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*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 78263 ***




                             SLANG AND ITS
                               ANALOGUES
                           PAST AND PRESENT.

               A DICTIONARY, HISTORICAL AND COMPARATIVE,
                 OF THE HETERODOX SPEECH OF ALL CLASSES
             OF SOCIETY FOR MORE THAN THREE HUNDRED YEARS.

        WITH SYNONYMS IN ENGLISH, FRENCH, GERMAN, ITALIAN, ETC.



                         COMPILED AND EDITED BY
                            JOHN S. FARMER,

   “Americanisms—Old and New”: “Ex Oriente Lux”: “’Twixt Two Worlds.”



                           VOL. I.—A TO BYZ.

                     PRINTED FOR SUBSCRIBERS ONLY.

                                MDCCCXC.








    The author will esteem it a favour to be furnished with
    examples of cant or slang of any kind or nationality,
    together with quotations, especially early ones, illustrating
    usage, meaning, derivation, etc. All communications may be
    addressed to John S. Farmer, care of A. P. Watt, Esq., 2,
    Paternoster Square, London, E.C.








PREFATORY NOTE.


“He that undertakes to compile a dictionary, undertakes that which, if
it comprehends the full extent of his design, he knows himself unable
to perform. Yet his labours, though deficient, may be useful, and with
the hope of this inferior praise, he must incite his activity, and
solace his weariness.” So wrote the great lexicographer, Dr. Johnson,
in the “Advertisement” to the fourth edition of his Dictionary of the
English Language, published in 1773. In another place he had already
told, in words which have since become classical, of the difficulties
he had encountered, and of his own estimate of the shortcomings of his
work as compared with the original design. It is in very much the same
position that I find myself, now that I have completed the first
instalment of my own task, smaller and less important though it be. I
am fully conscious of manifold imperfections; yet I hope, and indeed
believe, that I have, in my presentation of what is generically known
as “slang,” advanced the enquiry in some measure. While cordially
acknowledging the aid I have derived from the labours of my
predecessors in the field, I cannot but recognise that, again and
again, having adopted a new mode of treatment, I have found myself
forced to “blaze” the way into what was practically a terra incognita.

The difficulties were manifold, and crowded upon one at every turn from
the very outset. First and foremost came the question of deciding
whether any given word, phrase, or turn of expression could with
justice be relegated to the limbo of unorthodox speech—in short to
decide, What is Slang? As a matter of fact, I have not yet discovered,
nor have I been able to formulate any definition which covers the whole
of the ground to be traversed. As Dr. Murray truly observes, “there is
absolutely no defining line in any direction: the circle of the English
language has a well-defined centre, but no discernible circumference.”
Authorities differ between themselves, and often with themselves when
asked to set down in plain scientific terms the marks which distinguish
the vagrant words of slang from correct and orthodox English. Nor is
the difficulty removed or lessened by an analysis of the genesis, or
the application of this vast and motley crowd of heterodox words: of a
verity the borderland between slang and the “Queen’s English” is an
ill-defined territory, the limits of which have never been clearly
mapped out. It is, therefore, not without hesitation, that I have
ventured to explore this “Dark Continent” of the World of Words. If I
cast a ray of light where before was darkness, or reduce to some sort
of order where much was confusion—well and good: if, on the other hand,
my steps at times chance to falter, others will, in such a case, be
able to profit by my experience as I have by that of my predecessors.

Hence—bearing in mind the ill-defined character of much of the
enquiry—my title, “Slang and its Analogues,” which I think fairly and
accurately describes the scope and intent of the present work, though
it may not satisfy those critics who, without examination, seek to
decry or put aside that which it has cost years of labour and research
to produce. For the rest, however, a conscientious worker may well be
content to abide the result of careful and honest criticism, whether
for praise or demerit.

Great as was the initial difficulty in regard to a dividing line
between the three great divisions of colloquial English—dialectical,
technical, and slang—it was clearly and obviously necessary to draw the
line somewhere. After careful consideration, I adopted, as a standard
between literary and non-literary English, Annandale’s edition of
Ogilvie’s Imperial English Dictionary. With but few exceptions, it will
be found that no word is here included which is there set down as
forming part of the orthodox inheritance of “the noble English tongue.”
The next great difficulty with which I found myself confronted was the
determination of the exact meanings of slang words and expressions.
Frequently I discovered I had to deal with a veritable Proteus—slang
used to-day in one sense shades off to-morrow into many modifications.
This fact I have had to keep steadily in mind. It will account, in some
instances, for what may, at first sight, appear to be an unnecessarily
extended list of illustrative quotations; in such cases it will
generally be found, on examination, that different shades of meaning
are exemplified.

As regards treatment, I have adopted, though not in its entirety, what
is commonly known as the “historical method,” supplementing this by an
attempt at the comparative study of slang, i.e., the presentation of
unorthodox English in juxtaposition with the argots of other European
nations, notably those of the French, German, Italian, and Spanish
peoples. The historical usage of slang is amply illustrated by the
quotations appended to each example. These comprise in their range the
whole period of English literature from the earliest down to the
present time, my plan having been to give the first ascertainable use
of any given word or phrase, tracing it down century by century,
winding up with an example “down to date.” These illustrative
quotations, roughly speaking, number upwards of 100,000 for the whole
work. I was fortunate enough shortly after commencing my final task of
revision to have about 12,000 quotations placed at my disposal by Mr.
G. L. Apperson, of Wimbledon, who for many years has had special
knowledge of the requirements of such work, having sub-edited certain
sections of the New English Dictionary. I am glad to be able to make
special mention of my indebtedness in this respect; as also to Mr. G.
A. King, of Croydon, an old Wykehamist, for invaluable aid in
connection with public school words and phrases.

Copious materials for a comparative study of English and foreign slang
will be found in the often-times lengthy lists of analogous and
synonymous terms appended to the more important and more commonly used
examples in the body of the work. This branch of my study I shall deal
with more fully in an article to follow the completion of the
vocabulary proper, and I purpose to enhance the usefulness of that
portion of the dictionary by a complete alphabetical list of all the
foreign slang words and phrases herein used, with full references to
page and column.

For the rest, my method will, I think, need little elucidation. I have
endeavoured to make each example, with its explanation, derivation,
synonyms, and illustrative quotations, as far as possible, complete in
itself. Over and above this, however, the cross-references will be
found of considerable value for the purpose of comparison, and will, I
hope, be acceptable. I may also add that, wherever possible, I have
given a reference indicating where synonymous or analogous words may be
found. The arrangement of these synonyms has been a matter of
considerable thought; first, as to the most fitting place for
inclusion; and second, so to distribute them throughout the dictionary
as to present a piece of work evenly balanced, and ready of reference.



There are certain sources of information of which I must make special
acknowledgment. Among books, first and foremost, comes that invaluable
store-house, Notes and Queries. I have freely drawn for information
upon this inestimable periodical from its very first issue, invariably
making a note of my indebtedness, and to whom, in the text. The New
English Dictionary has also been of service in supplying, at times,
earlier examples of the use of a slang word or phrase than those of
which I was already possessed. It is not, however, without a certain
amount of perhaps pardonable satisfaction that I, working
single-handed, am often able to give much earlier illustrations of the
slang side and usage of our mother tongue, than occurs elsewhere.

As regards French Argot, Francisque Michel, Lorédan Larchey, and A.
Barrère, respectively, are the chief authorities to whom I wish to
render due acknowledgment; Avé-Lallemant and Kahle have also been
specially useful in connection with the German Gaunersprache. The dates
of quotations have, wherever possible, been finally verified by
comparison with the comprehensive and useful appendix to Dr. Brewer’s
Reader’s Handbook.



It may not be out of place to give some indication of the complete
scheme (subject to slight modification) of Slang and its Analogues. The
work will comprise:—


    I.    A dictionary of ancient and modern English slang, treated
          historically, including copious lists of English, French,
          German, and Italian synonyms, etc.
    II.   A chapter on the comparative study of the subject; this
          embraces English cant and slang, French Argot, German
          Gaunersprache, Italian Fourbesque, Spanish Germania, and
          Portuguese Calão.
    III.  A new and exhaustive Bibliography, with copious entries of
          foreign books treating of the subject.
    IV.   A list of authorities and references to periodical
          literature, with full titles and dates as mentioned
          throughout the dictionary.
    V.    A complete vocabulary of all foreign slang words and
          expressions occurring throughout the body of the work,
          with detailed references to example, page, and column.
          This will form in itself a comprehensive dictionary of
          foreign slang.


Note.—A table of abbreviations used in this Volume will be found on
page 406.








                            A DICTIONARY OF
                        SLANG AND ITS ANALOGUES.


                                  A


A (vulgar)—[“ă” as in bat].—A common vulgarism in speaking for (1)
“have,” (2) “I,” (3) “he,” (4) “at,” (5) “on,” etc. It occurs in these
connections for more than 300 years; all were used by Shakspeare, as
well as by Beaumont and Fletcher and other writers of the Elizabethan
period.


A1 or A1 Copper-Bottomed, adj. phr. (popular).—Applied to men or
things, A1 is synonymous with a high degree of praise. ‘He must be a
first-rater,’ said Sam. ‘A1,’ replied Mr. Roker. [1837, Pickwick
Papers.]

The derivation of this colloquialism from the symbols used in
registering ships at Lloyd’s is pretty well known. Letters—A.A. (in
black and red), Æ (in black), E, etc.—are employed to denote various
degrees of excellence in the hulls of vessels, figures being added to
show the quality of the equipments, such as masts and rigging in
sailing vessels, or boilers and engines in steamers. When hull and
fittings alike are of the best, a vessel is classed A1. Hence, in
mercantile circles, the expression has become popularly current, in a
figurative sense, to signify the highest commercial credit; and, by a
process of expansion, excellence of quality in general, i.e.,
first-class; first-rate. The form varies, being rendered by first-class
letter a; A1 copper-bottomed; and, in the U.S.A., A1 and no mistake.
The earliest reference given in the New English Dictionary for the
colloquially figurative usage bears date 1836, but it was employed at
least two years previously in a quarter which seems definitely to fix,
not only the period of its adoption, but the process of transition as
well. A1 was a perfectly natural colloquialism in the hands of Captain
Marryat, at once an experienced seaman and a practised writer.

