DCHP-3

bazzom

DCHP-2 (Mar 2016)

Spelling variants:
bazzam, bassam, bazam

adj. — Newfoundland

a purplish color of flesh, esp. of bruises or coldness.

Type: 2. Preservation — In Newfoundland English, the term bazzom describes the purplish or bluish tint of flesh as a result of coldness or bruising. Clarke (2010b: 106) labels bazzom as a word of southwest English origin as a result of 18th and 19th century immigration from southwest counties of England (2010b: 105). The term bazzom likely derives from the hue of a flower, at one point being "applied primarily to the flower of heather, and secondarily to anything having a colour more or less resembling that of the heather bloom" (Pengelly 1875: 439). As seen in the 1994 quotation, the term is rare today in Newfoundland, which explains the lack of written attestations and the re-listing of oral attestations from DNE (all dated to 1982 by default).
See also DNE, s.v. "bazzom".

Quotations

1967
Q 67-106 [He is] bazzom with cold.
1971
Q 71-12 [Bazzom] blue colour caused by a bruise.
1975
C 75-25 Often their legs were blue with cold or bazzam as 'twas called then.
1994
Just as signs of pregnancy may help health-care workers extricate themselves from pregnancy euphemisms unknown to them, so clinical and other contexts can aid in interpreting the following selection of terms and phrases recently remembered in Newfoundland, even if rarely used today. (Omitted are those commonly known throughout English-speaking countries). [...] bazzom (purplish coloured bruise) bladder (pimple, blister from burn) boo (louse) brew a cold (develop a cold) [...]

References

  • DNE
  • Pengelly (1875)
  • Clarke (2010b)