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  1. buxom love

Definitions

American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition

  1. 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).
  2. adj. Full-bosomed.
  3. adj. Archaic Lively, vivacious, and gay.
  4. adj. Obsolete Obedient; yielding; pliant.

Century Dictionary and Cyclopedia

  1. Yielding to pressure; flexible; unresisting.
  2. Obedient; obsequious; submissive.
  3. Having health and comeliness together with a lively disposition; healthy and cheerful; brisk; jolly; lively and vigorous.
  4. Showing vigor or robustness; sturdy; fresh; brisk: said of things: as, “buxom valour,”
  5. Amorous; wanton.
  6. To be obedient; yield.

Wiktionary

  1. adj. of a woman Having a full, voluptuous figure, especially possessing large breasts.
  2. adj. dated, of a woman Healthy, lively.
  3. adj. archaic Cheerful, lively, happy.

GNU Webster's 1913

  1. adj. obsolete Yielding; pliable or compliant; ready to obey; obedient; tractable; docile; meek; humble.
  2. adj. Having the characteristics of health, vigor, and comeliness, combined with a gay, lively manner; stout and rosy; jolly; frolicsome.
  3. adj. chiefly dialect having a pronounced womanly shape.

WordNet 3.0

  1. adj. (of a woman's body) having a large bosom and pleasing curves
  2. adj. (of a female body) healthily plump and vigorous

Etymologies

  1. From Middle English buxum, buhsum ("bendsome, flexible, pliant, obedient"), from Old English *būhsum (“bendsome, pliant”), a derivative of Old English būgan ("to bend, bow"), equivalent to bow +‎ -some. Cognate with Dutch buigzaam ("flexible, pliant"), German biegsam ("flexible, pliant"). (Wiktionary)
  2. Middle English, obedient, from Old English *būhsum, from būgan, to bend, submit; see bheug- in Indo-European roots. (American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition)

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.”

    Hesiod, the Homeric Hymns, and Homerica

  • “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.”

    Yahoo! News: Business - Opinion

  • “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.”

    Yahoo! News: Business - Opinion

  • “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.”

    The Six Wives of Henry VIII

  • “English marriage rites until the fourteenth century, when the wife promised to be "buxom" (which then meant submissive) and "bonair”

    Little Essays of Love and Virtue

  • “Hades, her father’s brother, to be called his buxom wife.”

    Hesiod, Homeric Hymns, and Homerica

  • “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.”

    RVABlogs

  • “(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).”

    Opera Chic

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synonyms (19)

Words with the same meaning

  1. yielding
  2. obedient
  3. tractable
  1. docile
  2. meek
  3. humble
  1. jolly
  2. frolicsome
  3. bosomy
  1. curvaceous
  2. full-bosomed
  3. sonsie
  1. sonsy
  2. voluptuous
  3. plump
  1. curvy
  2. busty
  3. round
  1. shapely

equivalents (2)

Other words for ‘buxom’

  1. shapely
  1. fat

same context (22)

Words that are found in similar contexts

  1. comely
  2. dark-eyed
  3. dark-haired
  4. blue-eyed
  1. bright-eyed
  2. golden-haired
  3. fair-haired
  4. round-faced
  1. middle-aged
  2. plump
  3. brown-eyed
  4. rosy-cheeked
  1. shapely
  2. yellow-haired
  3. gray-haired
  4. vivacious
  1. freckled
  2. winsome
  3. lithe
  4. petite
  1. portly
  2. well-dressed

reverse dictionary (9)

Words that contain this word in their definition

  1. buxum
  1. bucksome
  1. crummy
  1. unsonsy
  1. bouncing
  1. sonsy
  1. buxomly
  1. buxomness
  1. buxom

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Comments

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  • 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

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‘buxom’ has been looked up 3850 times, loved by 4 people, added to 45 lists, commented on 4 times, and has a Scrabble score of 16.