bovver

plural bovvers

1. countablepronunciation spellinguncountablePronunciation spelling of bother.

   No need to tell me, I'd recognize that Cockney accent anywhere! “I'm in a bit of bovver,” he said. “Do me a favour and go to the shelter and do the necessary for Trixie.”

   1997, Patricia Guiver, Delilah Doolittle and the Purloined Pooch, page 27

2. UKcountableslanguncountableViolence, especially that associated with youth gangs.

   In London there are some thirty gangs of “bovver birds,” violence-prone girls who roam the streets in packs attacking almost any vulnerable object for no apparent reason other than the sheer thrill of it.

   1976, Freda Adler, Herbert Marcus Adler, Sisters in Crime: The Rise of the New Female Criminal, page 100

present singular third person bovvers · participle present bovvering · participle past bovvered · past bovvered

1. pronunciation spellingPronunciation spelling of bother.

   "You specials," Nigel said disgustedly. "I don't know why I bovver, really I don't."

   1990, Linda Svendsen, Words We Call Home: Celebrating Creative Writing at UBC, University of British Columbia Press, page 38

   3 more examples

   "I don't bovver," he said, with a cross look in the direction of his brother and sister Rochesters.

   2007, Hugh Walpole, The Golden Scarecrow, page 83

   […] in Brighton & Hove, where the council were not above attempting a sort of half-hearted, class-based ethnic-cleansing-without-violence, wherein families who have been in Brighton for generations—who could probably even trace their lineage right back to Brighthelmstone if they could be bovvered […]

   2007, Julie Burchill, Daniel Raven, Made in Brighton […] , Virgin Books, pages 60–61

   “Playgrounds and canteens are denied catchphrases,” he writes in the Radio Times, fretting that “the art will be lost.” Which begs the question: am I bovvered?

   2018 September 18, Brian Logan, “Catchphrase comedy is dead. Am I bovvered?”, in The Guardian

1. pronunciation spellingPronunciation spelling of bother.