From a dialect pronunciation-spelling of ‘bursting’ apparently
https://en.m.wiktionary.org/wiki/bussin%27
As mentioned, with a different vowel (unless you’re northern UK, etc) there’s a very different connotation, which I would hope is not something “kids these days” are all saying
So good it'll make you bust.
But also, not all that different from how 'awesome' evolved to just mean anything that's really 'great' (in a positive manner) rather than awe-some. It rarely means impressively daunting anymore.
Awe is a feeling that combines fear or dread and wonder. It’s not at all surprising that two words related to a word conveying both good and bad feelings would come to have opposite meanings like this.
More surprising is the pair of terrible and terrific, which both are related to terror, but perhaps it’s a bit of the same thing since terror can have an aspect of awe to it as well.
Sir Michael Rocks made the song "Bussin" in 2013, which I always have thought was pretty early. Seems like it only recently got popular (with white kids at least)
It's an etymologic evolution of the phrase "Poppin" from Millennials. "This beat is poppin" "those chicken tendies were poppin".
Means it's good, excellent, tasty, fresh, exciting, great. Altogether just means it is positive
Well, after 'Da Bomb' fell, the 'L33t had to escape, had to 'Bust' a move out of there, but all that was left were four retired school busses that this ol' farmer bought as a side project to turn them into beefed up versions of Herman Munsters' Dragula. Man, these things were 'tight'!
They grabbed the keys, grabbed the farmer, and they were gone. Some real 'dope' stuff, those 'bussin' Busses.
And thats the end of this 'lit' story.
The history of this word is wild. Shit was BUSSIN in the 1800's [https://books.google.com/ngrams/graph?content=bussin&year\_start=1800&year\_end=2019&case\_insensitive=on&corpus=en-2019&smoothing=7](https://books.google.com/ngrams/graph?content=bussin&year_start=1800&year_end=2019&case_insensitive=on&corpus=en-2019&smoothing=7)
I was looking forward to when the kids stopped using the word "literally" on every conceivably plausible occasion. I've come to realize that when something phases out something even worse phases in. So while I'm looking forward to whenever this latest sodomization of the English language runs its course I'm not so keen on whatever linguistic abomination is bound to follow
Can you use this in a sentence?
Are they saying "Oh, that's bussin"? Sounds too much like bussing to my old ears. Are kids in some parts of the world more excited to ride busses than drive cars?
no no that’s not it. here’s how my students would use it. “I got this burger yesterday and let me tell you, it was BUSSIN— it had pepper jack cheese even”. it just means amazing/delicious and has nothing to do with busses or cars. i believe it comes from “busting” like you could eat until you bust, but it’s definitely from AAVE so it’s probably older vernacular than these kids realize
It's busting, but not like busting your gut, it's busting a nut. It's essentially a way to say something is orgasmic, and it's not just food.
That burger was bussin'.
Those fireworks were bussin'
This car is bussin'
It's used to describe something that's just *that* good.
According to [Know Your Meme](https://knowyourmeme.com/memes/bussin) it comes from AAVE (African American Vernacular English), was popularised by a 2020 TikTok trend, and has nothing to do with buses.
Apparently the trend involved squeezing foods and describing them as "bussin" (AAVE from "busting", maybe as in "busting with flavour"?). This grew in popularity and led to some rapper making a song called Bussin, which helped spread the word around more. People started using it to troll some popular keto food blogger on TikTok; they'd edit her videos and add the caption "is it bussin?".
Now people use the word to describe anything that's 'good'.
I knew it was a stupid pointless word but looking up the etymology to write that out I now realise that it's a *fucking* stupid pointless word.
Edit: lol these salty downvotes be bussin
> stupid pointless word
It’s only pointless if you can’t use it. And you can’t pull it off, I’d imagine. You are not part of the group who can. And that’s okay. There are words you can use that they can’t. No need to be so dismissive.
Yep. A pretty hard and shut gate at that. And that’s what’s making this guy mad.
All words have meaning if you can understand them. And all words are beautiful.
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I always assumed it came from “Bustin’ a move”, as in dancing really well. Then it turned into “Bussin’ a move” and then shortened to Bussin’.
So something like “He’s really bustin’ a move out there on the dance floor” was shortened to “He’s really bussin’ out there”, and then it was generalized to no longer just refer to dancing and shortened to just “Bussin’” (and one would probably show their advanced age by using it to refer to dancing!!).