    1833. Marryat, Peter Simple, ch. xliii. ‘Broached molasses, cask
    No. 1, letter A.’

    1876. C. Hindley, Life and Adventures of a Cheap Jack, p. 229.
    ‘Here’s spoons for six, and tea and sugar for one. Sold again! and
    this time to my old sweetheart of all. She’s a prime girl, she is;
    she is a number one, copper-bottomed, and can sail as well in her
    stays as out of her stays; she is full rigged, and carries a lot of
    canvas. But I must not tell tales out of school.’

    1882. Punch, lxxxii. 181, 1. In Vino (et cetera) Veritas. ‘What’s
    up, old man? You seem to be out of sorts!’ ‘Snappe’s been here. I
    begged him to give me his candid opinion about my pictures. He
    did!’ ‘Ah! I see! It differs from yours! Now when I want a fellow’s
    candid opinion about my pictures, I ask him to dinner, give him a
    first-rate bottle of claret, a cup of A1 coffee, a glass of old
    cognac, and the best cigar money can buy, and then I show him my
    pictures, and I always find that his candid opinion coincides with
    my own.’

Eng. Synonyms. All brandy; the pure quill; about East (American); about
right; at par; the cheese; all there; bang up; a corker; up to Dick;
downy; fizzing; that’s Bible; splash up; up to the nines; up to the
knocker; down to the ground; slap up, etc.

French Synonyms. Abracadabrant, adj. (from Abracadabra); aux petits
oignons (literally ‘like small onions.’ Cf., English, ‘like a thousand
of bricks,’ and ‘like winkey’); bath (adj.: also bate. In Argot and
Slang the origin of the term is thus stated:—Towards 1848 some Bath
notepaper of superior quality was hawked about in the streets of Paris,
and sold at a low price. Thus ‘papier bath’ became synonymous of (sic)
excellent paper. In a short time the qualifying term alone remained and
received a general application); arriver bon premier (literally ‘to
arrive a good first’).

(Fenian).—Sometimes erroneously No. 1. In the copy of Hotten’s Slang
Dictionary, annotated by H. J. Byron, the playwright, now in the
British Museum, this is given as ‘a title for the commander of 900
men.’


Aaron, subs. (thieves’).—‘The Aaron,’ says H. O. Manton in Slangiana,
‘is the chief or captain of a gang or school of thieves. The title is
invariably preceded by the prefix The—par excellence the first—similar
to the eldest representatives of certain Irish and Scotch clans or
families, such as The O’Connor Don, The Chisholm, etc. As Aaron was the
first high priest ... it is probably of Jewish origin in its slang
application. An Aaron was an old cant term for one of a class of
cadgers, who combined begging with acting as guide to the summits of
mountains, chiefly to evade the laws against vagabondage, no doubt a
play, in its slang sense, on its Hebrew equivalent, lofty.’ In this
last connection a closer relationship probably exists than that just
stated, inasmuch as Gesenius thinks that the Hebrew Aaron is a
derivative of Hāron, a mountaineer. It is to be remarked that leaders
of the church were also called Aarons.


A. B., or A. B. S. (commercial).—An able-bodied seaman.—See Bottle
sucker.

    1875. Chambers’ Journal, No. 627. Of all the European sailors by
    far the most reliable were five stalwart A.B’S.


Abaddon, subs. (old).—A thief who, to general nefarious practices, adds
perfidy to his companions. Rarely, and perhaps only locally used. It is
obviously derived from Abaddon, the destroyer or angel of the
bottomless pit (Revelation ix., 11).


Abandannad, Abandannaad, subs. (thieves’).—1. A nearly obsolete term to
designate primarily a pickpocket, whose chief quarry is pocket
handkerchiefs or bandannas; and, hence

2. A petty thief, i.e., one whose depredations are regarded by the
fraternity as not worth the risk incurred. Brewer writes down the word
as a contraction of ‘a bandanna lad.’ With this derivation is connected
the story of an incident said to have been a prime factor in the
movement resulting in the passing of Sir Samuel Romilly’s Act for the
abolition of capital punishment for highway robberies under 40s. value.
Briefly told, it is that a footpad robbed a woman of a bandanna shawl,
valued at 9d., an offence for which a notorious highwayman was hanged.
Subsequently, however, he was proved to have been innocent, whereupon
the fact of her mistaken accusation having done an innocent man to
death so preyed upon the woman’s mind that she became raving mad. The
incidents touched the public conscience, an agitation ensued, and the
law was amended as stated.


Abandoned Habits, subs. phr. (popular).—The riding costumes of the
ladies of the demi-monde in Hyde Park—(Slangiana). The punning and
sufficiently obvious innuendo involved in the appellation hardly calls
for further comment.—See Anonyma.


Abbess or Lady Abbess, subs. (old).—The keeper of a house of ill-fame;
also a procuress. It has been suggested that the origin of this term
for the mistress of a brothel, as also that of Abbot (q.v.), the name
given to the male associate of the mistress, may be traced to the
alleged illicit amours of Abelard and Héloïse. In this connection it is
significant that, according to Francisque Michel’s Etudes Comparées sur
l’Argot, a common woman was, in the old French cant, said to come from
l’abbaye des s’offre à tous. The keeper of such an establishment was
called l’abbesse, and her associate le sacristain. The analogy was
carried still further, by the inmates being termed ‘nuns’ and ‘sisters
of charity.’ This depravation in the meaning of words, usually applied
only to the holders of sacred offices, may possibly, without undue
license, be regarded as resulting from the mockery born of the
degradation, in the popular mind, of the priestly office; or, it may
naturally flow from the loose way in which the title of ‘abbot’ was
often applied to the holders of non-monastic offices. Thus, the first
step toward degeneration may have occurred in applying the term to the
principal of a body of clergy, as an episcopal rector; or, as amongst
the Genoese, to a chief magistrate. The second stage was reached when,
in the middle ages, ‘abbot’ was applied ironically to the heads of
various guilds and associations, and to the leaders in popular
assemblages and disorderly festivities, e.g., the Abbot of
Bell-ringers, the Abbot of Misrule, the Abbot of Unreason. Henceforward
deterioration was both easy and rapid to the point when ‘abbot’ and its
co-relative abbess, signified a steward and stewardess of the stews
(q.v.). The terms are now obsolete on both sides of the Channel. In
England the modern equivalent for abbess is mother (q.v.); and in
France la maca, mère maca, la maquecée, or l’institutrice, do similar
duty.

    1782. Wolcot [P. Pindar], Odes to the Pope, Ode ii. in Works
    (Dublin, 1795), vol. II., p. 492.

        So an old abbess, for the rattling rakes,
        A tempting dish of human nature makes,
        And dresses up a luscious maid.

    1840. W. Kidd, London and all Its Dangers. The infernal wretches
    who traffic in the souls and bodies of their helpless victims are
    called lady abbesses.


Abbey Lubber, subs. phr. (old).—[From abbey + lubber.]

1. An old term of contempt for an able-bodied idler who grew sleek and
fat upon the charity of religious houses; also sometimes, especially
subsequent to the Reformation, applied to monks. In this sense it has
long fallen into disuse.

    1680. Dryden, Spanish Friar, III. 3. This is no huge, overgrown
    abbey lubber.

2. The term survives, however, and is still occasionally used by
seafaring men, although ‘lubber’ is now more common amongst our Jack
tars for a lazy, thriftless individual. If a sailor wishes to express
the utmost scorn for laziness and meanness, he finds a very much more
forcible expression in a ‘dirty dog and no sailor.’—See Lubbers’ hole.


Abbot, subs. (old).—The husband or ‘fancy man’ of an abbess (q.v.); now
called a ponce (q.v.). In the old French argot these gentry were
dignified by the title of sacristain. They were occasionally spoken of
as croziered abbots, or abbots on the cross, in which case the
establishments over which they mounted guard were not so much brothels
as panel cribs (q.v.), where prostitution served mainly as a cloak for
robbery.


Abbott’s Priory, subs. phr. (popular).—The King’s Bench Prison was
formerly so-called; perhaps from Chief Justice Abbott.


Abbreviations.—These occasionally partake most clearly of the nature of
slang. As illustrative examples may be mentioned:—K.D.Gs., the King’s,
now the First Dragoon Guards.—O.K., all right; ‘orl krect.’—B.T.I., a
big thing on ice.—Q.T., generally ‘on the strict Q.T.’, i.e.,
quiet.—T.T., too thin.—Cri., the Criterion (restaurant or theatre).—The
Ox., the Oxford Music Hall.—Tec., detective.—B.P., British Public.—B.
and S., brandy and soda.—P.D.Q., pretty d——d quick.


A. B. C.’s (London).—1. The Aërated Bread Co.’s establishments are,
familiarly speaking, A. B. C.’s.

2. (Christ’s Hospital).—Ale, Bread and Cheese on ‘going home night.’

As easy as a. b. c., adv. phr. (popular).—Extremely facile; the acme of
ease, i.e., from an adult’s point of view; children, however, probably
view the matter in a different light. In this, as in much else,
distance lends enchantment to the scene. This colloquialism is by no
means of modern growth; Shakspeare speaks of answer ‘coming like A. B.
C. book.’


A-Bear, v. (provincial and vulgar).—To suffer, or to tolerate. [From
old English abearan, to bear or carry].—This term, though hoary with
age, and long of honorable usage (from A.D. 885 downward), must now be
classed with degenerate words, or at all events with non-literary
English. Though still largely dialectical, its use amongst people of
education is reckoned vulgar. It is now invariably employed in
conjunction with ‘cannot’—‘I can’t abear furriners.’


Abelwhackets.—See Ablewhackets.


Aberdeen Cutlet, subs. phr. (familiar).—A dried haddock.—Cf.,
Billingsgate pheasant.


Abide, v. (vulgar).—To tolerate; to put up with. This, like abear
(q.v.), has ancient sanction for its use. In the senses of to endure,
suffer, bear, or sustain—meanings which are now obsolete—the word can
be traced back as far as A.D. 1205; the modern vulgar usage, rarely
employed affirmatively, dates from about A.D. 1526, when Tindale
translated John viii. 43, by ‘He cannot abyde the hearyng of my words.’
Abide, therefore, may be classed amongst those words which, once
respectable, have now fallen into disrepute. Shakspeare puts into the
mouth of one of his characters a phrase which, to those acquainted with
the speech of the uneducated classes, has a very modern appearance, ‘I
cannot abide the smell of hot meat.’


