Definitions
American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition
- adj. Healthily plump and ample of figure: "A generation ago, fat babies were considered healthy and buxom actresses were popular, but society has since come to worship thinness” ( Robert A. Hamilton).
- adj. Full-bosomed.
- adj. Archaic Lively, vivacious, and gay.
- adj. Obsolete Obedient; yielding; pliant.
Century Dictionary and Cyclopedia
- Yielding to pressure; flexible; unresisting.
- Obedient; obsequious; submissive.
- Having health and comeliness together with a lively disposition; healthy and cheerful; brisk; jolly; lively and vigorous.
- Showing vigor or robustness; sturdy; fresh; brisk: said of things: as, “buxom valour,”
- Amorous; wanton.
- To be obedient; yield.
Wiktionary
- adj. Having a full, voluptuous figure, especially possessing large breasts.
- adj. Healthy, lively.
- adj. Cheerful, lively, happy.
GNU Webster's 1913
- adj. Yielding; pliable or compliant; ready to obey; obedient; tractable; docile; meek; humble.
- adj. Having the characteristics of health, vigor, and comeliness, combined with a gay, lively manner; stout and rosy; jolly; frolicsome.
- adj. having a pronounced womanly shape.
WordNet 3.0
- adj. (of a woman's body) having a large bosom and pleasing curves
- adj. (of a female body) healthily plump and vigorous
Etymologies
- Middle English, obedient, from Old English *būhsum, from būgan, to bend, submit; see bheug- in Indo-European roots.
Examples
“None other of the deathless gods is to blame, but only cloud-gathering Zeus who gave her to Hades, her father's brother, to be called his buxom wife.”
“Russell, best known as the buxom star of 1940s and 1950s movie, died of respiratory problems at her home in Santa Maria, central California, according to Etta Waterfield, her daughter-in-law.”
“Russell, best known as the buxom star of 1940s and 1950s movie, died of respiratory failure at her home in Santa Maria, central California, her family said.”
“Russell, best known as the buxom star of 1940s and 1950s films, died of respiratory problems at her home in Santa Maria, central California, according to Etta Waterfield, her daughter-in-law.”
Telegraph.co.uk - Telegraph online, Daily Telegraph and Sunday Telegraph
“Henry seemed to have so much guilt attached to his marriage with Katherine; one wonders if it was because she was, as Henry himself testified, "buxom" in the bedchamber.”
“English marriage rites until the fourteenth century, when the wife promised to be "buxom" (which then meant submissive) and "bonair”
“Hades, her father’s brother, to be called his buxom wife.”
“Madame Guiccioli was a kind of buxom parlour-boarder, compressing herself artificially into dignity and elegance, and fancying she walked, in the eyes of the whole world, a heroine by the side of a poet.”
The Life of Lord Byron
“She had a riotous, inappropriate sense of humor, which I inherited, along with her "buxom" figure.”
“(after all, "buxom" and "consumptive" aren't usually written about the same performer in the same performance by critics; in this case, sadly, it happened).”
Lists
These user-created lists contain the word ‘buxom’.
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GRE Barrons Wordlist
A complete Barron's Wordlist for GRE preparation. Your online flashcard replacement.
abase, abash, abate, abbreviate, abdicate, aberrant, aberration, abet, abeyance, abhor, abject, abjure and 4084 more...
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henryar's list
marmoleum, menagerie, cyan, ochre, pilfer, discombobulate, loquacious, iridescent, amethyst, derelict, botulism, equilibrium and 240 more...
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The weird, the wonderful and the plain hilarious
Loved for their ingenuity, an exact description, or simply for the pure joy of it.
acidulous, aprosdoketon, higgledy-piggledy, lexicographical, ninja, audacious, somnabulist, shivaree, amorphous, quidnunc, glib, melancholy and 353 more...
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I am : physical
Describing appearance and physique. More quantitative than qualitative/comparative. Can be used to sum a person up one-wordedly. (Still working on the definition of what I want in this list.)
handsome, beautiful, pretty, comely, ugly, rugged, buxom, buff, chiseled, svelte, lithe, portly and 35 more...
fbharjo obedient or yielding (etymologically from the root for 'bend') is Century's Dictionary first definition.
Also in paradoxical fashion is #5: Showing vigor or robustness; sturdy; fresh; brisk: said of things: as, “buxom valour,” Sep 5, 2011
dimã©lion Origin, Middle English: from the stem of Old English "būgan" (to bend) + "-some". The original sense was (compliant, obliging), later (lively and good-tempered), influenced by the traditional association of plumpness and good health with an easygoing nature. Nov 20, 2008
senwick Well, if that's what you're into... Nov 13, 2008
whichbe The word 'buxom' at one time meant 'obedient'. May 7, 2008