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Buxom vs Fulsome - What's the difference?

buxom | fulsome |

As adjectives the difference between buxom and fulsome

is that buxom is having a full, voluptuous figure, especially possessing large breasts while fulsome is offensive to good taste, tactless, overzealous, excessive.

buxom

English

Adjective

(en-adj)
  • (of a woman) Having a full, voluptuous figure, especially possessing large breasts.
  • * 2003 , " Milestones," Time , 23 Jul.,
  • DIED. Robert Brooks, 69, canny businessman who, as chairman of Hooters, turned the bar-restaurant chain, famed for buxom waitresses in orange hot pants, into an international success.
  • (dated, of a woman) Healthy, lively.
  • * 1896 , , A Group of Noble Dames , "Dame the Eighth: The Lady Penelope,"
  • So heated and impassioned, indeed, would they become, that the lady hardly felt herself safe in their company at such times, notwithstanding that she was a brave and buxom damsel, not easily put out, and with a daring spirit of humour in her composition.
  • (archaic) Cheerful, lively, happy.
  • * 1819 , , Ivanhoe , ch. 41,
  • The Outlaw accordingly led the way, followed by the buxom Monarch, more happy, probably, in this chance meeting with Robin Hood and his foresters, than he would have been in again assuming his royal state.
  • (obsolete) Flexible, pliant.
  • *1596 , (Edmund Spenser), The Faerie Queene , VI.8:
  • *:They downe him hold, and fast with cords do bynde, / Till they him force the buxome yoke to beare […].
  • Synonyms

    * busty, curvaceous, curvy, shapely, round

    References

    *

    fulsome

    English

    Adjective

    (en adjective)
  • Offensive to good taste, tactless, overzealous, excessive.
  • *
  • I immediately stripped myself stark naked, and went down softly into the stream. It happened that a young female YAHOO, standing behind a bank, saw the whole proceeding, and inflamed by desire . . . embraced me after a most fulsome manner.
  • * 1820 , , The Monastery , ch. 35:
  • You will hear the advanced enfans perdus , as the French call them, and so they are indeed, namely, children of the fall, singing unclean and fulsome ballads of sin and harlotrie.
  • Excessively flattering (connoting insincerity).
  • * 1889 , , A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court , ch. 34:
  • And by hideous contrast, a redundant orator was making a speech to another gathering not thirty steps away, in fulsome laudation of "our glorious British liberties!"
  • * 1922 , , Ulysses , Episode 15—Circe:
  • Mrs. Bellingham: He addressed me in several handwritings with fulsome compliments as a Venus in furs.
  • Abundant, copious.
  • The fulsome thanks of the war-torn nation lifted our weary spirits.
  • Fully developed, mature.
  • Her fulsome timbre resonated throughout the hall.

    Usage notes

    * Common usage tends toward the negative connotation, and using fulsome in the sense of abundant'', ''copious'', or ''mature may lead to confusion without contextual prompts.

    Synonyms

    * (offensive) gross * profuse * (excessively flattering) effusive, unctuous

    Derived terms

    * (l) * (l) * (l)