Abigail, subs. (popular).—A lady’s maid. There can be little doubt that
the familiar use of this name for the genus ‘waiting woman,’ was
primarily an allusion to the title of handmaid assumed by Abigail, the
wife of Nabal, in speaking to the servants of King David. ‘Behold, let
thine handmaid be a servant to wash the feet of the servants of my
Lord’ (1 Sam. xxv. 41). Other names recorded in the Bible, and for the
matter of that elsewhere, have been used much in the same way as
marking distinctive character. Abigail has thus become associated with
the idea of a female servant; so, too, a giant is spoken of as a
Goliath; a patient man as a Job; a shrew as a Jezebel; a coward as a
Bob Acres, cum multis aliis. In Beaumont and Fletcher’s comedy of The
Scornful Lady (1616), one of the characters, Mrs. Youngton, a ‘waiting
gentlewoman,’ is named Abigail. This play, having a long run of public
favour,—Pepys in his Diary [1666], iv. 195, specially mentions
it,—possibly led to the popularization of the nickname. At all events
it subsequently appeared on more than one occasion in the same
connection in the plays of the period. There is no reason to suppose
that the term was derived from the notorious Abigail Hill, better known
as Mrs. Masham, a poor relative of the Duchess of Marlborough, by whom
she was introduced to a subordinate place about the person of Queen
Anne; nor will the contention that it was first established in public
usage by Dean Swift, who employed it in a letter to Stella, hold good;
although likely enough he caused it to take deeper root than before.
The terms on which he was with the Mashams rendered him the last person
in the world likely to have used such a term, unless it had been so
long in familiar use as to be deprived of all appearance of personal
allusion to them.

    1663. T. Killigrew, Parson’s Wedding, II., vi. in Dodsley, O.P.
    (1780), xi., 425. [In this play, a waiting woman is termed an
    Abigail.]

    1750. Fielding, Tom Jones, book XI., ch. ii. The mistress was no
    sooner in bed than the maid prepared to follow her example. She
    began to make many apologies to her sister Abigail for leaving her
    alone in so horrid a place as an inn.

    1858. G. Eliot, Mr. Gilfil’s Love-Story, ch. iii. The next morning,
    Mrs. Sharp, then a blooming Abigail of three-and-thirty, entered
    her lady’s private room.

It has been stated that Old English writers used the word Abigail to
signify a termagant woman, and also a female bigamist, but there is no
evidence to support these views. It may be mentioned that the French
use the word in the popular English sense. A waiting woman was also
formerly called a comb-brush (q.v.).


Ablewhackets, also Abelwhackets, Abelwackets, subs. (nautical).—[From
able (uncertain, perhaps alluding to able seaman) + whack]. A game of
cards played by sailors, in which the loser receives a whack or blow
with a knotted handkerchief for every game (or point) he loses. Smyth,
in his Sailor’s Word Book [1867], says it is very popular with
horny-fisted salts. It is quoted by Grose as far back as 1785, but
Clark Russell, in Sailor’s Language [1883], refers to it as obsolete.


Abound, v. (American).—To be prominent; en évidence.

    1873. Evening Standard, 28 January. When we are told of a professed
    wit more than usually abounding at an evening party, there is no
    temptation to recruit our dictionaries from the English
    manufactured in the United States.


About East, adv. phr. (American).—To the frontiersman or pioneer, the
Eastern or New England States are typical of all that he cherishes most
and loves best. The vicissitudes of his rough Western life, the toil
and hardships he has undergone while battling with nature and building
up a new habitation far from the old homestead, all predispose him to
turn with longing eyes and undying, though quaintly exaggerated love to
the East—the home of his fathers. A famous Yankee character (Major Jack
Downing) makes use of the expression that he would ‘Go East of sunrise
any day to see sich a place.’ Everybody and everything connected with
the East, i.e., his native land, is commendable. To his mind they
cannot be surpassed—hence the things he would hold up to admiration he
says are about East, i.e., ‘about right.’ Indeed, it is surprising what
a strong hold this idea has upon the minds of men. Many a familiar
phrase recalls the old times and the old folks to memory, which, in
this respect, is evergreen. They talk of going down East, that is, to
New England, while the Down-Easter is neither more nor less than the
pure and veritable Yankee.—Farmer’s Americanisms, Old and New.


About Right, adv. phr. (vulgar).—Correctly; to the purpose;
properly—general satisfaction on the part of the speaker concerning a
given thing or action. ’Arry sometimes varies the locution by ter
rights (q.v.).

    1850. F. E. Smedley, Frank Fairleigh, ch. iv. ‘You’re about right,
    there, Mr. Lawless; you’re down to every move, I see, as usual.’

    1883. Hawley Smart, Hard Lines, ch. xxii. ‘I am afraid your schemes
    went a little awry yesterday,’ observed Mrs. Daventry.... ‘You’re
    about right; they did.’


About the Size of It, adv. phr. (American).—1. An expression covering a
wide field—assent, general satisfaction, approval, etc. Synonymous with
about right; o.k.; ter rights, etc.

2. Used also for ‘how’; ‘how much,’ etc.—a measure of quantity or
quality.

    1876 (?). James Greenwood, New ‘Roughs’ Guide’ in ‘Odd People in
    Odd Places.’ Got no home, no wittles, and never a ’a’penny to buy
    none with. That’s about the size of how destitoot we are, sir.

    1881. Punch, May 14, p. 228. Sir G[orgius] M[idas] goes in for
    Culture. “Look ’ere, Clarke. ‘Appy thought! I’ll make this little
    room the libery, you know; ’ave a lot o’ books. Mind you order me
    some.’ ‘Yes, Sir Gorgius. What sort of books shall I order?’ ‘Oh,
    the best, of course, with binding and all that to match!’ ‘Yes, Sir
    Gorgius, how many shall I order?’ ‘Well,—let me see,—suppose we say
    a couple o’ ’undred yards of ’em, hay? That’s about the size of it,
    I think.”


Above Board, adv. phr. (common).—Without disguise or concealment; with
an absence of artifice. Jamieson refers this to the language of the
gaming table, the players when changing cards putting their hands on,
i.e., above the table or board to ensure fair dealing. It appears,
however, even in its figurative sense to be a colloquialism of long
standing.—See Murray’s New English Dictionary.


Above One’s Bend, adv. phr. (American).—See Bend.


Above Par, adv. phr. (familiar).—Used figuratively in a multitude of
senses, e.g. (1) in reference to one’s health or spirits, in good
condition; (2) applied to a man in liquor it signifies a state of
moderate drunkenness; or (3) used in regard to pecuniary matters it is
synonymous with being ‘flush,’ having ‘the needful’—‘best bliss of
earth,’ as Duncombe puts it. Derived from the technical, commercial
meaning. Stocks are said to be at par when purchasable at their ‘face’
value; when at a premium they are above par; and when selling at a
decline in value, i.e., at a discount, they are said to be below par;
hence the colloquial usage. See example in quotation. Synonyms, up to,
or above the mark.

    1880. Punch, June 5, p. 253. Fred on Pretty Girls and Pictures.

        Awful fellow that Ted at his letters!—he writes for the
            Scanmag, you know;
        And his style never falls below ‘par.’ Not my joke, heard him
            putting it so——.
        And the pars in the Scanmag—he does them—are proper, and chock
            full of ‘go.’
        Only paper I care to grind through, never preachy, or gushing,
            or slow!


Abracadabra, subs. (scientific jargon).——1.—A cabalistic word used in
incantations. When written in a manner similar to that shown in
accompanying diagram, so as to be read in different directions, and
worn as an amulet, it was supposed to cure certain ailments.

                         A B R A C A D A B R A
                          A B R A C A D A B R
                           A B R A C A D A B
                            A B R A C A D A
                             A B R A C A D
                              A B R A C A
                               A B R A C
                                A B R A
                                 A B R
                                  A B
                                   A

Hence (2), any word-charm, empty jingle of words, gibberish, nonsense,
or extravagant idea. Littré’s derivation from the Hebrew—ab father,
mach spirit, and dabar word—is regarded by many authorities as
fanciful; as also is T. A. G. Balfour’s reference of it to a
composition of the first letters of the Hebrew words signifying
‘Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.’ Other authorities, though by no means
in accord, generally agree that a Persian origin is the most likely.
Mr. R. S. Charnock (Notes and Queries, 7 S., iii., 504) thinks it
related to the cabalistic word abraxas composed of the Greek letters α,
β, ρ, α, ξ, α, ς, making, according to the Greek numeration, the number
365.

    Des auteurs beaucoup plus anciens n’ont vu dans le mot abraxas,
    qu’une réunion des lettres numériques, qui étant additionées
    donnent le nombre 365, ou l’année entière, en sorte qu’ abraxas
    serait le symbole du soleil ou de sa révolution annuelle
    presumée.—Depping.

In Persian, according to Grotenford, abraxas means the ‘Sun God’; if
this be so its use as a talisman is easily understood. Yet another
derivation is from a corrupt form of the Hebrew—dabar is verbū, and
abraca is benedixit, i.e., verbum benedixit. If, however, the word is
Semitic at all, and nothing more than an unintelligible jargon of
letters, it could possibly be better explained than by Littré, by
Abra(i) seda bra(i), ‘Out, bad spirit, out!’ as a magic formula for
driving out the demon which causes the fever. It is interesting in this
connection to compare Mark i. 25, ix. 25, and parallel passages.

    1687. Aubrey’s Remaines of Gentilisme, p. 124 (1881). [In this work
    abracadabra is given arranged as a spell.]

    1711. Spectator, No. 221. They [the signatures] are, perhaps,
    little amulets or charms to preserve the paper against the
    fascination and malice of evil eyes; for which reason I would not
    have my reader surprised, if hereafter he sees any of my papers
    marked with a Q, a Z, a Y, an &c., or with the word abracadabra.

