British public school slang for a new pupil — a first-year student or recent arrival at a boarding school. 'Bug' as a term for a junior schoolboy was common in English public school vernacular of the 19th and early 20th centuries, where elaborate hierarchies of slang marked status. A new-bug would be at the very bottom of the pecking order and subject to various forms of initiation.
The new-bugs were made to carry the older boys' sports kit for the first term.
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(UK, public school slang) A new pupil.
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Regional slang from around the English-speaking world — British, Australian, Irish, Caribbean, Nigerian, Filipino, AAVE, and the hyphenated-English dialects that make the internet sound local.
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