buzzie

English

Etymology

From buzz +‎ -ie.

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /ˈbʌzi/
• Rhymes: -ʌzi
• Homophone: buzzy

Noun

buzzie (plural buzzies)

1. (mining, slang) A hand-held pneumatic drill used in mining.
   • 1950, Helen Rich, The Willow-bender: A Novel, page 236:

     Dredging wasn't mining. A man had to know something about lode mining, and could Andy name a man working on the boat who knew a muckstick from a buzzie?

   • 1980, Donald McCaig, The Butte Polka: A Novel, page 114:

     Both buzzies were broke down. Burke left me alone to do my work. I disconnected teh compressed-air lines, opened my tool box and got at it.

   • 2006, Clemens P. Work, Darkest Before Dawn: Sedition and Free Speech in the American West, →ISBN:

     Technology such as steam-powered hoists and "buzzies," hand-held, two-man air drills, speeded up production but did nothing to improve working conditions. The buzzies, in fact, produced so much fine dust that they led to a higher rate of silicosis, a debilitating respiratory disease, and were soon dubbed "widowmakers."

2. (slang) A woman's breast.
   • 1992, Mike Harding, Last Tango in Whitby, page 27:

     That's a fair pair of buzzies you've got there.

   • 2000, Niall Griffiths, Grits, page 229:

     A nod an carry on dancing, bouncin about madly, glad a wore me sports bra - if a hadn't've then me buzzies'd be in agony by now.

3. (music) A capped double-reed instrument.
   • 1976, International Trumpet Guild, ITG Journal - Volumes 1-5, page 32:

     The brilliant qualities of the Diritto and the Curvo seem to lend themselves to use with sackbutts or large mixed ensembles composed of "buzzies" such as shawms, racketts, and crumhorns.

   • 1991, Suzanne Eve Hirschman, Digital waveguide modeling and simulation of reed woodwind instruments:

     ...a large family of capped reeds, often referred to collectively and affectionately as buzzies, which contains many straight, cylindrical bore instruments such as Cornemusen (a term sometimes applied in general to the family), Schreierpfeiffen, and a modern generic reproduction known as the Glastonbury Pipe, to be discussed in more detail further on.

   • 2011, Thomas Forrest Kelly, Early Music: A Very Short Introduction, →ISBN, page 47:

     The “buzzies,” capped double-reed instruments like the crumhorn, the dulcian, the rankett (or “rackett”), provide a change of sonority, and sometimes an outburst of hilarity, when one of them is used or a consort is played together.

4. A bur.
   • 1952, John Rowland Skemp, Memories of Myrtle Bank:

     So, instead, he took to hoeing weeds — thistles and buzzies — from the nearer paddocks.

   • 2011, Susan Lucas, Inside my Skin, →ISBN, page 291:

     If there are idle times in my day Ms Tia certainly knows how to fill them, applying her weedicide program to padddocs she returned on two occasions with fur covered in buzzies.

   • 2011, Helen Hodgman, Jack and Jill, →ISBN, page 9:

     The high spot of the week was when they combed the contents of her bottle-brush head—burrs and buzzies, various creepy-crawlies dislodged from the greenery as she tripped past—out onto an old copy of the Sydney Morning Herald and burned the result.

   • 2015, Jim Bennet, South End Boy: Growing up in Halifax in the tumultuous '30s and '40s, →ISBN:

     That triangle of tangled undergrowth was infested with clothes-grabbing burdocks (“buzzies” we called them) and beggar's ticks.

5. A buzzing insect.
   • 1846, John Campbell, The Lives of the Lord Chancellors and Keepers of the Great Seal of England:

     But be they flies or be they wasps, I neither care for buzzies nor stings.

   • 2011, Sharon S. Delaney, Celestial Mesa: 2012, →ISBN, page 120:

     Sue had climbed up to the rafters and attached her mosquito netting over one of the exposed beams in the ceiling, and Edgar had climbed into the bed under it so no flying buzzies would mess with his ears.

   • 2014, Carolyn Long Silvers, My Walls Speak, →ISBN, page 135:

     A few of the little yellow buzzies were climbing in and out.

6. (Ireland) A gypsy.
   • 2008, Suzanne Supplee, When Irish Guys Are Smiling, →ISBN, page 42:

     Actually, the Irish don't trouble themselves with which is which, but you buzzies get mighty frustrated trying to figure it out.

7. (Scotland) Police officer.
   • 2017, Denise Mina, The Long Drop, →ISBN, page 122:

     "We're no buzzies!' Manuel says, but the slit scrapes shut.

8. (informal) Anything that produces a buzzing sensation.
   • 2002, Lindsay Longford, Lover in the Shadows, →ISBN, page 85:

     Uppers, downers, mood-altering buzzies. Junk.

   • 2012, Tony Bertauski, Halfskin: A Technothriller, →ISBN:

     When Nix got sick, he didn't feel like other people felt. He didn't get sluggish or throw up. He buzzed. It wasn't anything someone could hear, just an intense humming that sizzled all over. His sister couldn't hear it, but she could tell just by looking at him. The buzzies are back.

   • 2016, Robbie Adler-Tapia, Carolyn Settle, EMDR and the Art of Psychotherapy with Children, →ISBN:

     “I want to show you this thing that I have.” The therapist brings out the EMDR NeuroTek machine with buzzies.