{{Short description|Ancient English minced oath}} {{About|the archaic oath|other uses|Odds bodkins (disambiguation)}} {{Use list-defined references|date=April 2025}} {{Use mdy dates|date=April 2025}} '''Odds bodkins''' is an archaic English minced oath from the Middle Ages and later that is used as an exclamation of surprise.
Odds bodkins is generally considered to probably be a euphemism for "God's body"<ref name=FreeDic/> (or possibly "God's dear body"),<ref name=StackExchange/> although "God's dagger"<ref name=StackExchange/> or "God's [crucifixion] nails"<ref name=Wiktionary/> has also been suggested as a possible source, as "bodkin" was current in the Middle Ages as a term for many small sharp implements: bodkin point, a narrow armor-piercing arrowhead; bodkin needle; dagger,<ref name=MW/> stiletto or "nail dagger";<ref name=IWM/> an awl-like leather-punching device;<ref name=FreeDic/> and a slim pointed multiple-use women's accessory<ref name=Newbury/> (although this use may have come later).
thumb|A bodkin arrowhead Hamlet uses the term to describe a dagger in his "To be, or not to be" soliloquy (c. 1599), in which he says "When he himself might his quietus ''[death]'' make, with a bare bodkin?"<ref name=Hamlet/> Chaucer used the word "boidekin" in this sense in ''The Canterbury Tales'' ("But if he wolde be slain of Simkin, with panade, or with knif or boidekin..."),<ref name=Chaucer/> for example, as did some other writers around this time.<ref name=Michigan/>
There are many variants of spelling and form, such as ods bodikin, odsbodikins, odds bud, oddsbud, gadsbodikins, adsbud, 'sbodikins, and others.<ref name=Wiktionary/>
Henry Fielding was an early user of the oath in print, as his 1734 play ''Don Quixote in England'' puts "odsbodlikins" in the Don's mouth.
The etymology of "bodkin" is not known. It may be from Old French "bois de cuing", as Old French ''coign'' meant wedge, or peak of a helmet.<ref name=Michigan/> Or it may be from Gaelic "biodag", the etymology of which is not known. John Minsheu (1671) suggested that it might be of Dutch origin. One known instance of "bidowe" occurred in ''Piers Plowman'' where it probably meant "dagger" and could possibly be related. Anglo-French ''beitequin'' (a small beetle) and many other possibilities have been mooted by various etymologists over the centuries. And bodkin itself has had a few other obscure and obsolete meanings.<ref name=OUP/>
==References== <references>
<ref name=Newbury>{{cite web |url=https://www.newburyhistory.org/blog/2022/9/7/bodkins-are-a-girls-best-friend |title=Bodkins are a Girl's Best Friend |author=Bethany Groff Dorau |date=September 2, 2022 |work=Museum of Old Newbury |accessdate=September 19, 2023}}</ref>
<ref name=IWM>{{cite web |url=https://www.iwm.org.uk/collections/item/object/30101539 |title=SOE Bodkin or Nail Dagger |publisher=Imperial War Museums |accessdate=September 19, 2023}}</ref>
<ref name=FreeDic>{{cite web |url=https://idioms.thefreedictionary.com/odds+bodkins |title=odds bodkins |work=The Free Dictionary |accessdate=September 19, 2023}}</ref>
<ref name=Hamlet>{{cite web |url=https://tea4avcastro.tea.state.tx.us/thl/ENG3.W2.L3andL4.to-be-or-not-to-be-soliloquy.pdf= |title=To Be Or Not To Be' Soliloquy |author=William Shakespeare |date=c. 1599 |work=Hamlet |accessdate=September 19, 2023 }}{{Dead link|date=December 2025 |bot=InternetArchiveBot }}</ref>
<ref name=Wiktionary>{{cite web |url=https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/ods_bodikins |title=ods bodikins |work=Wiktionary |date=28 May 2023 |accessdate=September 19, 2023}}{{better source needed|date=September 2023}}</ref>
<ref name=StackExchange>{{cite web |url=https://english.stackexchange.com/questions/2597/bodkins-and-bodkin-same-word-different-context |title=Bodkins and bodkin - Same word different context? |author= |date=2015<!--most recent modification, as of Sept. 2023--> |work=Stack Exchange |accessdate=September 19, 2023}}</ref>
<ref name=Michigan>{{cite web |url=https://quod.lib.umich.edu/m/middle-english-dictionary/dictionary/MED5390 |title=boidekin n. |work=Middle English Dictionary |publisher=University of Michigan |accessdate=September 19, 2023}}</ref>
<ref name=Chaucer>{{cite book |last=Chaucer |first=Geoffrey |editor=Jill Mann |title=The Canterbury Tales |series=Penguin Classics |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=5WzdAvMZVzMC&dq=chaucer+canterbury+tales+boidekin&pg=PT267 |accessdate=September 19, 2023 |year=2005 |publisher=Penguin |isbn=978-0140422344 |edition=original-spelling Middle English|at=Lines 3959-3960}}</ref>
<ref name=OUP>{{cite web |url=https://blog.oup.com/2015/10/bodkin-etymology-word-origin |title=Bare bodkins and sparsely clothed buttinskis, or, speaking daggers but using none |author=Anatoly Liberman |date=October 7, 2015 |work=OUPblog |publisher=Oxford University Press |accessdate=September 19, 2023}}</ref>
<ref name=MW>{{cite web |url=https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/bodkin |title=bodkin |work=Merriam-Webster Dictionary |accessdate=September 19, 2023}}</ref>
</references>
Category:British English idioms Category:Military-related euphemisms