    1722. Defoe, Journal of the Plague (ed. Brayley, 1835, p. 56).
    ‘This mysterious word, which, written in the form of a triangle or
    a pyramid, was regarded as a talisman or charm of wonderful power,
    is said to have been the name of a Syrian god, whose aid was
    considered to be invoked by the wearers of the amulet. It
    originated in the superstitions of a very remote period, and was
    recommended as an antidote by Serenus Sammonicus, a Roman
    physician, who lived in the early part of the third century, in the
    reigns of the emperors Severus and Caracalla. Its efficacy was
    reputed to be most powerful in agues and other disorders of a
    febrile kind, and particularly against the fever called by the
    physicians Hemitritæus.’

    1879. Literary World, 5 Dec., p. 358, col. 2 [m]. The new
    abracadabra of science, ‘organic evolution.’


Abraham, subs. (popular).—A clothier’s shop of the lowest description,
where slop-made garments of shoddy cloth form the staple commodity
together with second-hand clothes or hand-me-downs (q.v.). Chiefly
localized in the East End of London, where these establishments are
kept by Jews; hence probably the derivation of the term; adj. (old
cant).—See Abram.


Abraham-Cove, Abraham-Man, Abram-Cove, Abram-Man, Tom of Bedlam’s Man,
or Bedlam Beggar, subs. (old cant).—It is difficult now-a-days to trace
with certainty the origin of these terms, notwithstanding a wealth of
matter on the subject. Nares describes the fraternity as a set of
vagabonds who wandered about the country soon after the dissolution of
the religious houses: the provision for the poor in those places being
cut off and no other substituted. Thus, primarily, an Abraham-man was a
vagabond, a beggar—tattered, unwashed, unkempt—and a thief withal.
‘What an Abram!’ an exclamation for a naked fellow. Harman, the
earliest authority, refers to them as feigning madness (see quot.), and
as having been resident in Bethlehem Hospital. Wards in the ancient
Bedlam bore distinctive names of some saint or patriarch; that named
after Abraham was devoted to a class of mendicant lunatics, who on
certain days were permitted to go out begging. It is an open question
whether the ward gave the name to the men or vice versâ. In either
case, however, the use of the term ‘Abraham’ is in this connection
possibly an allusion to the beggar Lazarus in Luke xvii. These
mendicants bore a badge, but many assumed the distinction without
right, and begged feigning lunacy. Hence, it may be, the more popular
signification of the term—

2. An impostor, wandering about the country pretending to be mad,
begging in the streets, and laying hands upon all trifles ‘considered’
or ‘unconsidered’ in his way. Dekker, in his English Villanies [1632],
has many curious particulars of the habits of this class of impostors
who were said to sham Abraham. Shakspeare also, in King Lear [1605],
Act ii., Scene 3, describes and puts into the mouth of one of these
characters the following words:


    ... the basest and most poorest shape,
    That ever penury in contempt of man,
    Brought near to beast: my face I’ll grime with filth;
    Blanket my loins; elf all my hair in knots;
    And with presented nakedness outface
    The winds, and persecutions of the sky.
    The country gives me proof and precedent
    Of Bedlam beggars, who, with roaring voices,
    Strike in their numb’d and mortified bare arms
    Pins, wooden pricks, nails, sprigs of rosemary;
    And with this horrible object, from low farms,
    Poor pelting villages, sheep-cotes and mills,
    Sometime with lunatic bans, sometime with prayers,
    Enforce their charity.


The term is now obsolete, though Scott used it as late as 1824, and
from the Quarterly Review (1813), IX., p. 167, it seems to have then
been in pretty general use. The modern prototype is called a tramp or
cadger. To sham Abraham, i.e., to feign sickness or distress is,
however, still in vogue. The French equivalent is Fagotin (m).—See also
Abraham sham and Abram.

    1573. Harman, Caveat (1814), p. 29. These Abraham men be those that
    fayn themselves to have bene mad, and have bene kept either in
    Bethlehem, or in some other pryson a good time, and not one amongst
    twenty that ever came in prison for any such cause.

    1625. Massinger, New Way to Pay Old Debts, II., i. Are they padders
    or Abram-men that are your consorts?

    1724. E. Coles, Eng. Dict. Abram cove, naked or poor man.

    1825. Scott, St. Ronan’s Well, ch. xxi. ‘There is a trick for you
    to find an Abram-man, and save sixpence out when he begs of you as
    a disbanded seaman.’


Abraham Grains, subs. (thieves’).—A publican who brews his own beer.


Abraham Newland, subs. (popular).—A bank note. Abraham Newland was
chief cashier to the Bank of England, from 1778 to 1807.

    1829. Sir W. Scott, letter to Croker in Croker Papers, vol. II., p.
    36. A bank note seems to terrify everybody out of their wits, and
    they will rather give up their constitution to Hunt and Cobbett
    than part with an Abraham Newland to preserve it.


Abraham’s Balsam, subs. (old).—Death by hanging.—See To die in one’s
boots.


Abraham Sham, subs. (old cant).—1.—Feigned sickness or distress. See
Abraham-man. Usually spoken of as to sham Abraham, or Abram (q.v.).
From this primary meaning, joined with an allusion to the name of a
once well-known chief cashier of the Bank of England, was derived the
secondary meaning of the term shamming Abraham, to forge bank-notes.
Abraham Newland was in office in the years 1778–1807, and a popular
song of the period ran as follows:


    ‘I have heard people say that sham Abraham you may,
    But you mustn’t sham Abraham Newland.’


Further point is added to this stanza by the fact that bank notes were
themselves termed Abraham Newlands (q.v.), and that forgery was felony
by statute.

    1759. Goldsmith, Citizen of the World, cxix. “He swore that I
    understood my business perfectly well, but that I shammed Abraham
    merely to be idle.”

    1849. C. Bronté, Shirley, ch. xxxiii. Matthew, sceptic and scoffer,
    had already failed to subscribe a prompt belief in that pain about
    the heart; he had muttered some words, amongst which the phrase
    shamming Abraham had been very distinctly audible.


Abraham Suit, subs. phr. (thieves’).—False pretences; fraudulent
representations to excite sympathy. The term is applied to any trick or
artifice calculated to extract money from the charitable, whether by
means of begging letter, a faked-up appearance, or other contrivance.
Those who resort to such practices are said to go on the Abraham suit.
Cf., Abraham sham.


Abraham’s Willing, subs. phr. (rhyming slang).—A shilling.


Abraham Work, subs. phr. (popular).—Shams of all kinds are so
designated, from a bubble company down to the most trumpery ‘city
pen’orth.’


Abram, subs. (old and also modern sea slang).—1. The same as
Abraham-man (q.v.).—2. A malingerer; one who gets put on the sick list
to shirk work.

Adj. (old cant).—1. Mad.

    1610. Rowlands, Martin Mark-all, p. 36 (H. Club’s Repr., 1874).
    Abram madde. He maunds Abram, he begs as a madde man.

2. Naked, ‘she’s all Abram.’

    1671. R. Head, English Rogue, part I., ch. v., p. 47 (1874). Abram,
    naked.

3. Abram or Abram coloured (old).—Derivation uncertain, but supposed to
be a corruption of ‘auburn.’ In this connection it may be remarked that
it is to be found in Coriolanus, Act II., scene 3; but where the
original reads Abram the folio has ‘auburn.’ To sham Abram, verb
(old).—Also see Abraham sham.—The original signification of this word,
to feign sickness, led to its use to describe pretence of any kind;
this is specially the case amongst sailors, workmen, etc., who describe
malingering as doing Abram, the defaulter also being called by the same
name.


Abregoyns, Abergoins, Abrogans, subs. (American).—Vulgarisms for
‘aborigines.’


Abridgments, subs. (nonce word).—Knee breeches. This term for small
clothes appears in Bulwer Lytton’s comedy, Money.

    1840. Bulwer Lytton, Money, iv. 4. Frantz (producing a pair of
    small clothes, which Toke examines). Your master is von beggar,
    etc. Toke. I accept the abridgements, but you’ve forgotten to line
    the pockets.


Abroad, adv. (old).—1. Confused; staggered; perplexed. More generally
retained in this sense in America than in England.

2. (popular).—Generally all abroad; i.e., wide of the mark; wrong;
uncertain in one’s estimate; or, ‘all at sea.’ In this figurative sense
the expression is much older than is popularly supposed.—See Bedoozled.

    1821. The Fancy, vol. I., p. 255. In the fourth round he came in
    all abroad, and got a doubler in the bread-basket, which spoiled
    him for the remainder of the fight.

    1840. Dickens, Old Curiosity Shop, ch. lxi. ‘My friend!’ repeated
    Kit, ‘You’re all abroad, seemingly,’ returned the other man.
    ‘There’s his letter, take hold.’

    1846. Thackeray, V. Fair, ch. v. At the twelfth round the latter
    champion was all abroad, as the saying is, and had lost all
    presence of mind, and power of attack or defence.

3. To be transported. The French have a similar circumlution, aller en
traverse, and the Italian Fourbesque has andar a traverso.

4. (Win. Coll.)—A boy returning to school work after being ill is said
to come abroad. When on the sick list he is continent (q.v.) i.e.,
continens cameram, vel lectum, keeping his room or bed. When recovered
he is allowed to go foris, out of doors, or more colloquially, abroad.
Adams, in Wykehamica, remarks that the use of this term shows the
antiquity of the school, dating as it does from the times of the
‘patrium sermonem fugito, Latinum exerceto, of the Tabula legum.’ To be
furked abroad is a less complimentary term implying that a ‘man’ has
been ‘shuffling’; it is specially applied to those who having ‘gone
continent’ in the morning are sent back to school by the doctor at 9
a.m.


Abroaded (society).—See quotation, and compare with abroad.

    1876. H. O. Manton, Slangiana, p. 11 (See Bibliography).
    Fashionable slang for a noble defaulter on the Continent (sic) to
    avoid creditors. It is the police official slang for convicts sent
    to a colonial or penal settlement, but it is applied by thieves to
    transportation either at home or in the Colonies.


Abs (Win. Coll.)—1. An abbreviation of ‘absent’ placed against the name
of a boy when absent from the school.

2. v. tr., to take away. Formerly, circa, 1840, to abs a tolly
(candle), meant to put it out; now it would mean to take it away
whether lighted or unlighted, the modern ‘notion’ for putting it out
being to ‘dump’ it.

3. v. n. To get away; generally used in the imperative, as, ‘abs!’ ‘Oh!
do abs!’ Sometimes, however, a fellow is said to abs quickly, and mess
things (q.v.) are absed (trans.), or put away.

