Meaning of bovver boots | Babel Free

Definitions

Stout lace-up boots, especially Dr. Martens, perceived to be worn for the purpose of kicking people in fights, and popular with skinheads or other troublemakers out looking for bovver.

plural, plural-only

Equivalents

Examples

“Their byword is Aggro (Aggravation) and their crucial enemies are hippies, homosexuals and Pakis (Pakistanis or Indians). When they catch one, they use their shaven skulls for butting, their Bovverboots for caving in ribs.”

“1991, Rupert Loydell, review of England's Dreaming: Sex Pistols and Punk Rock, in December 1991-January 1992, ThirdWay, page 41, I remember a punk friend - cockerel haircut, leather trousers, bovver boots, and ripped jumper - being shocked at the TV retrospective of the mid-eighties where long-haired oiks in flared trousers stared desultorily at some screaming youths on stage.”

“The various youth subcultures have been identified by their possessions and objects: the boot-lace tie and velvet-colourd drape jacket of the Ted, the close crop, parker^([sic]) coats and scooter of the Mod, the stained jeans, swastikas and ornamented motorcycles of the bike-boys, the bovver boots and skinned-head of the Skinhead, the Chicago suits or glitter costumes of the Bowieites, etc.”

“Their image of racism was not what our political culture has come to expect – that is, the Nazi, the shaven-headed skinhead with bovver boots. Rather, they were stylishly dressed in suits and wearing Ben Sherman shirts and Armani sunglasses.”

CEFR level