bother [L17th] The origins of bother are in Ireland. It is probably related to Irish bodhaire ‘deafness’ and bodhraim ‘to deafen, annoy’. It is first recorded meaning ‘noise, chatter’. In the 18th century emphasis moves to worry, annoyance, and trouble. The word quickly spread out of its Anglo-Irish confines, and in the 19th century appears as a common mild oath in the works of Dickens and Thackeray. The late 1960s gave us bovver, ‘deliberate troublemaking’, which represents a cockney pronunciation of the word. The bovver boy (a hooligan or skinhead) wore bovver boots, heavy boots with a toe cap and laces.