Born in the USA

Bossy emerged as a colloquialism in the United States in the late-1800s. The earliest citation on record in the Oxford English Dictionary is from a piece of didactic fiction titled "Among the Rose Roots" that appeared in an 1882 issue of Harper's Magazine, one of the oldest monthly magazines in the US. The author of this piece was bylined as “A-Working Girl,” and the full sentence reads: "It was in some big institute where there are soldiers' orphans, and there was a lady manager who was dreadfully bossy, and when Miss Nettie was done teaching the lady thought she ought to spend her evenings at work in the sewing room."