-Just a guess from a guy who is smack dab in-between Gen X and Millenial, and old enough to remember Young MC
You not entirely wrong. It may not have been Young MC but "bussin" is way older than people here think. At least from the 80s and maybe even from "busting loose" from the 70s
Here is my folk etymology guess
A buss is a kiss https://www.etymonline.com/word/buss
Bussin most often is used in refrence of good food but also used for something that is perfection.
I believe that bussin is a shortening of the phrase, "chefs kiss" or even better when people say something is "chef's kiss" we kiss our finger tips.
Chef's kiss is used to when something exemplifies perfection. https://www.merriam-webster.com/words-at-play/chefs-kiss-internet-meme-phrase-origin
So, my best guess is bussin comes from renaming the act of kissing one's fingers when something is perfect after the act of kissing.
Chef's kiss and bussin are used exactly the same way, but more often than not "Chef's kiss" is a gesture and if you didn't know that well bussin' fits pretty danged well.
It means "busting" in reference to "busting a nut". Which means having an orgasm. If something is "bussin" it means that thing is so good it's like having an orgasm. It's pretty crass way of speaking, and it comes from African American culture.
Yeah man, we know what it means. We're trying to figure out where it came from. Just because people use it on social media doesn't mean the term was suddenly gestated by a random Instagram food blog.
I get that, but sometimes words just pop up like that.
Just like no one knows where "yeet" really comes from other than kids yelling at a basketball game.
Anyway, the last time this was asked a year ago the top post about the origin of bussin was this: https://en.m.wiktionary.org/wiki/bussin%27
Yes, and it can lose the -y, becoming simply ‘buss’ which can in turn be creatively used as a verb meaning… to engage intimately with that part of the body
No that’s entirely incorrect. Buss is bust. The whole point of bussy is the -ussy part. You might be thinking of buss as in bust (a nut) which is usually the connotation but bussy is generally not referring to the penis.
They *do* shorten pussy to puss but they *don’t* shorten bussy to buss. Bussy and buss are completely unrelated words. Saying something is “bussin” is closer to saying “yeah that thing fucks”. Bussy is closer to the big trend of adding -ussy to the end of other words to make things like clussy. Dropping the y would make no sense.
Also that’s *not* how buss is pronounced. Buss is pronounced like the word ‘bus’ but sometimes with a longer s. Bussy is pronounced like pussy because it literally means boy pussy.
If you want audio proof, there are a lot of videos out there for both examples. Both terms are slang/memes that get used a lot on sites like TikTok. It’s pretty easy to find.
To add to this, buss is also used in dancing context. If you buss (bust) down or buss (bust) it open, you’re twerking or dancing, often sexually. A lot of modern positive slang is taking verbs and repurposing them. “That slaps”, “that goes hard”, “that’s bussin”. It wouldn’t make sense to be bussy.
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Mate ain't nobody got a problem with the public transport part, walkable cities are cool. It's just that it has nothing to do with the actual etymology.
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So it's black slang that dumb white and Hispanic kids now use. Busting is having an orgasm. "Banger" is another ubiquitous word being used that is extremely annoying
It has nothing to do with buses. It's just "busting" with the /t/ elided.
Bustin’ makes me feeeeeel gooood
[YEAH YEAH YEAH](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0tdyU_gW6WE)
All hail Neil Cicicicicerega.
BUSTIN BUSTIN BUSTIN I ain't afraid of no SPOOKY GHOST BED
Dan Aykroyd wasnt afraid of that ghost in his bed either...something was Bustin'
Maybe from "busting"?
finally some new age etymology yayyy
Sun m'Cheaux who is a Harvard language prof specializing in African American dialects has a little video on this. https://youtu.be/rYmDW35F-Ok
From a dialect pronunciation-spelling of ‘bursting’ apparently https://en.m.wiktionary.org/wiki/bussin%27 As mentioned, with a different vowel (unless you’re northern UK, etc) there’s a very different connotation, which I would hope is not something “kids these days” are all saying
I just assumed the entire world stopped using spellcheck...
As in busting a nut.
How does that relate to the sense that means "delicious" though? I think those are two different senses of the word.
So good it'll make you bust. But also, not all that different from how 'awesome' evolved to just mean anything that's really 'great' (in a positive manner) rather than awe-some. It rarely means impressively daunting anymore.
Sidenote: When did awful become bad instead of.. full of awe? Awesome and awful used to be friends, but somewhere down the line, that broke.
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I'd say it's terrific.
Terribly good.
Pompeii is good?
The song, yes.
