verb. (Australian).—To camp out in the bush; hence TO BE BUSHED = (1) to get lost in the bush: whence also to be in a mental or physical difficulty or muddle; (2) to be hard up; to be destitute.
1819. J. H. VAUX, A Vocabulary of the Flash Language. BUSH’D, poor; without money.
1887. All the Year Round, July 30, 68. An Australian says that he is BUSHED, just as an Englishman, equally characteristically, declares that he is fogged.
1889. FARJEON, In Australian Wilds. ‘We shall have TO BUSH it, mate,’ I said. ‘That’s so,’ said Lilly Trot. Ibid. We were on horseback, with blankets before us on our saddles, to provide for our getting BUSHED.
TO BE BUSHED ON, verb. phr. (common).—To be pleased; to be delighted.
TO BEAT ABOUT THE BUSH, verb. phr. (colloquial).—To prevaricate; to avoid coming to the point; to go indirectly to one’s object.
1546. HEYWOOD, Proverbs, s.v.
1589. PUTTENHAM, Art of English Poesie, III. xviii.s Then have ye the figure Periphrasis … as when we GO ABOUT THE BUSH, and will not in one or a few words expresse that thing which we desire to have knowen, but do choose rather to do it by many words.
1602. BRETON, The Mother’s Blessing, 12.
| Stand not too long in BEATING OF A BUSH, | |
| For feare the bird beguile thee with her flight. |
1623. MABBE, The Spanish Rogue (1630), ii. 154. You need not to BEAT so ABOUT THE BUSH.
1705. VANBRUGH, The Confederacy, iii, 2. You must know I went ROUND THE BUSH, and ROUND THE BUSH, before I came to the matter.
THE NEST IN THE BUSH, subs. phr. (venery).—The female pudendum: see MONOSYLLABLE. THE BUSH (or BUSHY-PARK) = the female pubic hair: see FLEECE.
1782. G. A. STEVENS, Songs, Comic and Satyrical, ‘The Sentiment Song.’ Here’s the NEST IN THAT BUSH, and the BIRD-NESTING lover.
