Word.ws English Dictionary

Bim, BEM, Bum

Bim, BEM, Bum phrase: retro art composition; composition stereotypical of the cover art of mid-20th-century science fiction pulp magazines.

bim, bem, bum: retro art composition; composition stereotypical of the cover art of mid-20th-century science...
Image: Joe Doolin, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons

Phrase

Bim, BEM, Bum

  1. (slang) Retro art composition; composition stereotypical of the cover art of mid-20th-century science fiction pulp magazines.

Origin of Bim, BEM, Bum

Clipping of bimbo + BEM (“Bug-Eyed Monster”) + bum (“incompetent man”). From a typical composition for the cover art of science fiction pulp magazines such as Thrilling Wonder Stories, notably by artists such as Earle K. Bergey and Rudolph Belarski, featuring a woman (the "Bim") being attacked or threatened by a monster (the "BEM"), while a man (the "Bum") protects her and/or attacks the monster.

Questions about Bim, BEM, Bum

What does Bim, BEM, Bum mean?
Bim, BEM, Bum means retro art composition; composition stereotypical of the cover art of mid-20th-century science fiction pulp magazines.
What part of speech is Bim, BEM, Bum?
Bim, BEM, Bum is a phrase.

Words near Bim, BEM, Bum in the dictionary

  1. Bilyks
  2. Bilynskyi
  3. Bilytske
  4. Bilzerian
  5. bim
  6. Bim, BEM, Bum
  7. bima
  8. bimac
  9. bimaculate
  10. bimaculated
  11. bimagic

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: Bim, BEM, Bum (page history and authors). Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws reformatted the entry and added links. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.

Last updated:

Cite this entry: “Bim, BEM, Bum.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/bim%2C_bem%2C_bum. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.