Word.ws English Dictionary

buggery

Syllables: bug·gery/ˈbʌɡəɹi/

buggery noun: anal sex.

Noun

buggery (countable and uncountable, plural buggeries)

  1. (Commonwealth, Ireland, UK) Anal sex.
    • Whosoever shall be convicted of the abominable crime of buggery […] shall be liable at the discretion of the court to be kept in penal servitude for life or for any term not less than ten years.1861, United Kingdom, Offences Against the Person Act 1861
  2. (Commonwealth, Ireland, UK) Any sexual act deemed against nature, such as homosexuality, bestiality or necrophilia.
    • Whosoever shall be convicted of the abominable Crime of Buggery, committed either with Mankind or with any Animal, shall be liable, at the Discretion of the Court, to be kept in Penal Servitude for Life or for any Term not less than Ten Years.1861, Parliament of the United Kingdom, “Section 61”, in Offences against the Person Act 1861^(Offences against the Person Act 1861), page 833
  3. (Commonwealth, Ireland, UK, slang) A broken or damaged condition.
    • It's gone to buggery.

Adverb

buggery (not comparable)

  1. (Commonwealth, Ireland, UK, colloquial, vulgar) Used after an inverted subject pronoun and auxiliary verb or copula to emphatically negate the verb.
    • Did he help? Did he buggery!
    Synonyms:
    heck, fuck

Interjection

  1. (Commonwealth, Ireland, UK, slang, vulgar) Synonym of bugger.
    Synonyms:
    bugger

Synonyms of buggery

Forms of buggery

pluralbuggeries

Origin of buggery

From bugger + -y (nominal suffix).

From bugger + y (suffix forming colloquialisms).

Words formed from buggery

Questions about buggery

What does buggery mean?
Buggery means anal sex.
What part of speech is buggery?
Buggery can be a noun, an adverb or an interjection.
How do you pronounce buggery?
Buggery is pronounced /ˈbʌɡəɹi/.
What is the plural of buggery?
The plural of buggery is buggeries.

Words near buggery in the dictionary

  1. buggers about
  2. buggers around
  3. buggers off
  4. buggers up
  5. buggersome
  6. buggery
  7. Buggese
  8. Buggess
  9. Buggesses
  10. buggey
  11. buggeys

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: buggery (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:

Pronunciation audio from Wikimedia Commons, each file under its own free license: En-au-buggery.ogg.

Cite this entry: “buggery.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/buggery. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.