booger

American  

[boog-er] / ˈbʊg ər /

noun

1. Informal. any person or thing.

   That shark was a mean-looking booger. Paddle the little booger and send him home.

2. Slang. a piece of dried mucus in or from the nose.

3. bogeyman.

4. Chiefly South Midland and Southern U.S. any ghost, hobgoblin, or other frightening apparition.

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Etymology

Origin of booger

1865–70; perhaps variant of British dialect boggard goblin, bogy; in senses of booger defs. 1, 2 conflated with bugger ¹

Example Sentences

You know when the booger bear’s in the dark, then you turn the light on and he’s not there anymore?

From Los Angeles Times • Mar. 31, 2023

Apart from booger eating being disgusting, it means ingesting all those inhaled mucus bound germs, toxic metals and environmental contaminants discussed earlier.

From Washington Post • Aug. 20, 2022

"In the studio, all together, sweaty, smelly, dusty, picking a booger, whatever, singing when it was my turn, that sort of thing for six, eight weeks. That's gruelling."

From BBC • Sep. 6, 2019

In fact, I told them, I only came up with the booger story after asking myself: What if a family picked their noses so much that they create a monstrous booger?

From New York Times • Jan. 12, 2017

At home in Kansas, I’d have been sitting at a table with Emily, Kayla, and Brittney, all of us laughing about the booger hanging out of Mr. Thompson’s hairy nose during history class.

From "Insignificant Events in the Life of a Cactus" by Dusti Bowling