bougie

Meanings

1. A tapered cylindrical instrument for introducing an object into a tubular anatomical structure, or to dilate such a structure, as with an esophageal bougie.
2. A wax candle.

1. Behaving like or pertaining to people of a higher social status, middle-class / bourgeois people (sometimes carrying connotations of fakeness, elitism, or snobbery).
2. Fancy or good-looking, without the same connotations of snobbery or pretentiousness as in sense 1.

1. A person who exhibits bougie behavior.

1. Alternative spelling of bowjy (“shed for cattle or sheep”).

1. A surname from French.
2. Former name of Béjaïa, Algeria.

Etymology

Borrowed from French bougie (“wax candle”), after the Algerian city Bougie (Béjaïa), and the tapered, hand-dipped candles it made. The medical instruments were originally made from waxed linen. Doublet of bugia.