Word.ws English Dictionary

bodacious

/boʊˈdeɪʃəs/

bodacious adjective: audacious and unrestrained.

Adjective

bodacious (comparative more bodacious, superlative most bodacious)

  1. (US) Audacious and unrestrained.
    • If you’re going to lie, you might as well tell a bodacious lie.
    • Then that bodacious Brer Rabbit, he go softly through the bresh, and just creep inside that pig and lay hisself down, and he lay out to keep he eye open and watch out for the cart, but ’fore he know hisself he fall asleep.1898, Emma M. Bachus, “Tales of the Rabbit from Georgia Negroes” in Journal of American Folk-Lore (Vol 12, No 45), page 115. Google Book page link.
  2. (US) Incorrigible and insolent.
    • You, sir, are a bodacious scoundrel.
  3. (Australia, US, slang) Impressively great in size, and enormous; extraordinary.
    • bodacious - Extremely strong, as in reference to an incoming signal.1976, CBer's Handy Atlas/Dictionary, page 12, column 1
    • Twenty meters in diameter to match the bore of the huge Japanese ore drilling machines, the floor had been leveled by an equally bodacious milling robot, and the shiny metallic walls seemed to stretch on to infinity.1999, Leo Frankowski, A Boy and His Tank, Baen, First Hardback Printing, pg. 1
  4. Sexy, attractive.
    • [Patrick] Stewart has “been named The Most Bodacious Man on TV by the readers of TV Guide (1992), one of the 10 Sexiest Men by Playgirl (1995), and one of the 50 Most Beautiful People by People Magazine (1995)”. Asked how he felt about TV Guide’s readers voting him “The Most Bodacious Man on TV,”...2004, Sara Gwenllian-Jones, Roberta E. Pearson, Cult Television, page 73
    • Bill Ward has always been known for drawing the biggest, bustiest, most bodacious babes to strut across a comic book or cartoon panel.2004, auction catalogue, #810 HCA New York Comic and Comic Art, page 123

Adverb

bodacious (comparative more bodacious, superlative most bodacious)

  1. (US, nonstandard) Bodaciously.
    • Well, he knows by this time, I reckon, that the fastest man afoot can’t noways match speed with a hornet. He taken out through the bresh and thickets, yelpin’ and hollerin’ and hoppin’ most bodacious. He run in a circle, too, for in three minutes he come bellerin’ back, gave one last hop and dove...1935 October, Robert E. Howard, “The Riot at Cougar Paw”, in Action Stories

Examples of bodacious in a sentence

  • The Party was more than bad; it was bodacious.1987, Assata Shakur, Assata: An Autobiography, London: Lawrence Hill, →ISBN, →OL, page 203:
  • Bodacious living is evident everywhere, but it's easy not to notice the remarkable people and happenings that are present all around.2002, Margie Little Jenkins, You Only Die Once: Preparing for the End of Life with Grace and Gusto, page 209:
  • Modestly titled ‘Appeal’ with a more particular subtitle, Walker’s text was probably the most bodacious expression of cultural discontent and disavowal of slavery that American society had ever known.2007, Darryl Scriven, Daphne Rolle (foreword), A Dealer of Old Clothes: Philosophical Conversations with David Walker, Preface, page xiii
  • You can find the most bodacious barbecue and a library designed by noted postmodernist architect Michael Graves.2008, Judy Colbert, Off the Beaten Path Virginia: A Guide to Unique Places, page vii:

Forms of bodacious

Adjective
comparativemore bodacious
superlativemost bodacious
alternative formbardacious
alternative formboldacious
alternative formbowdacious
Adverb
comparativemore bodacious
superlativemost bodacious

Origin of bodacious

Southern American slang, implied by bodaciously, 1837, either from bodyaciously (“bodily, totally, root and branch”, antebellum South Carolina) or a blend of bold and audacious.

Words formed from bodacious

Questions about bodacious

What does bodacious mean?
Bodacious means audacious and unrestrained.
How do you use bodacious in a sentence?
The Party was more than bad; it was bodacious.
What part of speech is bodacious?
Bodacious can be an adjective or an adverb.
How do you pronounce bodacious?
Bodacious is pronounced /boʊˈdeɪʃəs/.

Words near bodacious in the dictionary

  1. boda-bodas
  2. bodaboda
  3. bodabodas
  4. bodach
  5. bodachs
  6. bodacious
  7. bodaciously
  8. bodaciousness
  9. bodai
  10. bodalicious
  11. Bodalla

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: bodacious (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.

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Pronunciation audio from Wikimedia Commons, each file under its own free license: EN-AU ck1 bodacious.ogg.

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