4. To have one’s wind absed is to have it taken away by a violent blow
in the stomach.


Abscotchalater, subs. (thieves’).—Quoted by H. O. Manton in Slangiana
as ‘one who is hiding away from the police.’ Cf., Absquatulate.


Absence, subs. (Eton).—Names-calling, which takes place at 3 p.m. and 6
p.m. on half-holidays; and at 11.30 a.m., 3 p.m., and 6 p.m. on whole
holidays; at 6 p.m. only in summer half.


Absent Without Leave, adv. phr. (thieves’).—Said of one who has broken
prison; or (popular) absconded.


Absit, subs. (Cambridge).—See quotation.

    1886. Dickens’s Dictionary of the University of Cambridge, p. 3.
    Every undergraduate wishing to leave Cambridge for a whole day, not
    including a night, must obtain an ‘absit’ from his tutor.
    Permission to go away for a longer period, either at the end of the
    term or in the middle, is called an ‘exeat,’ and no undergraduate
    should go down without obtaining his ‘exeat.’


Abskize, Abschize, v. (American).—To depart; go away. Said to be of
Western origin, and to have been in use about 1883. Of rare and
probably local usage. It has been derived from the Dutch afscheyden;
Ger. abscheiden of similar meaning; a not unlikely origin, bearing in
mind the large Dutch and German element in the U.S.A.


Absquatulate, also Absquotilate, v. (American).—To run away; to decamp;
with the more or less forcible idea of absconding in disgrace. A
factitious word, of American origin and jocular use, simulating a Latin
form, perhaps from Latin ab and squat, i.e., to settle on land,
especially public or new lands, without any title or right whether of
purchase or permission, though in Australia the term is employed in a
more restricted sense for a sub-lessee of the government at a nominal
rent. It was first used by Mr. Hackett, as Nimrod Wildfire, a Kentucky
character, in a play called ‘The Kentuckian,’ by Bernard, produced in
1833. It is now less often heard than formerly, having been replaced in
some degree by the word skedaddle (q.v.). For synonyms, see Amputate
one’s mahogany.

    1835–1840. Haliburton, Clockmaker, 3 S., ch. xiv. ‘What’s the use
    of legs but to absquotilate with ... when traps are sot for you.’

    1879. Punch, Jan. 18, p. 23, col. 1. The Reward of Merit. Mrs. Lyon
    Hunter, ‘How do you do, Mr. Brown? Let me present you to the
    Duchess of Stilton! Your Grace, permit me to present to you Mr.
    Brown, the distinguished scholar!’ Her Grace (affably). ‘Charmed to
    make your acquaintance—er—Mr. Brown!’ Mr. Brown (with effusion).
    ‘Your Grace is really too kind. This is the ninth time I’ve enjoyed
    the distinction of being presented to your Grace within the last
    twelve months; but it’s a distinction I value so highly, that
    without trespassing too much on your Grace’s indulgence, I hope I
    may be occasionally permitted to enjoy it again.’ [Bows, and
    absquatulates.]

    1884. Daily Telegraph, August 20, p. 6, col. 1. Yet who knows but
    that some day an accident may happen to the Aberdeenshire works of
    art ... the sense of the cartoons be totally subverted—in
    Rabelaisian phrase, ‘absquashed and absquatulated.’


Academician, subs. (old).—The inmate of a brothel.


Academy, subs. (old).—1. A disorderly house; a brothel; a bagnio. Grose
remarks that these establishments were also called pushing schools. The
old brothels have of late years rapidly disappeared, their places being
taken by what are known as bed houses (q.v.). These vary in character
as regards style, equipment, and cost, but of whatever grade, rooms may
be had for longer or shorter periods as required. The French call them
maisons de societé; maisons de passe; foutoirs, and gros numéros, the
last from the fact, that these semi-private brothels bear a number of
large dimensions over the entrance. The French have also a somewhat
analogous term for the mistress of an académie in l’institutrice, the
teacher. In the finishing academy (q.v.) the inmates are young
prostitutes, the next stage in whose downward career is taken on the
streets.

2. According to the N.Y. Slang Dictionary, a penitentiary or prison for
minor offences.

3. A thieves’ school; also a band of thieves. There are establishments
of similar character bearing more distinctive names, e.g.:

4. Buzzing Academy (thieves’).—A school for thieves, chiefly boys.
Fagan, the old Jew in Oliver Twist, will occur to mind, as also the
devices by which he taught his gang to pick pockets and pilfer
adroitly.

5. Canting Academy (vagrants’).—A house of call or common lodging
house, frequented by the fraternity; a cadger’s dossing ken. The term
is also applied to any house where application for food or money is
likely to be successful. At the regular ‘beggar’s house’—establishments
which abound more or less in every town—information can be obtained so
that the district can be thoroughly and systematically ‘worked.’

6. Character Academy.—At these places false characters are drawn up, to
say nothing of the concoction of schemes of robbery.

7. Floating Academy (thieves’).—The hulks or prison ships were formerly
so-called. When the regulations as regards transportation were relaxed,
convicts condemned to hard labour were sent on board these vessels.

8. Gammoning Academy.—A reformatory.


Acause, conj. (vulgar).—A corruption of ‘because.’


Accommodation House, subs. (popular).—A brothel. Also frequently
applied to what in police court phraseology are known as disorderly
houses, i.e., houses where rooms can be hired for shorter or longer
periods as desired.—See Bed house.


According to Cocker.—See Cocker.


According to the Revised Statutes.—See Revised statutes.


Account. To go on the account, verb. phr. (old nautical).—To join in a
fillibustering or buccaneering expedition; to turn pirate. Ogilvie
says, probably from the parties sharing, as in a commercial venture.

    1812. Scott, Letter to a Friend. I hope it is no new thing for
    gentlemen of fortune who are going on the account to change a
    captain now and then.

To account for (sporting).—To kill; literally to be answerable for
bringing down one’s share of the shooting; to make away with.

    1846–48. Thackeray, Vanity Fair, ch. xx. The persecuted animals
    [rats] bolted above ground: the terrier accounted for one, the
    keeper for another.

    1858. Letter from Lahore, 28 September, in Times, 19 November. In
    the course of one week they were hunted up and accounted for; and
    you know that in Punjab phraseology accounting for means the
    extreme fate due to mutineers. [M.]


Accounts. To cast up one’s accounts, verb. phr. (old cant).—To vomit.
Still common; quoted by Grose [1785]. The expression sometimes runs,
amongst seafaring men, to audit one’s accounts at the Court of Neptune.

Eng. Synonyms. To shoot the cat; to cat.

French Synonyms. Semer des miettes (lit. to sow or scatter crumbs);
piquer le renard (lit. to goad the fox). Cf. ‘to shoot the cat.’ The
old French phrase was chasser or escorcher le renard, either because,
says Cotgrave, ‘in spueing one makes a noise like a fox that barks, or
because the flaying of so unsavory an animal will make any man spue’;
renverser (lit. to overturn, to upset); faire restitution (lit. to make
amends; to restore); revoir la carte (lit. to look at the bill of fare
again).

(Thieves’).—To turn Queen’s evidence.


Accumulatives, subs. (American).—These journalistic sparring matches
are essentially a ‘Yankee notion.’ In England they are called codicils
(q.v.), under which see an amusing example which will illustrate their
character, as also the length to which American editors sometimes go in
heaping Ossa upon Pelion.


Accumulator, subs. (racing).—A bettor, who when successful with one
horse, carries forward the stakes to another event.


Ace of Spades, subs. phr. (old).—A widow. Though obsolete in England,
it is quoted by the New York Slang Dictionary (1881) as still current
in America.


Ack, intj. (Christ’s Hospital).—No! refusal of a request, e.g., ‘Lend
me your book.’ ‘Ack!’


Ackman, Ackpirate (old), Or Ackruff (American), subs.—A freshwater
thief; a ruffian who in conjunction with watermen robs and sometimes
murders on the water. [Ack (unknown derivation, unless a corrupted form
of ark, a boat; or wherry) + man, etc.] Quoted by Grose [1785], and
also by Clark Russell, in Sailor’s Language [1883].


Acknowledge the Corn, verb. phr. (American).—To make an admission of
failure; to admit being outwitted. The various stories professing to
account for derivation are discussed in detail in Americanisms, Old and
New: the most circumstantial and certainly the best authenticated, runs
as follows:—In 1828, the Hon. Andrew Stewart was in Congress discussing
the principle of ‘Protection,’ and said in the course of his remarks,
that Ohio, Indiana, and Kentucky sent their haystacks, cornfields, and
fodder to New York and Philadelphia for sale. The Hon. Charles A.
Wickliffe, from Kentucky, jumped up and said, ‘Why that is absurd; Mr.
Speaker, I call the gentleman to order. He is stating an absurdity. We
never send haystacks or cornfields to New York or Philadelphia.’ ‘Well,
what do you send?’ ‘Why, horses, mules, cattle, hogs.’ ‘Well, what
makes your horses, mules, cattle, hogs? You feed a hundred dollars’
worth of hay to a horse, you just animate and get upon the top of your
haystack and ride off to market. How is it with your cattle? You make
one of them carry fifty dollars’ worth of hay and grass to the Eastern
market. Mr. Wickliffe, you send a hog worth ten dollars to an Eastern
market; how much corn does it take at thirty-three cents per bushel to
fatten it?’ ‘Why, thirty bushels!’ ‘Then you put that thirty bushels of
corn into the shape of a hog, and make it walk off to the Eastern
market.’ Mr. Wickliffe jumped up and said: ‘Mr. Speaker, I acknowledge
the corn.’ [De Vere’s Americanisms [1872] p. 47.] Latterly the
expression has been used in England in the sense of simply to make an
admission.

    1860. Haliburton (Sam Slick), The Season Ticket, No. 9. ‘He had a
    beard that wouldn’t acknowledge the corn to no man’s.’

    1865. Bacon, Handbook of America, p. 361. Acknowledge the corn, to
    confess a charge or imputation.

    1883. G. A. Sala, Living London, p. 97. Mr. Porter acknowledges the
    corn as regards his fourteen days’ imprisonment, and is forgiven by
    his loving consort.


