Bollocks

"Bollocks" is a word of Anglo Saxon origin, meaning testicles in British English and in Hiberno-English. The word is often used figuratively, most commonly as a noun to mean "nonsense" or as an expletive following a minor accident or misfortune, but also in a number of other ways: as an adjective to mean "poor quality" or "useless", as a noun to mean "top quality" or "perfection" (e.g. "That bike is the dog's bollocks!"), and in various compound expressions (see below).

Perhaps the best-known international use of the term in this sense is in the title of a Sex Pistols album. Testimony in a resulting lawsuit over the "obscene" term demonstrated that in Old English the word referred to a priest, and could also be used to mean "nonsense" (see Never Mind the Bollocks, Here's the Sex Pistols for details). Or, indeed, the phrase in common usage "Bollocks to that!" expressing a distaste for a certain task or subject. Alternative usage can be to show the opposite feeling, expressing admiration or pleasure, as in "That's the dog's bollocks!"