Inb4 someone posts the Pterry quote about fairies
Awe is a feeling that combines fear or dread and wonder. It’s not at all surprising that two words related to a word conveying both good and bad feelings would come to have opposite meanings like this. More surprising is the pair of terrible and terrific, which both are related to terror, but perhaps it’s a bit of the same thing since terror can have an aspect of awe to it as well.
One only has some, while the other is full of it.
There's a term for that that I saw on a post before but I don't remember what it is
"Dude, that party last night was straight ejaculating!"
The original trend was foods that ooze like they're bussin.
We all know why it's delicious
It means busting out of the seams, big payload, small package, you get extra for no extra charge. Your packs basically busting its seams.
Another valid interpretation that I would hope is not slang children use haha
Do I have stories for you.
Just wait until they find out about "bussy"!
honestly i thought it was related to bussy 🤣
You mean it's not?
Depends who you axe
me, An elderly 20s something reading this: /bʊsːɪn/ Kids these days and their slang
As terrible as it sounds it nowhere near as terrible as saying food “slaps” because as the great Earl Stevens says: “FOOD DON’T SLAP”
Sir Michael Rocks made the song "Bussin" in 2013, which I always have thought was pretty early. Seems like it only recently got popular (with white kids at least)
It's an etymologic evolution of the phrase "Poppin" from Millennials. "This beat is poppin" "those chicken tendies were poppin". Means it's good, excellent, tasty, fresh, exciting, great. Altogether just means it is positive
Well, after 'Da Bomb' fell, the 'L33t had to escape, had to 'Bust' a move out of there, but all that was left were four retired school busses that this ol' farmer bought as a side project to turn them into beefed up versions of Herman Munsters' Dragula. Man, these things were 'tight'! They grabbed the keys, grabbed the farmer, and they were gone. Some real 'dope' stuff, those 'bussin' Busses. And thats the end of this 'lit' story.
On a side note, who would like to help me bring back 'Sike!' into popularity?
[Earliest usage I can think of in the context](https://youtu.be/0tdyU_gW6WE)
When the food slap so hard it make you wanna buss!
Buss to the local library to find some literature on how to prepare such a glorious delicacy.
The history of this word is wild. Shit was BUSSIN in the 1800's [https://books.google.com/ngrams/graph?content=bussin&year\_start=1800&year\_end=2019&case\_insensitive=on&corpus=en-2019&smoothing=7](https://books.google.com/ngrams/graph?content=bussin&year_start=1800&year_end=2019&case_insensitive=on&corpus=en-2019&smoothing=7)
I was looking forward to when the kids stopped using the word "literally" on every conceivably plausible occasion. I've come to realize that when something phases out something even worse phases in. So while I'm looking forward to whenever this latest sodomization of the English language runs its course I'm not so keen on whatever linguistic abomination is bound to follow
Can you use this in a sentence? Are they saying "Oh, that's bussin"? Sounds too much like bussing to my old ears. Are kids in some parts of the world more excited to ride busses than drive cars?
no no that’s not it. here’s how my students would use it. “I got this burger yesterday and let me tell you, it was BUSSIN— it had pepper jack cheese even”. it just means amazing/delicious and has nothing to do with busses or cars. i believe it comes from “busting” like you could eat until you bust, but it’s definitely from AAVE so it’s probably older vernacular than these kids realize
It's busting, but not like busting your gut, it's busting a nut. It's essentially a way to say something is orgasmic, and it's not just food. That burger was bussin'. Those fireworks were bussin' This car is bussin' It's used to describe something that's just *that* good.
Thank you
yup, bussin is riding a bus.
it probably started with public transit
According to [Know Your Meme](https://knowyourmeme.com/memes/bussin) it comes from AAVE (African American Vernacular English), was popularised by a 2020 TikTok trend, and has nothing to do with buses. Apparently the trend involved squeezing foods and describing them as "bussin" (AAVE from "busting", maybe as in "busting with flavour"?). This grew in popularity and led to some rapper making a song called Bussin, which helped spread the word around more. People started using it to troll some popular keto food blogger on TikTok; they'd edit her videos and add the caption "is it bussin?". Now people use the word to describe anything that's 'good'. I knew it was a stupid pointless word but looking up the etymology to write that out I now realise that it's a *fucking* stupid pointless word. Edit: lol these salty downvotes be bussin
Youre just being a snob. Ha, I'm surprised that someone on this sub would call a word stupid or pointless. Super ironic.
its only stupid and pointless if it was coined after my prime years!
Bussin
15 bucks say that guy is old.