Acorn. A horse foaled of an acorn, subs. phr. (old).—The gallows.
Euphemisms for hanging, the ‘tree’ itself, and the victim of the law’s
majesty were, at the time when the death penalty was a common
punishment, both many and curious. A horse foaled of an acorn, is
obviously an allusion to the timber of which the triple tree (q.v.) was
constructed. The widows of those who had suffered the extreme penalty
of the law were termed hempen widows (q.v.); the children of such, or
those likely to meet with death by hanging, hempseed (q.v.); and hempen
fever (q.v.) represented the dread malady itself.

    1760–61. Smollett, Sir L. Greaves, ch. viii. I believe as how ’tis
    no horse, but a devil incarnate; and yet I’ve been worse mounted,
    that I have—I’d like to have rid a horse that was foaled of an
    acorn (i.e., he had nearly met with the fate of Absalom).

    1827. Lytton, Pelham, ch. lxxxii. ‘The cove ... is as pretty a
    Tyburn blossom as ever was brought up to ride a horse foaled by an
    acorn.’

    1839. Harrison Ainsworth, Jack Sheppard [1889], p. 8. Tom Sheppard
    was always a close file, and would never tell whom he married. Of
    this I’m certain, however, she was much too good for him.... As to
    this little fellow ... he shall never mount a horse foaled by an
    acorn, if I can help it.


Acquaintance. To scrape acquaintance, verb. phr. (common).—To make
acquaintance. Probably from ‘bowing and scraping’ to a person, in order
to curry favor.

    1698. Farquhar, Love and a Bottle [ed. 1711], p. 5, Lucinda. Pray
    good Cæsar, keep off your paws; no scraping acquaintance for
    Heaven’s sake.

This phrase has a classical origin, an account of which from the pen of
Dr. Doran, F.S.A., appears in the Gentleman’s Magazine [N.S. xxxix.
230] in an article on ‘The Masters of the Roman World during the
Happiest Years of the Human Race.’

    There is an anecdote connected with Hadrian and the custom of
    bathing, from which is derived the proverbial saying of scraping an
    acquaintance. The Emperor, entering a bath, saw an old soldier
    scraping himself with a tile. He recognised the man as a former
    comrade—his memory on such points never failed him—and, pitying his
    condition that he had nothing better than a tile for a flesh-brush,
    he ordered the veteran to be presented with a considerable sum of
    money, and a costly set of bathing garments. Thereupon all the old
    soldiers of the Imperial Army became as anxious to claim fellowship
    with the Emperor as the Kirkpatricks of Great Britain and Ireland
    are proudly eager to establish kinship with the Empress of the
    French. As Hadrian entered the bath the day after that on which he
    had rewarded his former comrade, he observed dozens of old soldiers
    scraping themselves with tiles. He understood the intent, but
    wittily evaded it. ‘Scrape one another, gentlemen,’ said he, ‘you
    will not scrape acquaintance with me!’


Acquisitive, subs. (American).—Plunder; booty; pickings. A noun formed
from the adjective.


Acreocracy, subs. (common).—The landed interest. Possibly of American
coinage [of simulated Greek formation, from English acre + Greek
κρατέω, to hold sway or to govern]. Compare with democracy, mobocracy,
aristocracy, etc.

    1878. Hallberger’s Illustrated Magazine, p. 622. The introduction
    of a plutocracy among the aristocracy and the acreocracy though it
    has tended somewhat to vulgarize our social institutions, etc.


Acres, subs. (theatrical).—A coward. From Bob Acres, in Sheridan’s
Rivals [1775]; here the character part is of a blusterer, one who talks
big, but when put to the push, to use his own words, ‘his courage
always oozed out of his finger ends.’ Cf., Abigail for a waiting maid;
Samson for a strong man; Job for a monument of patience, and others.


Across Lots. To go across lots, verb. phr.—To proceed by the shortest
route; similarly to do anything in the most expeditious manner. The
phrase had its rise in the natural tendency of settlers, in
thinly-populated districts, to shorten the distance from point to point
by leaving the road and striking across vacant lots. Brigham Young
familiarized its idiomatic use in the now notoriously historic saying
attributed to that ‘Saint,’—‘We’ll send them (the Gentiles) to hell
across lots.’

    1848. Lowell, Biglow Papers.

        Past noontime they went trampin’ round
        An’ nary thing to pop at found,
        Till, fairly tired o’ their spree,
        They leaned their guns agin a tree,
        An’ jest ez they wuz settin’ down
        To take their noonin’, Joe looked roun’
        And see (acrost lots in a pond
        That warn’t mor’n twenty rod beyond),
        A goose that on the water sot
        Ez ef awaitin’ to be shot.

    1854. J. C. Neal, Charcoal Sketches, i., p. 35 [to a
    grumbler]:—‘You would cut across the lot, like a streak of
    lightning, if you had a chance.’

    1887. Scribner’s Magazine. ‘I didn’t see Crossby go by, did you?’
    ‘He’d have had to foot it by the path cross-lots, replied Ezra,
    gravely, from the doorstep.’


Acteon, subs. (old).—A cuckold; from the horns planted on the head of
Acteon by Diana.


Acting the Deceitful, verb. phr. (old theatrical).—Performing; mumming;
acting.—Duncombe.


Active Citizen, subs. (popular).—A louse. For synonyms, see Chates.


Act of Parliament, subs. (old).—A military term for small beer, five
pints of which, by an Act of Parliament, a landlord was formerly
obliged to give gratis to each soldier billetted upon him. For
synonyms, see Cold blood.


Actual. The actual, subs. (popular).—Money, when spoken of
collectively. The fact of the existence of innumerable synonyms for the
‘modern staff of life’ goes far to bear out the latter-day contention
that it is not the ‘evil’ itself [‘money is the root of all evil’—Old
Saw] but the lack of it that is to be deplored. The central idea
enshrined in many of these terms will well repay comparative study, a
vein of subtle, and sometimes grim humor and pathos running through not
a few of them. This applies equally to English slang, and to the
French, Italian, Spanish, and Portuguese argots. Compare for example
the English ‘feathers’ with the Spanish amigos (friends), the Italian
agresto (sour grapes), and the French du foin (hay), or de l’os (bone),
and obviously many a new side-light upon national habits and modes of
thought may be obtained therefrom. The English and French, the two
nations whose slang vocabularies are by far the most copious extant,
have respectively upwards of 130 and 50 synonymous terms for money. The
generic names are as follows:—

Eng. Synonyms. Ballast; beans; blunt (i.e., specie,—not soft, or rags,
i.e., bank-notes); brads; brass; bustle; coal; coppers (copper money,
or mixed pence); chink; chinkers; chips; corks; dibs; dimmock; dinarly;
dirt; dooteroomus (or doot); dumps; dust; dye stuffs; feathers; family
plate (silver); dollars; gent (silver,—from argent); gilt; haddock (a
purse of money); hard stuff (or hard); horse nails; huckster; John;
John Davis; loaver; lour (the oldest cant term for money); mopusses;
muck; needful; nothings (money collected in a hat by
street-performers); ochre (gold); oof; ooftish; pewter; palm oil;
pieces; posh; queen’s pictures; quids; rags (bank-notes); ready; ready
gilt; ready John; redge (gold); rhino; rowdy; shadscales (or scales);
shot; shekels; sinews of war; shiners (sovereigns); shin plasters (or
plasters); skin (a purse of money); Spanish; spondulics; stamps; stiff
(cheques, or bills of acceptance); stuff; stumpy; tin (silver); tow;
wad; wedge (silver); wherewith; and yellow-boys (sovereigns). In the
17th century money was often called ‘shells’—is this the origin of ‘to
shell out’?—and ‘Oil of Angels’ (q.v.).

French Argot. De l’artiche (thieves’: retirer de l’artiche, is to pick
the pockets of a drunkard); du morningue; du foin (lit. hay); du plâtre
(thieves’: lit. plaster); du poussier (thieves’: lit. coal-dust; Cf.,
English ‘coal’ and ‘dust’); des soldats (thieves’: Falstaff, in Merry
Wives of Windsor, ii., 2, says ‘money is a good soldier’); de la
mornifle (this thieves’ term for money, whether good or counterfeit,
originally signified false money only; there is a grim suggestiveness
between the orthodox meaning of the word, ‘a slap on the face,’ and its
slang signification); de la sauvette (also a basket used by rag-pickers
and collectors of street refuse); de l’huile (lit. oil); du beurre
(pop.: lit. butter); de la braise (pop.: ma braise is a term of
endearment among the Lyonnais, and is equivalent to mon trésor, my
treasure); du bath (thieves’: the tip-top; the excellent. From a
superior kind of Bath note paper, which, in 1848, was hawked about the
streets of Paris, and sold at a low price. Thus papier bath became
synonymous with excellent paper. In a short time the qualifying term
alone remained, and received a general application.—Argot and Slang);
du graissage (pop.: lit. grease, Cf., ‘palm oil,’ and ‘greasing the
palm’ in English slang); de la thune (thieves’: in old French cant the
Roi de la Thune was the king of the beggars, and the old prison of
Bicêtre, where free board and lodging was provided for many of the
fraternity, was called La Thune. It is easy to see why the name of a
place, where beggars congregated in considerable numbers and received
relief, should pass into use to signify pecuniary alms); de la miche de
profonde (pop. and thieves’: this exactly corresponds to the English
‘loaver’); de l’oignon pèse (pop.: lit. heavy onion. Cf., Fourbesque
argume); du sable (pop.: lit. sand); des pimpions (thieves’: Qy., from
pimpant, fine, spruce, smart); de l’os (familiar: lit. bone); du nerf
(lit. sinew. Cf., English ‘sinews of war’); des pepettes (pop.:
pepette, a coin of the value of fifty centimes); des achetoires (pop.:
from acheter, to buy); de la galette (pop.: lit. sea biscuit); des
picaillons (pop.: probably a corruption of picaron, a Spanish coin); de
ce qui se pousse (pop.: that which pushes itself forward. Cf., English
proverb, ‘It’s money makes the mare to go’); de quoi (pop.: the
wherewithal. Cf., English ‘the needful,’ the ‘ready’), de l’oignon
(pop.: lit. onion. Fourbesque has also argume, lit. in Italian, an
onion); de l’oseille (pop.: lit. sorrel); de la douille (thieves’ and
pop.: from a kind of large fig much esteemed in Paris); des jaunets
(lit. buttercups. Cf., English ‘yellow-boys’); des sous (lit. pence);
de la graisse (pop. and thieves’: lit. ‘grease.’ Cf., palm oil); de
l’affare (a thieves’ term, probably from the argotic verb affurer, to
cheat, steal, or deceive); du metal (lit. metal); du zinc (lit. zinc);
du pèze (from the Italian pezzo, a piece; Spanish peso, a silver coin,
weighing an ounce); du pedzale; des noyaux (popular); des sonnettes
plombes (plomb = lead); des sonnettes (lit. bells. Cf., English
‘chinkers’); du quantum (from the Latin); du gras (lit. fat); de
l’atout (lit. trumps in cards); de l’huile de main (lit. hand oil, the
English ‘palm grease’); des patards (obsolete copper coins, value ¼d.;
now applied particularly to a two-sous piece, and to money generally);
de la vaisselle de poche (lit. pocket plate: vaisselle = gold and
silver plate); du carme (from the game of Trictrac); de la pécune (lit.
cash); des ronds (lit. circles; from the shape of coins); de la bille
(from billon); du “sine quâ non” (from the Latin; meaning obvious); du
sit nomen (from the Latin); quibus (an abbreviation of quibus fiunt
omnia).

