Bully

In the mid-1500s, people would flock to bullies rather than run away from them. This is because back in Shakespeare’s time, the term bully affectionately referred to a good friend or fellow, or a sweetheart or darling. Shakespeare, exceedingly fond of this term, used it in several of his plays including Henry V, A Midsummer Night’s Dream, The Merry Wives of Windsor and The Tempest. It was not until the late 1600s that the term bully took on the negative sense of “a blustering, quarrelsome, overbearing person who habitually badgers and intimidates smaller or weaker people.” This sense has survived the centuries, while the other, more positive senses have fallen into obscurity.