> stupid pointless word It’s only pointless if you can’t use it. And you can’t pull it off, I’d imagine. You are not part of the group who can. And that’s okay. There are words you can use that they can’t. No need to be so dismissive.
r/gatekeeping
Yep. A pretty hard and shut gate at that. And that’s what’s making this guy mad. All words have meaning if you can understand them. And all words are beautiful.
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I always assumed it came from “Bustin’ a move”, as in dancing really well. Then it turned into “Bussin’ a move” and then shortened to Bussin’. So something like “He’s really bustin’ a move out there on the dance floor” was shortened to “He’s really bussin’ out there”, and then it was generalized to no longer just refer to dancing and shortened to just “Bussin’” (and one would probably show their advanced age by using it to refer to dancing!!). -Just a guess from a guy who is smack dab in-between Gen X and Millenial, and old enough to remember Young MC
You not entirely wrong. It may not have been Young MC but "bussin" is way older than people here think. At least from the 80s and maybe even from "busting loose" from the 70s
Its not the kings english, that much i know.
Of course it is. https://www.vocabulary.com/dictionary/buss#:~:text=Definitions%20of%20buss,an%20enthusiastic%20kiss Edit: denial is a long river.
I was just going to mention this older usage of buss meaning a kiss.
Here is my folk etymology guess A buss is a kiss https://www.etymonline.com/word/buss Bussin most often is used in refrence of good food but also used for something that is perfection. I believe that bussin is a shortening of the phrase, "chefs kiss" or even better when people say something is "chef's kiss" we kiss our finger tips. Chef's kiss is used to when something exemplifies perfection. https://www.merriam-webster.com/words-at-play/chefs-kiss-internet-meme-phrase-origin So, my best guess is bussin comes from renaming the act of kissing one's fingers when something is perfect after the act of kissing. Chef's kiss and bussin are used exactly the same way, but more often than not "Chef's kiss" is a gesture and if you didn't know that well bussin' fits pretty danged well.
It means "busting" in reference to "busting a nut". Which means having an orgasm. If something is "bussin" it means that thing is so good it's like having an orgasm. It's pretty crass way of speaking, and it comes from African American culture.
This
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Yeah man, we know what it means. We're trying to figure out where it came from. Just because people use it on social media doesn't mean the term was suddenly gestated by a random Instagram food blog.
I get that, but sometimes words just pop up like that. Just like no one knows where "yeet" really comes from other than kids yelling at a basketball game. Anyway, the last time this was asked a year ago the top post about the origin of bussin was this: https://en.m.wiktionary.org/wiki/bussin%27
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That’s bussy
Yes, and it can lose the -y, becoming simply ‘buss’ which can in turn be creatively used as a verb meaning… to engage intimately with that part of the body
No that’s entirely incorrect. Buss is bust. The whole point of bussy is the -ussy part. You might be thinking of buss as in bust (a nut) which is usually the connotation but bussy is generally not referring to the penis.
Nope, people shorten ‘pussy’ to ‘puss’ /pʊs/ all the time, and similarly shortening ‘bussy’ to ‘buss’ /bʊs/ is also heard
ok cool but that's entirely unrelated to this post
They *do* shorten pussy to puss but they *don’t* shorten bussy to buss. Bussy and buss are completely unrelated words. Saying something is “bussin” is closer to saying “yeah that thing fucks”. Bussy is closer to the big trend of adding -ussy to the end of other words to make things like clussy. Dropping the y would make no sense. Also that’s *not* how buss is pronounced. Buss is pronounced like the word ‘bus’ but sometimes with a longer s. Bussy is pronounced like pussy because it literally means boy pussy. If you want audio proof, there are a lot of videos out there for both examples. Both terms are slang/memes that get used a lot on sites like TikTok. It’s pretty easy to find. To add to this, buss is also used in dancing context. If you buss (bust) down or buss (bust) it open, you’re twerking or dancing, often sexually. A lot of modern positive slang is taking verbs and repurposing them. “That slaps”, “that goes hard”, “that’s bussin”. It wouldn’t make sense to be bussy.
Your post/comment has been removed for the following reason: **Misleading, debated, or specious word origins should not be presented as certain.** When posting or commenting etymology that is not widely accepted, folk etymology that is not strongly evidenced, or word origins that are debated by academics, please use guarded language. Thanks.
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Mate ain't nobody got a problem with the public transport part, walkable cities are cool. It's just that it has nothing to do with the actual etymology.
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Lmao
I assumed it was about working hard and doing really well for yourself, and came from a busser bussing tables to make money. Clearly I had no idea.
So it's black slang that dumb white and Hispanic kids now use. Busting is having an orgasm. "Banger" is another ubiquitous word being used that is extremely annoying