Italian Fourbesque. Agresto (lit. sour grapes); albume (lit. white of
egg), argume (lit. onions); asta, asti (from Ital. asta, a staff);
contramaglia (silver money); brunotti (lit. brownish); penne (lit.
feathers); smilzi (from Ital. smilzi = menu); squame (lit. chips or
scales).

Spanish Germania. Amigos (lit. friends); florin (here can be traced the
Spanish connection with the Netherlands); sangre (lit. blood).

Portuguese Calão.—Parne.

German Synonyms (Gaunersprache).—See Gilt.


Ad., Adver. subs. (printers’).—An abbreviated form of ‘advertisement.’

    1854. Dickens, Household Words, xiii., 9. The really interesting
    ads are in the body of the paper.

    1888. New York Times, Ap. 6.

        [The country editor’s wife—] ... reads the ads with the editor,
          Just to find what each has paid.
        ‘But the column ad of the jeweller, there,’
        So he says, ‘and the harness, and human hair,
          Must be taken out in trade!’
        She wears the corsets he gets for ads,
          And rattles his sewing machine;
        She uses the butter, and cups, and things,
        The country subscriber so faithfully brings,
          With a cheerfulness seldom seen.


Adam, subs. (old).—A sergeant or bailiff; a master man or foreman. Now
used by thieves in the sense of an accomplice. Explained by
commentators as a reference to the fact that the buff worn by a bailiff
resembled the native buff worn by our first parent, or from his keeping
the garden.

    1598. Shakspeare, Comedy of Errors, iv., 3. Ant. S.... What Adam
    dost thou mean? Dro. S. Not that Adam that kept the Paradise, but
    that Adam that keeps the prison: he that goes into the calf-skin
    that was killed for the prodigal.

    1848. Sinks of London Laid Open, p. 96. Adam, a henchman, an
    accomplice.


Adam’s Ale, or sometimes simply Adam, and in Scotland Adam’s Wine.—A
colloquialism of long standing for water, humorously suggesting that
anything stronger was unknown to our first parents. Duncombe wittily
adds a comment that our first father’s drink is best with brandy. This
also would appear to be the view taken in most of the French and German
equivalents.

Eng. Synonyms. Fish broth; aqua pompaginis.

French. Anisette de barbillon (a popular term); essence de parapluie
(popular: lit. essence of umbrella); l’Adam’s ale (a literal
translation of the English term); limonade (popular: a caustic comment
surely upon the virtues of lemonade); lance (popular and thieves’: this
term also does duty for ‘rain’; properly written l’ance, derived from
the Spanish Germania ansia, itself an abbreviation of angustia, an
allusion to the employment of water as a means of torture); sirop or
ratafia de grenouilles (popular: lit. syrup of frogs); sirop de
l’aiguière (popular: lit. pitcher syrup); sirop de baromètre (popular,
barometer syrup).

German Gaunersprache. Gänsewein (lit. goose-wine).

Italian Fourbesque. Lenza (the remarks on French lance quoted above,
apply equally here).

    1643. Prynne, Sov. Power of Parl., II., 32. They have been shut up
    in prisons and dungeons ... allowed onely a poore pittance of
    Adam’s ale, and scarce a penny bread a day to support their lives.
    [M.]

    1786–9. Wolcot [P. Pindar], Lousiad, c. ii., line 453.

        Old Adam’s beverage flows with pride,
        From wide-mouth’d pitchers, in a plenteous tide.

    1884. Daily Telegraph, April 1, p. 5, col. 2. The spectral banquet
    graced now only by Adam’s ale, or the sick-room toast and water.

    1886. John Coleman, Elfie, pt. I., ch. ii. For my part, I stuck to
    Adam’s ale, which Elfie brought from the spring.


Adam Tiler, subs. (old slang).—A pickpocket’s associate; one who
receives stolen goods, and then runs off with them. [From Adam, an
accomplice + tiler, a watchman. Cf., Masonic term.] For synonyms, see
Fence.


Added to the List (racing).—An abbreviation of ‘added to the list of
geldings in training.’ Among French thieves, désatiller is the term
employed to signify castration; or, where the operation is performed
upon a man, abélardiser, i.e., to mutilate a man, as Chanoine Fulbert
mutilated Abélard, the lover of his daughter or niece, Héloise.


Addition, subs. (old).—A term for various toilet requisites, used by
women; such as paint, rouge, powder, etc.

    1704. Centlivre, Platonick Love, Act iii., Scene 1. Milliner. Be
    pleased to put on the addition madam. Mrs. Dowdy. What does she
    mean now? to pull my skin off, mehap, next. Ha, Peeper, are these
    your London fashions? Peeper. No, no, addition is only paint,
    madam.


Addition, Division, and Silence! phr. (American).—A Philadelphia
expression, which, for a time, had a vogue as a catch phrase. It is
properly rendered multiplication, division, and silence! William M.
Tweed, or as he is more familiarly known ‘Boss’ Tweed, is generally
credited with this expression. Being asked what in his view was the
proper qualification for a member of a ring or trust, in which all play
into each other’s hands for mutual advantages, he replied
multiplication, division, and silence!


Addle Cove, subs. (common).—A foolish man; an easy dupe; literally, a
rank sucker (q.v.), and equivalent to addle-head, addle-pate,
addle-plot, all of which are common dictionary words. Why Barrère and
Hotten have followed the lead of Grose in classing these words as slang
is hardly clear. Dialectical they may have been, but all English was
similarly placed prior to the 15th century, and the first reference
given by Murray, bears the date of A.D. 1250.


Adept, subs. (thieves’).—An expert amongst the light-fingered gentry.
It is quite an open question whether adept, even in a thief’s sense,
can fairly be classed as slang, the meaning being obviously identical
with that commonly attached to the word.


Adjective Jerker, subs. phr. (literary).—A term of derision applied,
like ink-slinger (q.v.), to those who write for the press. The special
allusion in the present case is doubtless to the want of discrimination
which young writers, and reporters on low-class papers, often exhibit
in the use of a plethora of adjectives to qualify a simple statement of
fact.

    1888. St. Louis Globe Democrat, April 29. Genevieve spent four
    hours last night in constructing a three-line letter, which she
    sent to an adjective jerker on a society weekly, and in which she
    said she would spend the summer months in the Rocky Mountains.


Adjutant’s Gig, subs. phr. (military).—The barrack roller. Men under
punishment are generally put to the task of drawing this machine.


Admiral. To tap the Admiral, verb phr. (nautical).—A practice otherwise
known as ‘sucking the monkey.’ Explained in Peter Simple as having
originally been used amongst sailors for drinking rum out of cocoa nuts
from which the milk had been extracted and replaced by spirits, an
evasion of the regulation prohibiting the purchase of ardent liquors
when on shore in the tropics. The Germans have an analogous expression
Den affen saugen, to ‘suck the monkey,’ with the same signification.

Nowadays it is applied to drinking on the sly from a cask by inserting
a straw through a gimlet hole, and to drinking generally.

    1837. Barham, Ingoldsby Legends (the Black Mousquetaire).

        What the vulgar call sucking the monkey,
        Has much less effect on a man when he’s funky.


Admiral of the Blue, subs. phr. (old).—A publican or tapster; from the
colour of his apron; now obsolete. Cf., Admiral of the red.

    1731. Poor Robin [Pseudonym of Robert Herrick] Almanac.

        As soon as customers begin to stir,
        The admiral of the blue, cries, ‘Coming, sir!’
        Or if grown fat, the mate his place supplies;
        And says, ’tis not my master’s time to rise.
        Of all our trades, the tapster is the best,
        He has more men at work than all the rest.


Admiral of the Narrow Seas, subs. phr. (nautical).—A man who, under
drink, vomits into the lap of his neighbour or vis-à-vis.


Admiral of the Red, subs. phr. (popular).—A wine-bibber; one whose face
by its redness bears evidence of a fondness for the bottle. Formerly
the highest rank of naval officers was divided into three grades or
classes denominated from the colours hoisted by them, Admirals of the
Red, White, or Blue squadron. Now there are four grades; Admiral of the
Fleet, Admiral, Vice-admiral, and Rear-admiral. The French call the
bottle or copper-nose possessed by admirals of the red betterave (lit.
a beetroot); also un piton passé à l’encaustique; and un piffard. Cf.,
Admiral of the blue.


Admiral of the White, subs. phr. (familiar).—Quoted as ‘a white-faced
person; a coward; a woman in a faint.’ Rarely heard, and at best but an
extremely weak imitation of kindred phrases, to wit, admiral of the
blue, and admiral of the red.


Admirals of the Red, White, and Blue, subs. phr. (familiar).—Beadles;
hall-porters; and such-like functionaries when sporting their gorgeous
liveries of office.


Adonize, verb. (rare). [French adoniser; from adonis + ize].—To make
beautiful or attractive; to adorn oneself with a view of attracting
admiration; said only of men.

