buggy

¹ American  

[buhg-ee] / ˈbʌg i /

adjective

buggier, buggiest

1. infested with bugs.

   We spent one last muggy, buggy summer at the campsite up North, then started vacationing in the Southwest.

2. Computers. (of software) containing errors or imperfections that reduce reliability, performance, or user experience.

   The game’s load times were slow, and the autosave was buggy.

3. Slang. crazy; insane; peculiar.

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buggy ² American  

[buhg-ee] / ˈbʌg i /

noun

buggies plural

1. a light, four-wheeled, horse-drawn carriage with a single seat and a transverse spring.

2. (in India) a light, two-wheeled carriage with a folding top.

3. baby carriage.

4. Older Slang. an automobile, especially an old or dilapidated one.

5. a small wagon or truck for transporting heavy materials, as coal in a mine or freshly mixed concrete at a construction site, for short distances.

6. Metallurgy. a car, as for transporting ingots or charges for open-hearth furnaces.

7. any of various small vehicles adapted for use on a given terrain, as on sand beaches or swamps.

8. British. a light, two-wheeled, open carriage.

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buggy ¹ British  

/ ˈbʌɡɪ /

noun

1. a light horse-drawn carriage having either four wheels (esp in the US and Canada) or two wheels (esp in Britain and India)

2. short for beach buggy

3. short for Baby Buggy See baby carriage

4. a small motorized vehicle designed for a particular purpose

   golf buggy

   moon buggy

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buggy ² British  

/ ˈbʌɡɪ /

adjective

1. infested with bugs

2. slang insane

3. informal (of a system or machine, esp a computer program) containing errors or faults

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Usage

What does buggy mean? As an adjective, buggy means full of bugs or infested with bugs. This can literally refer to insects, as in a buggy swamp, or it can refer to the kind of bugs found in software or machines—glitches and programming errors. As a noun, buggy refers to a small, wheeled cart or other vehicle, especially a horse-drawn carriage (often called a horse and buggy). There are several different vehicles that can be called a buggy. Example: The beta version of the app is a little buggy, so we’ll need to do some additional testing before we release it to the users.

Other Word Forms

Derived Forms

• bugginess
  noun

Inflected Forms

Nouns

• buggies
  plural

Etymology

Origin of buggy¹

First recorded in 1690–1700; bug ¹ + -y ¹

Origin of buggy²

First recorded in 1750–60; of obscure origin

Explanation

A buggy is a cart with wheels that's pulled by a horse. In the 19th century, the most popular way to take short trips was in a horse and buggy. Most people think of a horse pulling a carriage when they hear the word buggy, although you can use the term for other small vehicles, whether they're electric or powered by gasoline — like a golf buggy. If you use buggy to describe a camp site, however, you mean it's infested with insects. The origins of both meanings are uncertain, although the Middle English bugge, "something frightening" might be one root of the "full of bugs" definition.

Example Sentences

See Examples For:

buggy buggies buggier buggiest

Not only does the pipeline of junior talent dry up, but residual effects include buggy software, service outages, security vulnerabilities and mounting technical debt.

From The Wall Street Journal ● May 22, 2026

But bragging about enjoying a hard shell taco nowadays is like showing up to a street takeover in a horse buggy.

From Los Angeles Times ● May 13, 2026

"When I'm not using the cart," Trump, who has frequently been pictured in a golf buggy, added in a mock-dramatic aside.

From Barron's ● May 5, 2026

But knowing our luck, we’ll be struggling with forgotten passwords for our smart toothbrushes and buggy firmware updates for our flying cars.

From The Wall Street Journal ● Mar. 30, 2026

But we went away lots slower than if we’d had the horse and buggy.

From "Cold Sassy Tree" by Olive Ann Burns

“At the turn of the 20th century, people were still in horses and buggies … they didn’t likely envision that there’d be an automobile to replace a buggy. But that’s what happened,” Cohen said.

From MarketWatch ● Apr. 28, 2026

Students carrying luggage and families with buggies were among those embarking on the climb on Thursday - they unanimously welcomed the plan.

From BBC ● Apr. 17, 2026

The investors donned hard hats and piled into five-person buggies to get a tour of the Abilene campus, which has a 5,000-car parking lot built just for its construction workers.

From The Wall Street Journal ● Nov. 17, 2025

Watching Carrie write this novel, click-clacking away at her keyboard, pondering bonnets and buggies, is equivalent to watching a loved one descend into madness.

From Salon ● Jul. 15, 2025

Tundra buggies looked like huge white buses on black monster truck tires.

From "Two Degrees" by Alan Gratz

Because the app would not be publicly available anymore, new updates could no longer be delivered to users in the US - which would make the app buggier and, eventually, unusable.

From BBC ● Jan. 15, 2025

Overviews has prompted users and analysts to share other, even buggier Google discoveries: The underlying Gemini bot appears to spawn “answers” first, then find citations.

From Slate ● May 30, 2024

Most people assume that a warmer planet will be a buggier, more parasite- and disease-ridden place.

From New York Times ● Jan. 9, 2023

We will just have a much worse, much buggier Instagram on our hands.

From The Verge ● Aug. 20, 2022

Men assume that if their wives don’t love them enough, it must be because they are buggier than a flophouse blanket.

From Washington Post ● Feb. 5, 2018

Armed with the information in the April 18 news article “Answers to the buggiest questions on Brood X cicadas,” I feel prepared to deal with the upcoming invasion.

From Washington Post ● Apr. 23, 2021

That officially makes iOS 8, thus far, the buggiest iOS yet.

From Slate ● Nov. 18, 2014

Just two years ago, nearly half of the folks online used Internet Explorer 6.0—the slowest, buggiest, most security-flawed browser on the market.

From Slate ● Feb. 4, 2010