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The legendary film actor Humphrey Bogart was known for playing a range of tough characters in a series of films throughout the 1940s and 1950s, including The Maltese Falcon, Casablanca, and The African Queen. The men he portrayed often possessed a cool, hardened exterior that occasionally let forth a suggestion of romantic or idealistic sentimentality. Bogart also had a unique method of smoking cigarettes in these pictures—letting the butt dangle from his mouth without removing it until it was almost entirely consumed. It is believed that this habit inspired the current meaning of bogart, which was once limited to the phrase "Don't bogart that joint [=marijuana cigarette]," as popularized by a song on the soundtrack to the film Easy Rider. Today, bogart can be applied to hogging almost anything.

Examples of bogart in a Sentence

our coach told us not to let the other team bogart us on the field

Recent Examples on the Web Keep an eye out for this on a crowded table, because someone is likely to bogart it. — Washington Post, 11 Nov. 2021 Back in the Dark Ages of cannabis consumption, the only rule that seemed to matter was not to bogart that joint. — Los Angeles Times, 30 Oct. 2020 Built in 1963, the State House was designed to house the Alabama Department of Transportation, but in 1985, the Legislature bogarted the building while the capitol across the street was being renovated. — Kyle Whitmire, al, 25 Mar. 2020 Tres Santos was accused of bogarting the small town’s water supply and displacing the local fisherman, who had been using the beach at Punta Lobos for generations. — Christina Pérez, Vogue, 21 May 2017

These example sentences are selected automatically from various online news sources to reflect current usage of the word 'bogart.' Views expressed in the examples do not represent the opinion of Merriam-Webster or its editors. Send us feedback.