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Glite Dictionary
🙅 Unprofessional ⚾ A minor league
bush league

bush league

3 8.9
Not professional and showing poor skill or quality
  • adjective
  • /bʊʃ liɡ/
  • Slang
translation icon : de calidad inferior
  • His bush league attempt at fixing the car only made the problem worse.

Examples

  • That's bush league.

    Pocketful of Miracles (1961)

  • Yo, that's bush league, Winslow.

    Uncle Drew (2018)

  • You know, it's just bush league right now.

    The Reserve (2024)

  • You know, you were pure bush league out there.

    Komodo vs. Cobra (2005)

  • The Athletics Department coming down on you is just bush league.

    Blog text (29)

  • Put that up against the new stuff in NYC; will we still look bush league?

    Blog text (24)

  • The Flyers forced the Penguins to stoop to bush league hockey.

    Blog text (21)

  • I gather this would be considered a truly bush league move in hoops, though, and anyone who did it in a crucial game would undoubtedly become a laughingstock.

    Blog text (15)

  • How could the NFL, pushing for what they think is right for their league, put in such awful scabs and ruin a tightly contested game with a bush league call?

    Blog text (28)

  • The team's performance was so bush league that they lost to the lowest-ranked opponent.

Synonyms

bush-league
vsbush league
  • Informal
1 9.1

Not good enough for professional work

is the unhyphenated spelling of the same idea
jackleg
vsbush league
  • Offensive
9.9

Not skilled or trained and acting in a careless, temporary way

focuses on poor quality or amateurishness rather than lack of training

Antonyms

professional
∞ 3.4

Relating to a job that needs special training and skill

expert
3 3.5

Very skilled and knowing a lot about a particular area

How Professional

professional
∞ 3.4
competent
114 3.6
bush league
  • Slang
3 8.9
amateurish
13 6.5
incompetent
6 4.6

Surface Forms

bush league positive
bush-league positive

Morphology

bush + league

The literal meanings of 'bush' (shrub, rural area) and 'league' (sports organization or level) do not directly yield the evaluative sense 'inferior or amateurish' for a B1 learner; understanding the phrase requires cultural/sports-specific knowledge about low-level 'bush' leagues. The connection is an idiomatic, metaphorical extension rather than straightforward composition, so learners who only know the constituent words are unlikely to derive the meaning.

Etymology

The adjective bush league comes from the same idea of small country teams: bush for countryside and league for a group of teams whose play looked unprofessional. So people began to call anything amateurish or of low quality 'bush league'.