badass
Language: English
Part of speech: noun
Pronunciation: ipa: /ˈbædæs/
ipa: /ˈbædˌæs/
note: older
ipa: /bædˈæs/
rhymes: (older) -æs
Forms: form: badasses
form: bad-ass
form: bad ass
form: bad-arse
form: badarse
form: bad arse
Etymology: From bad + ass (“buttocks; one's self or person”).
Senses: examples: text: Don’t mess with that guy, he’s a real badass.
text: A shake down officer, Sgt. Soaper, and Capt. Swarts, have been reading all my mail, including GCN (which is authorized to come in). Soaper has been sending the prison bad-asses to my cell to force me to have sex with them. Yesterday, Soaper opened my door and 2 prisoners came in and raped me. Capt. Swarts told me that he was going to make me pay for writing letters to GCN and that there was nothing anyone could do about it.
ref: 1984 August 4, Charlie Dill, “"Child Molester's Paper"”, in Gay Community News, page 4:
text: There are badasses, and there are badasses. Dothan is one of the latter, from a family full of badasses. I'm not saying he isn't a decent sort. He's fully rational, not like his brother Curtis. But Christ, when the sombitch gets mad …
ref: 1995, Robert Girardi, Madeleine’s Ghost, New York, N.Y.: Delacorte Press, →ISBN:
text: A survival tactic I learned on the psych ward was how to quickly size up potential enemies or garden-variety badasses.
ref: 2012, Ilsa J. Bick, Drowning Instinct, Minneapolis, Minn.: Carolrhoda Lab, →ISBN:
text: You're a badass but you ain't no criminal.
ref: 2013, Susan Nussbaum, “Teddy Dobbs”, in Good Kings Bad Kings: A Novel, Chapel Hill, N.C.: Algonquin Books of Chapel Hill, →ISBN; republished as Good Kings, Bad Kings, London: Oneworld Publications, 2014, →ISBN, page 222:
text: They flew the Jolly Roger to signal their reputation for mayhem but, in fact, the pirates didn't actually want a fight, because fighting is costly and dangerous and might result in economic loss. […] Of course, to maintain a reputation that you are a badass, you actually have to occasionally be a badass, so pirates intermittently engaged in violence, reports of which they happily provided to newspaper editors, who duly published them in gory and exaggerated detail.
ref: 2015, Michael Shermer, The Moral Arc: How Science and Reason Lead Humanity toward Truth, Justice, and Freedom, New York, N.Y.: Henry Holt and Company, →ISBN, page 59:
qualifier: sometimes considered vulgar; negative connotation; sometimes considered vulgar; negative connotation
glosses: A belligerent or mean person; a person with an unpleasantly extreme appearance, attitudes, or behavior.
examples: text: "I'm a badass." (Jack Nicholson to a New York friend, early 1973.)
ref: 1975, Norman Dickens, “Badass”, in Jack Nicholson: The Search for a Superstar, New York, N.Y.: New American Library, →OCLC, page 124:
text: The Oakland Raiders are one of the few teams that I have any feelings for besides the Steelers. Nowadays they're a bunch of wannabe badasses, but back in the day they were something to behold.
ref: 1998, Jason Flores-Williams, chapter 6, in The Last Stand of Mr America, San Francisco, Calif.: Caught Inside Press, →OCLC; republished Seattle, Wash.: Nobody Rocks Press, 2009, →ISBN, page 124:
text: Men and women from the CIA's Directorate of Operations (DO) would return from Afghanistan and tell stories about Task Force 11, an amalgamation of Special Forces bad-asses from the various branches of the U.S. military.
ref: 2004 May, Vince Flynn, chapter 6, in Memorial Day, New York, N.Y.: Atria Books, →ISBN, page 39:
text: The Rani of Jhansi
[…]The Rani, also known as Lakshmibai, eventually joined in, and won a few stunning battles. She perished, according to lore, while fighting the British on horseback in full armored splendor. She was only 22.
ref: 2011 July 21, Ishaan Tharoor, “Top 10 Bad-Ass Wives”, in Time:
text: Known throughout the Spec-Ops community as the best of the best, they were the go-to badasses in the air for the go-to badasses on the ground, and Sandra was the first female pilot to be made a member.
ref: 2013 June, Scott McEwen, Thomas Koloniar, chapter 2, in Sniper Elite: One-way Trip: A Novel (Touchstone Book), New York, N.Y.: Simon & Schuster, →ISBN, page 11:
text: I walked out of the mall like I was a real bad ass. Once I was in my truck, I slammed the door starting the engine peeling away from my parkin spot.
ref: 2014 September 24, Boo Marx, chapter 10, in The American Terrorists: The True Story of a Real Telepath who Defeated over Three Hundred Soldiers with His Mind, Bloomington, Ind.: AuthorHouse, →ISBN, page 100:
text: [Charlize] Theron is an absolute badass in the role: hard, intense, quietly vulnerable, in charge at almost every moment. She fights Mad Max to a standstill even though she’s only got one arm. She takes his rifle and shoots out the light of the Bullet Farmer’s car when Max can’t do it.
ref: 2017 December 1, Tom Breihan, “Mad Max: Fury Road Might Already be the Best Action Movie Ever Made”, in The A.V. Club, archived from the original on 22 Feb 2018:
qualifier: sometimes considered vulgar; positive connotation; sometimes considered vulgar; positive connotation
glosses: A person considered impressive due to courage, skill, daring, audacity, and/or toughness.
Derived terms: badassery
badassitude
badassy