Backside

subs. (vulgar).—The posteriors; the BUM (q.v.).

  c. 1500.  Rodin Hood (RITSON), ii. 4. 236. With an arrowe so broad, he shott him into the BACK-SYDE.

  1651.  H. MORE, The Second Lash of Alazonomastix. ‘To Reader.’ As if his senses lay in his BACK-SIDE, and had left his brain destitute.

  1668.  SIR R. L’ESTRANGE, The Visions of Quevedo (1678), 184. I have hardly allowed myself a Rag to my BACKSIDE.

  1699.  VANBRUGH, The False Friend [T. L. KINGTON-OLIPHANT, The New English, ii. 139.] There are the new substantives BACKSIDE. (pars posterior), backwardness….

  1705.  WARD, Hudibras Redivivus, I. v. 20–1. These wicked Papers … doom’d t’ illuminate our Pipes Or give our BACKSIDES cleanly Wipes.

  1713.  ADDISON, The Guardian, No. 156, 9 Sept., (1756), II. 288. A poor ant … with her head downwards, and her BACKSIDE upwards!

  1725.  N. BAILEY, trans. The Colloquies of Erasmus, ‘Scholastic Studies.’ Wo to our BACK-SIDES, he’s a greater Whip-Master than Busby himself.

  1748.  SMOLLETT, Roderick Random, xxxiii. Between two stools the BACKSIDE falls to the ground. Ibid. (1777), The Expedition of Humphry Clinker (1900), i. 67. Some clapped their hands and some their BACKSIDES. Ibid., i. 105. Without a shirt to cover your BACKSIDE from the view of the ladies.

  1774.  BRIDGES, A Burlesque Translation of Homer, 92. Not one … could know … on which side his BACKSIDE hung. Ibid., 543. A gap as large and wide As lady ….’s broad BACK-SIDE.

  1827.  Gentleman’s Magazine, xcvii. 522. He shall fall on his BACKSIDE.

  1838.  WILLIAM WATTS (‘Lucian Redivivus’), Paradise Lost, 58.