English

Adjective

like the back end of a bus ‎(comparative more like the back end of a bus, superlative most like the back end of a bus)

1. (simile, colloquial, Britain, derogatory) Very unattractive.
   • 2001, "Richard", "A sign of our times...", demon.local

     Not really fighting over her (puns aside). When you get a current beau and an ex, full of booze and testosterone, meeting up, their common interest isn't much of an issue in the subsequent display of machismo. I think she looks like the back end of a bus but, to them, she was a 'possession'.

   • 2002, "Tanuki the Raccoon-dog", I drove a..., uk.rec.cars.modifications

     Must admit, I like the *original* 911s - the original, late-1960s ones back before they fitted bulgey wheelarches and silly tea-tray rear spoilers. They look much more like delicate, precision instruments compared with the later 'sledgehammer" versions [which IMHO are about as attractive as the back end of a bus].

   • 2004, David Platt, "DUCHESS OF YORK NUDE", uk.politics.misc

     You surely can't be comparing Alicia Witt with Sarah Fergusson? Alicia Witt looks stunning, while the duchess of Pork looks like the back end of a bus.

   • 2005, Will Hadcroft, Anne Droyd And Century Lodge

     ‘You’ve got a face like the back end of a bus,’ he spat, his eyes raw and burning. Then he grinned, his yellow-stained teeth spreading across his mush [...]

   • 2006, "sheelagh", "Bookie: Did you adopt the blind cat?", rec.pats.cats.health+behav

     As I once told him, being British, looking like the back end of a bus or weighing 30 stone, was utterly irrelevant to the posting i made

Synonyms

• (very unattractive): butt-ugly (slang), fugly (slang), grotesque, hideous, plug-ugly (slang), ugly

Translations

References

• The Wordsworth Dictionary of Idioms, by Catherine M. Schwarz and Elizabeth McLaren Kirkpatrick, 1993.

See also

• a face for radio
• a face that only a mother could love