Definitions

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 5th Edition.

  • adjective Commercially made; purchased, as opposed to homemade.
  • adjective Artificial; false. Used of teeth.

from The Century Dictionary.

  • A form of bought, weak past participle of buy, used adjectively, and assimilated to strong participial forms in -en: chiefly used in poetry, and colloquially in the United States in the sense of purchased, as opposed to home-made.

from the GNU version of the Collaborative International Dictionary of English.

  • adjective Purchased; not obtained or produced at home.

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.

  • adjective Having been purchased or bought (rather than homemade).
  • verb Past participle of buy

from WordNet 3.0 Copyright 2006 by Princeton University. All rights reserved.

  • adjective purchased; not homemade

Etymologies

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Examples

  • Those who have been lumbering may easily be known among the others, by sporting a flashy stock or waistcoat, and by being arrayed in "boughten" clothes, procured in town at a most expensive rate in lieu of their lumber.

    Sketches and Tales Illustrative of Life in the Backwoods of New Brunswick, North America Frederick 1845

  • Everytime I sync songs to the card, I lose about a third of them when the media player imports them from the sd card … it is not an issue with licences for the music, it will load some "boughten" music and some "shared", but no pattern as to why it wont read all the songs synced to the memeory card … any ideas … anybody?

    Video: A look at the Samsung Instinct | Sync Blog 2008

  • Way back when I was a lad, a woman would prefer to appear naked at such an occasion than to bring in "boughten" cookies.

    Inadequate ballot jhetley 2006

  • I have been told that many of them wear patent complexions, "boughten" bangs, and pad out scrawny forms until they appear voluptuous Junos, and thereby deceive and ensnare, bedazzle and beguile the unsuspecting sons of men.

    The Complete Works of Brann the Iconoclast, Volume 12 1919

  • A calf that has any ambition to distinguish himself will leave the maternal udder any time to chew one leg off a new pair of "boughten" pantaloons or absorb the flowing narrative of a "biled" shirt.

    The Complete Works of Brann the Iconoclast, Volume 1. 1898

  • Two "boughten" rocking-chairs of painted wood confronted each other primly from opposite ends of the rug.

    Southern Lights and Shadows William Dean Howells 1878

  • Half a dozen straight-back chairs, also "boughten," were disposed stiffly against the walls.

    Southern Lights and Shadows William Dean Howells 1878

  • It was a large room, with a "boughten" ingrain carpet, stiff chairs, two great square ottomans, a big sofa, and some curious old paintings, besides a number of framed silhouettes of different members of the family.

    A Little Girl in Old Boston Amanda Minnie Douglas 1873

  • One night, the gathering dissolved into great hilarity when we all decided to wear our newly "boughten" Kygryz felt hats en masse.

    TravelsWithSheila.com 2009

  • To the eyes of the town girls who passed about among the exhibits, she was poorly dressed; but if they could have seen the clothes she had worn on that evening when Jim Irwin first called at their cabin and failed to give a whoop from the big road, they could perhaps have understood the sense of wellbeing and happiness in Calista's soul at the feeling of her whole clean underclothes, her neat, if cheap, dress, and the "boughten" cloak she wore -- and any of them, even without knowledge of this, might have understood Calista's joy at the knowledge that Newton Bronson's eyes were on her from his station by the big pillar, no matter how many town girls filed by.

    The Brown Mouse Herbert Quick 1893

Comments

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  • She was 'shamed to look so shif'less that day, but she had some good clothes in a chist in the bedroom, and a boughten bonnet with a good cypress veil . . .

    --Sarah Orne Jewett, 1877, Deephaven

    January 28, 2010