels under a locomotive or railcar; also, a structure with axles and wheels under a locomotive, railcar, or semi which provides support and reduces vibration for the vehicle.

   1878. Bogie Trucks for Railway Locomotives, &c.: [...] Fig. 1 is a cross section and Fig. 2 a section plan of a bogie. A curved casting a is fixed to the engine and a wrought-iron beam or beams b are connected to the bogie frames by links c fitted with or without springs d.

   1883 April 13, “Abstracts of Specifications Published during the Week Ending November 24, 1883”, in W[illiam] H[enry] Maw, J[ames] Dredge [Jr.], editors, Engineering: An Illustrated Weekly Journal, volume XXXVI, London: Offices for advertisements and publication, 35 & 36, Bedford Street, Strand, W.C., published 30 November 1883, →ISSN, →OCLC, page 507, column 2

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   The soil all along this portion of the route is so elastic and the line so straight and level that the train goes humming along without jar or vibration, and the sensation in these cars, with their six-wheeled bogies and well arranged springs, is more like what one imagines flying to be than a mere matter-of-fact railway journey.

   1889, J[ames] A[rthur] Lees, W[alter] J. Clutterbuck, “The C.P.R. [Canadian Pacific Railway]”, in B.C. 1887: A Ramble in British Columbia, new edition, London; New York, N.Y.: Longmans, Green, and Co., →OCLC, pages 57–58

   An empty train was by mistake sent into the rear of an ordinary train standing at the station Rathausbrücke. The two colliding car-ends were damaged and the bogie of the standing train was lifted off the supporting rail so that its wheels settled by the side of the rail. Neither train fell, however, and nobody was seriously hurt.

   1908 May 1, “Miscellanea”, in W[illiam] H[enry] Maw, B. Alfred Raworth, editors, Engineering: An Illustrated Weekly Journal, volume LXXXV, London: Offices for advertisements and publication, 35 & 36, Bedford Street, Strand, W.C., →ISSN, →OCLC, page 585, column 3

   We then had to endure a four-hour-long change of bogies at Brest - from the Soviet 1520mm-wide gauge to the 1435mm Polish and West European - when our carriage, with passengers inside, was lifted off the track by giant railway jacks, giving us a brief and not entirely unpleasant feeling of levitation.

   2026 January 21, Vitali Vitaliev, “By train to a New World”, in RAIL, number 1053, page 68

   Synonyms: railroad truck

3. broadlyaeronauticsA set of wheels attached to one of an aircraft's landing gear, or the structure connecting the wheels in one such set.

   Although most A320s have two wheels on each of their main gear, a few built for the Indian market have four-wheel bogies, halving the amount of weight on each wheel and allowing the aircraft to use runways that couldn't withstand the ground pressure from a standard A320.

4. IndiaUKrail transportA railway carriage.

   Hard work is required from men and machines as I was to experience later when footplating Lambton No 5 on five bogies battling its way up Newtondale.

   1979 August, Michael Harris, “A line for all reasons: the North Yorkshire Moors Railway”, in Railway World, page 415

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   The bogie coaches which he spoke of last year had been brought or were being brought into active service, but they had no further wagon stock available.

   1917 October 12, “Company Meetings. [Assam Railways and Trading.]”, in The Near East: A Weekly Review of Oriental Politics, Literature, Finance, and Commerce, volume XIII, number 336, London: The Near East Editorial and Publishing Offices, →OCLC, page 479, column 3

   Although we took our eight bogies along to Whitstable at 60 m.p.h., and made a clean start from there, after Herne Bay the engine primed badly on Blacksole Bank and nearly stopped before we got over the top. Then we ran like the wind across the marshes with half-regulator, 30 per cent cut-off, and the engine blowing off.

   1959 April, P. Ransome-Wallis, “The Southern in Trouble on the Kent Coast”, in Trains Illustrated, London: Ian Allan Publishing, →ISSN, →OCLC, page 220

   [...] Ashoke was still reading at two-thirty in the morning, one of the few passengers on the train who was awake, when the locomotive engine and seven bogies derailed from the broad-gauge line. The first four bogies capsized into a depression alongside the track.

   2003 September, Jhumpa Lahiri, chapter 1, in The Namesake, New York, N.Y.: Mariner Books, published 2004, →ISBN, page 17

5. datedA soapbox racing vehicle.

plural bogies · alternative boagie

1. USslangA marijuana cigarette; a joint.

   bogies: marijuana cigarettes.

   [2002 November, Alonzo Westbrook, “bogies”, in Hip Hoptionary: The Dictionary of Hip Hop Terminology (Harlem Moon), New York, N.Y.: Broadway Books, →ISBN, page 15

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   We normally dropped off at Shooters Billiards where we'd play pool and arcades, but sometimes left to do other shit. Shooters was a good lie to our parents when we came home smelling like smoke, because people smoked in the place, so we'd get away with smoking bogies or weed.

   2008, Eric James, “Suburbia Life”, in Shades of the Moon: Brawls before Laws, [Bloomington, Ind.]: Xlibris, →ISBN, page 53

   If i was the hulk i would smash you bite you like a cashew, then i smoke a bogie if i have to

   2019, Joseph Anthony Torres, The World of Koolassjoe, New York, N.Y.: Koolassjoe Entertainment/USZ United, →ISBN

   I ain't got no trees for sale but I got some personal shit for me. Ima fuck with you 'cause you seem like an a'ight nigga. You smoke bogies?

   2020 August 19, Levi John Gladstone, chapter 7, in The Royal Family, [Bloomington, Ind.]: Xlibris, →ISBN

   Synonyms: bifta, bifter, blunt, bomber, bone, bun, Camberwell carrot, doink

plural bogies

1. Alternative spelling of bogey.
   1. A ghost, goblin, or other hostile supernatural creature.

      All of a sudden he heard a terrible scream ahead, and he thought it must be the bogie singing his dirge.

      1886, Peter Christen Asbjø￵rnsen, translated by H.L. Brækstad, Folk and Fairy Tales, page 47

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      They could not, it was said, keep Scandinavian bogies and the Scriptures separate in their puzzled brains.

      1936, J. R. R. Tolkien, Beowulf: The Monsters and the Critics, Norwood, Pa.: Norwood Editions, published 1976, page 17

   2. A standard of performance set up as a mark to be aimed at in competition.
   3. slangaeronauticsAn unidentified aircraft, especially as observed as a spot on a radar screen and suspected to be hostile.
   4. golfA score of one over par on a hole.
   5. UKcolloquialA piece of dried mucus in or removed from the nostril.

      Reluctantly Raj used his fingernail to prise away the bogie he had long since sneezed up there and popped it in his mouth.

      2012, David Walliams [pseudonym; David Edward Williams], Ratburger, London: HarperCollins Children’s Books, →ISBN