Bosoms

[Scarlett]

If "breasts" are the correct term, what is the meaning of "bosoms". And is "bosom" a plural term? I woke up thinking about this today for some reason..

[Englishbird]

 

http://dictionary.cambridge.org/define.asp?key=8980&dict=CALD

Looks like Bosom applies to both breasts and the term is often used when emotion is involved "She held him tightly to her bosom" 

[Gevs1966]

I wake up thinking about bosoms a lot too

[jno]

I think you can have bosoms, plural, but it's a slightly jokey term. There seem to be several other words too... okay, several hundred... I wonder which term is most often used by (a) women and (b) men.

[Scarlett]

Yes, I meant formal terms really.When I was little I called them "oohs"!! My sister called them "paws"! My little sister called them "spots"! My Mum told us the correct word was "bosoms". Is she right??!

[jno]

Paws, hmmmm... keep your paws off the table, Rover... No, I think breasts is the standard, non-jokey, non-slangy, non-lascivious, non-insulting word, as you said in your Q, Scarlett; bosoms, if it's not deliberately jokey, sounds slightly prissy to me.

[Octavius]

'Bosom,' 'breast,' and 'tit' (meaning teat) all date from Old English (although used in the biblical sense as well - Abrahams Bosom etc), before the Norman invasion of 1066. Calling the complete female breasts, especially well-developed ones, 'tits,' 'jugs' 'melons,' 'breastworks,' 'boobs,' 'boobies,' 'knobs,' 'bristols' and 'knockers' may be fairly old, but such words were seldom batted about widely until World War II, when pin-up pictures and the American male's 'breast fixation' made them a very popular part of the language. Many other slang terms(rather odd ones as well) here:

 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Body_parts_slang#Breasts

As mentioned above, historically bosom was taken to mean 'the chest of a human' and the chest in this sense was considered as the source of emotion.

How many asterisks do I earn..?

[Octavius]

Oh, I thought a couple of those would have been edited out...

[Evely]

Nice work, Octavius. *applauding*
Quite a collection.

The slang "knobs" explains why I had to teach my ex-boyfriend my n*pples AREN'T buttons that cause a certain desired effect, just by applying pressure in various ways.
(I hope that's not too adult to talk about, here. If anybody feels offended, I'm sorry.
I just have to think about that kind of insensitive "button-pressing-men" when I hear the term "knobs".)

And yeah, guys, our eyes are up here. You may call them gems, diamonds, marbles or whatever you like. Just don't call our bosoms funny names...