Meanings
bushwah1
- USuncountableNonsense; euphemistic form of bullshit.
These plays, one and all, were either sentimental bushwah or tragic nonsense.
1925, George Jean Nathan, The Autobiography of an Attitude, page 2303 more examples
This death or glory stuff is all bushwah, except with nuts; and those, you don’t want. An outfit of smart guys, always trying to figure the opposition before the opposition figures them; they can take, any time, any day, an outfit of nuts wound up to crash their planes into something.
1948, James Gould Cozzens, Guard of Honor, page 258“[…] They’re not taken in by all that socialist bullsh—” He cleared his throat. “Bushwah.”
1983, Theodore V. Olsen, Red is the River, →ISBN, page 102Oftentimes proof is only in the speaking, but the people listening are pros with tremendous experience in flight, and they can pick out the bushwah instantly.
1991, Martin Caidin, Ghosts of the Air: True Stories of Aerial Hauntings, →ISBN, page 42Synonyms: absurdity, all my eye, all my eye and Betty Martin, apple grease, applesauce, bafflegab, balderdash, balls
bushwah2
- pronunciation spellingPronunciation spelling of bourgeois.
Other IWW leaders conceded they would be willing to dynamite factories and mills in order to win a strike. All of them hurled their defiance at “bushwa” law.
1984, Melvyn Dubofsky, “Socialism and Syndicalism”, in John H. M. Laslett, Seymour Martin Lipset, editors, Failure of a Dream?: Essays in the History of American Socialism, 2nd edition, →ISBN, page 1842 more examples
“These contrary policies are logical for Communists. To them consistency, morality and truthfulness are ‘bushwah’ dope that drugs workers and delays the revolution.”
1947, The International Bookbinder, volume 48, page 6“Jesus, you goddamn bushwa niggers in your bushwa house with your bushwa piano.[…]” ¶ […] “No one asked you come to this—this—and the word you’re trying to use is—is bourgeois,” Sophie said, correcting him with icy tranquillity.
1971, Henry Van Dyke, Dead Piano, published 1997, page 35
Synonyms & antonyms
nounNonsense; euphemistic form of bullshit.
Origin
bushwah · noun
Uncertain, first attested in the 1900s. Perhaps from dialectal bodewash (“dried buffalo dung”) or by Etymology 2, from bourgeois. Subsequently used as a minced oath variant of bullshit, though bullshit itself is only attested from the 1910s.
Full word history & related roots →Translations
Russian чепуха
- чепуха (čepuxa)nonsense
Cite this entry
bushwah. (n.d.). In WatkinsX Dictionary. Retrieved November 4, 2026, from https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/bushwah
“bushwah.” WatkinsX Dictionary, https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/bushwah. Accessed November 4, 2026.
WatkinsX Dictionary, s.v. “bushwah,” accessed November 4, 2026, https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/bushwah.
Source: bushwah on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.