bughouse
/ˈbʌɡhaʊs/
bughouse noun: a flea-infested hotel, lodging-house etc. Also the clipping of bughouse chess.
Noun
bughouse (plural bughouses)
- A flea-infested hotel, lodging-house etc.
- A prison.
- A hospital, especially a lunatic asylum.
- Well, he was ready for the bughouse, certainly.1976 September, Saul Bellow, Humboldt’s Gift, New York, N.Y.: Avon Books, →ISBN, page 277
- A cheap and dirty cinema.
Adjective
bughouse (comparative more bughouse, superlative most bughouse)
- Crazy, insane.
- “Get up and dress. I can stand a rattlesnake, but I hate a liar. Do I have to tell you again?” He caught McGuire by the neck and stood him on the floor. / “Say, friend,” cried McGuire wildly, “are you bughouse? I’m sick—see? I’ll croak if I got to hustle. What’ve I done to yer?”—he began his...1903 February, O. Henry [pseudonym; William Sydney Porter], “Hygeia at the Solito”, in Everybody’s Magazine, volume VIII, number 2, New York, N.Y.: John Wanamaker, →ISSN, page 177, columns 1–2
- 'Just what's up on this train? It seems bughouse to me.'1934, Agatha Christie, chapter 8, in Murder on the Orient Express, London: HarperCollins, published 2017, page 254
Also used as
bughouse is also the clipping of bughouse chess.
Examples of bughouse in a sentence
- Do I have to tell you again?” He caught McGuire by the neck and stood him on the floor. / “Say, friend,” cried McGuire wildly, “are you bughouse?1903 February, O. Henry [pseudonym; William Sydney Porter], “Hygeia at the Solito”, in Everybody’s Magazine, volume VIII, number 2, New...
- Ewball, man, that is some bughouse talk.2006, Thomas Pynchon, Against the Day, Vintage, published 2007, page 1127:
Forms of bughouse
| Noun | |
|---|---|
| plural | bughouses |
| Adjective | |
| comparative | more bughouse |
| superlative | most bughouse |
Origin of bughouse
From bug + house.
Words formed from bughouse
Questions about bughouse
- What does bughouse mean?
- Bughouse means a flea-infested hotel, lodging-house etc.
- How do you use bughouse in a sentence?
- Do I have to tell you again?” He caught McGuire by the neck and stood him on the floor. / “Say, friend,” cried McGuire wildly, “are you bughouse?
- What part of speech is bughouse?
- Bughouse can be a noun or an adjective.
- How do you pronounce bughouse?
- Bughouse is pronounced /ˈbʌɡhaʊs/.
- What is the plural of bughouse?
- The plural of bughouse is bughouses.
Words near bughouse in the dictionary
Source and license
Adapted from Wiktionary: bughouse (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-bughouse.ogg.
Cite this entry: “bughouse.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/bughouse. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.