First I’ve heard of this usage, which is apparently much newer. The usual expression is “bum’s rush,” with the apostrophe.
I believe that’s the noun form (post 16). See if you can notice the difference.
Verb form - to “bum rush” someone, is to roughly run at someone with the indent to completely overpower them. Let’s bum rush him!
Noun form - to give some the “bum’s rush” is to forcefully eject them from an establishment. Louie came into work piss drunk and got the bum’s rush.
Don’t forget the related term, to “frog march” someone. This can refer to a variety of methods of ejecting an unwanted patron. From Meriam-Webster:
There are a couple variations of the “frog’s march” used to carry off an unruly person. The first involves carrying the person face downward by the arms and legs; when this is done by four people each holding a limb, the person’s body resembles a stretched out frog. In another version the person is carried off by his collar and the seat of his pants, again giving the image of a frog but this time with limbs uselessly flailing about. These ways of moving a person gave us the verb “frog-march” in the late 19th century. The verb was also extended to cover more general, less frog-like, methods of removal, such as forcing the intractable individual forward with arms held in back or at the sides.
Read more at Word of the Day: Frog-march | Merriam-Webster
Ok, so I possibly just discovered the origin :)…I did a Newspaper records search on archives.com and found the earliest reference below. I couldn’t figure out how to link the article, so I just transcribed it from the .pdf image I found. A few of the words are illegible and a sentence or two seem to be missing a word or be misprinted.
The Portsmouth Daily Times
November 30, 1916
New York Day-to-Day
By O-O McIntyre
*The professional chair-warmers who eat at the Automat and then lounge nonchalantly in the deep (illegible) chairs in big hotel lobbies are getting the gate the hotel (illegible). All they spend is their time and in exchange they soak up all the heat in the place.
Most of them wear fur-coats and trick shoes and always talk in the lofty terms of millionaires. They represent themselves as gold miners just in from California, stock salesman who are here to see a few of the “big fish” in the street and the like.
When invited in get the sir, they are always grossly insulted, but leave with dignity after (illegible) “redress” at law.
Most of the lobby-butts know the professional chair-warmers by sight. Now and then a new one drifts in and is allowed to loaf about for a few days but in the end they get him. Waldorf used to be the rendezvous until the special Bum Rush Squad was put on duty. Now they dodge the Waldorf as if it was quarantined.
*
Pretty sure it’s this.
Thanks for the replies. I think I must have first encountered “Bum rush” in pulp fiction (the genre, not the movie) and then when I encountered “bum’s rush” it almost made sense, but not quite…then a doper used that phrase (correctly) and it made no sense.
As others have pointed out, it can be hell on the thumbs.