boogery

[Note: Sense 2 incorporates the former entry boogery-eyed.]

boogery adj Also buggery chiefly Sth, S Midl Cf booger n, v, boogerish adj

1 Spooky, threatening, unpleasant.

1900 MA Ploughman & New Engl. Jrl. Ag. 7 Apr 7, There’s nothin’ there, but I’m scared, ar’n’t you?/ Of boogery things! 1922 Railway Conductor 39.21 IL, They marched in different figures, everything . . performed in a perfect manner; not a sound or word from any of them; it was “boogery.” 1940 Bowie News (TX) 30 Aug 6/1, We . . noticed several men near the drug store wearing a heavy growth of “sage brush” on their “mugs” and they looked “boogery” and we wondered what was coming over people that they wanted to return to wearing the whiskers again. 1941 AN&Q 1.86, The use (non-obscene) of this word [=bugger] in colloquial American speech seems clear, but some details remain to be worked out. Into this category would go: the non-obscene buggery . . with its original sense of “Devilish!” or even merely “Spritely!” 1956 McAtee Some Dialect NC 6, Buggery-looking: ugly, forbidding or scary-looking. 1973 Mexia Daily News (TX) 4 June 1/4, Limestone has ‘boogery’ weather pattern Sunday. . . Violent weather hit Limestone County Sunday afternoon. 1986 Pederson LAGS Concordance, 1 inf, ceGA, “Spewed” sounds too boogery—objectionable. 2012 NW FL Daily News (Ft. Walton Beach) 29 Apr sec B 4/2, Red Feather was a special train for children that ran on State Road 85 going into Niceville out of Eglin. The posse rode alongside the train, like something out of a real western movie. And at the right time, we pulled the engine over—it was a real boogery-looking steam engine—and we stole the treasure trunk off of this train.

2 Skittish, inclined to shy; hence adj boogery-eyed.

1941 Homer Dawn Watch 132 NJ, The big animals were boogery. They stamped wild-eyed and nervous as we edged past, and their drivers fought to keep them in line. 1967 Green Horse Tradin’ 4 TX, Because he [=a horse] was so snorty, snaky, and boogery, he was hard to ride—although he was not bad to buck. 1967 NW AR Times (Fayetteville) 18 Dec 3/5, The worst happened when the mules got boogery on a bridge and cut up a heap, finally running off the bridge, and they turned the wagon over. 1969 DARE (Qu. X21c, If the eyes are very round) Inf MO15, Boogery-eyed.