    1818. S. E. Ferrier, Marriage, ch. ix. ‘Venus and the Graces, by
    Jove!’ exclaimed Sir Sampson, bowing with an air of gallantry; ‘and
    now I must go and adonize a little myself.’ The company then
    separated to perform the important offices of the toilette.

    1850. F. E. Smedley, Frank Fairleigh, ch. xl. ‘He positively
    refused to face the ladies till he had changed his shooting
    costume, so I left him up at the hall to adonize.’


Adsum, verb. (Charterhouse).—The response made in answering to
names-calling.

    1855. Thackeray, The Newcomes, p. 774. ‘At the usual evening hour
    the chapel bell began to toll, and Thomas Newcome’s hands outside
    the bed feebly beat time. And just as the last bell struck, a
    peculiar sweet smile shone over his face and he lifted up his head
    a little, and quickly said, ‘adsum,’ and fell back. It was the word
    we used at school when names were called; and lo, he whose heart
    was as that of a little child had answered to his name, and stood
    in the presence of the Master.’


Adullamites, subs. (parliamentary).—A nickname, in the first instance,
for a party of seceding Liberals, namely, Messrs. Horsman, Lowe, Earl
Grosvenor, Lord Elcho, etc., who in 1866 voted with the Tories, when
Earl Russell and Mr. Gladstone introduced a measure for the extension
of the Franchise. In the debate on the 30th March John Bright said they
had agreed to draw back into a political cave of adullam. The reference
is to those who, with King David, took refuge in the cave of adullam (1
Sam. xxii., 1). The political party in question were also known
collectively as ‘The Cave.’

    1878–80. Justin McCarthy, History of Our Own Times, p. 142. The
    little third party were at once christened the adullamites, and the
    name still survives and is likely long to survive its old political
    history. Ibid., p. 143. The wild cheers of the Conservatives and
    the adullamites showed on which ‘sword sat laurel victory.’ Ibid.,
    p. 152. [Lord Derby] had at once invited the leading members of the
    adullamite party to accept places in his Administration.

The primary usage has been extended as explained in the following
quotations.

    1870. Notes and Queries, March 5, p. 241. The Scriptural ‘cave of
    adullam’ has become an adopted byword for a small clique who unite
    to obstruct the party with which they usually associate.

    1884. New York Times, July 19. The Conservative party then
    presented a tolerably solid front against the extension of the
    franchise, and received besides a large reinforcement of
    adullamites from the Liberal side.


Advance Backward, verb. (American).—A rather odd way of expressing
retrogression.

    1888. Chicago Inter-Ocean, Jan. 23. The advice given to his company
    by a raw Yankee captain to advance backward, seems paralleled in
    the Chicago Tribune of the 18th inst.


Advantage (Californian).—See Pocket advantage.


Æger, subs. (Univ.). Lat. sick.—Same as Ægrotat (q.v.).

    1870. Chambers’ Journal, June 18, p. 395. Dick laughed. ‘I’ll get
    the receipt from him. I often want a good thing for an Æger.’

    1888. H. Smart, in Temple Bar, February, p. 213. ‘Instead of
    applying for leave to my tutor, I had resorted to the old device of
    pricking Æger.’


Ægrotat, subs. (Univ.).—[L. he is sick, 3rd pers. sing. pres. ind. of
ægrotare, to be sick from ægrotus, sick, from æger, sick]. In English
universities a medical certificate given to a student, showing that he
has been prevented by sickness from attending to his duties, or his
examination; also used for the degree taken by those so excused. Also
called Æger (q.v.).

    1794. Gent. Mag., p. 1085. They [at Cambridge] sported an Ægrotat,
    and they sported a new coat!

    1864. Babbage, Passages from the Life of a Philosopher, 37. I sent
    my servant to the apothecary for a thing called an Ægrotat, which I
    understood ... meant a certificate that I was indisposed.

Reading ægrotat.—In some universities leave taken, commonly in
December, in order to get time to read for one’s degree.


Affair of Honour, subs. (old).—Killing an innocent man in a duel. This
euphemism was largely in vogue during the Regency days.


Affidavit Men, sub. phr. (old slang), or, as they also used to be
called, Knights of the Post.—False witnesses who attended Westminster
Hall and other Courts of Justice, ready to swear anything for hire;
they were distinguished by having straws stuck in the heels of their
shoes.—See Straw bail under Bail.


Affinity, subs. (American).—A cant term in frequent use amongst
so-called free-lovers. One’s affinity is supposed to be a person of the
opposite sex, for whom an attachment so strong is felt that even if
already married, as more often than not is the case, the husband will
abandon his legitimate wife, and vice versâ, in favour of the new
attraction, or affinity as he or she is called. The argument is
generally only an excuse for unbridled sexual license; indeed, it is
inconceivable that it could be otherwise, except in a society of
seraphs and archangels.


Afflicke, subs. (old).—See quotation.

    1610. Rowland’s Martin Mark-all, p. 38 (H. Chub’s Repr., 1874).
    Afflicke, a theefe.


Afflictions, subs. (drapers’).—Mourning goods, half-mourning being
designated mitigated afflictions (q.v.).


Affygraphy, subs. (common).—‘It fits to an affygraphy,’ i.e., to a
nicety—to a T; also of time—‘in an affygraphy.’


Afloat, adv. (common).—On the move; en évidence. This term is of
nautical origin.

To have one’s back-teeth well afloat, is to be well-primed with liquor;
in short, to be in one of the many degrees of intoxication.

    1888. Missouri Republican, Jan. 25. When sober on the bench Judge
    Noonan is a model of all the virtues. On Friday night, however, in
    company with Dr. Munford, of Kansas City, ex-Speaker Wood, Mr.
    Charles Mead, and several other gentlemen, his honor once more
    drank until, as an onlooker put it, his back teeth were well
    afloat.


A-Fly, adv. (vulgar).—See Fly.


Afterclap, subs. (American).—An attempt to unjustly extort more in a
bargain or agreement than at first settled upon. [Derived from after +
clap, a blow or shock.] Current in England since the beginning of the
fifteenth century, signifying an unexpected subsequent event; something
happening after an affair is supposed to be at an end.


After-Dinner Man; Afternoon’s Man.—Generally read to mean a tippler;
one given to long potations after the mid-day meal, formerly the most
substantial taken during the twenty-four hours. Smythe Palmer, however,
appears to throw a different gloss upon the term, for he says [N. and
Q., 5 S., viii., 112], Afternoones men—equivalent to after-dinner men.
It was the custom, formerly, to dine in the halls of our Inns of Court
about noon, and those who returned after dinner to work must have been
much devoted to business, or obliged to work at unusual hours by an
excess of it.—See quot. from Earle.

    1614. Overbury, A wife, etc. (1638), 196. Make him an afternoones
    man.

    1621. Burton, Anat. Mel. Democr. to Reader (1657), 44. Bervaldus
    will have drunkards, afternoon men, and such as more than
    ordinarily delight in drink, to be mad.

    1628. Earle, Microcosmography (A Player). Your Innes of Court men
    were undone but for him, hee is their chiefe guest and employment,
    and the sole businesse that makes them afternoones men.

    1830. Dublin Sketch Book. The good Baronet (Sir Francis Burdett)
    was not only a foxhunter, but a celebrated after-dinner man. It
    must have been a good bout indeed in which he was worsted.


After Four, subs. phr. (Eton).—From 3 to 6 p.m. on half-holidays; 4 to
5 on whole schoolday.


Afternoon Farmer, subs. phr. (popular).—This expression for one who
procrastinates, or who misses an opportunity is, in reality, a
provincialism. It is quoted in more than one of the English Dialect
Society’s Glossaries as a very common phrase for one who is always
behind, i.e., late in preparing his land, in sowing or harvesting his
crops. It is only slang when used figuratively apart from agricultural
pursuits.


After Twelve, subs. phr. (Eton).—From noon till 2 p.m.

    1861. Whyte Melville, Good for Nothing, p. 39. I used to visit him
    regularly in the dear old college from the after twelve.


Against Collar. To work against collar, verb. phr. (popular).—To battle
or cope with difficulties; ‘to kick against the pricks’; ‘to pull
against the tide.’

    1876. C. Hindley, Life and Adventures of a Cheap Jack, p. 114. ‘It
    is always thought to be a bad plan to let journeymen Cheap Johns
    get into debt with their employers. It is bad in two ways, for if
    they owe their governors a few pounds, they are working an uphill
    game, or against collar, and that don’t suit their book, and it
    destroys the independence which is, and always should be, between
    the master and the man.’


Against the Grain, adv. phr. (popular).—Against the fibres of the wood;
hence, in opposition to the wish; unwillingly; unpleasantly;
reluctantly. ‘It went against the grain to do it, but I knew I must,’
is a common expression.

    1673. Dryden, Amboyna, Act i. Seizing their factories I like well
    enough, it has some savour in’t; but for this whoresome cutting of
    throats, it goes a little against the grain.

    1693. Dryden, Juvenal, i., 202. Though much against the grain
    forc’d to retire.

    1709. Steele, Tatler, No. 2. Nothing in nature is so ungrateful as
    story-telling against the grain, therefore take it as the author
    has given it you.

    1868. Wilkie Collins, The Moonstone, 1st Period., ch. xi. As I had
    promised for them, the other servants followed my lead, sorely
    against the grain, of course, but all taking the view that I took.

    1884. W. C. Russell, Jack’s Courtship, ch. xxiii. It went against
    my grain to leave the poor chap alone.


Agaze, adv. (American thieves’).—Astonished; open-eyed.


Aggerawator, subs. (common); also Haggerawator, both forms being
corruptions of ‘aggravator.’—A lock of hair brought down from the
forehead, well greased, and then twisted in spiral form upon the
temple, either toward the ear, or conversely toward the outer corner of
the eye. This style of dressing the hair was formerly much affected by
costermongers, male and female, and other street folk, but the
‘ornament’ is now rarely seen. It appears to be known among certain
classes in France, especially prostitutes’ bullies.

Eng. Synonyms. Kiss-curls; cobbler’s knots; cow-licks; Newgate knockers
(from a supposed resemblance to the knocker on the prisoner’s door at
Newgate); number sixes; bellropes (being wherewith to draw the belles);
bow-catchers; spit-curls; lovelocks, etc.

French Argot. Des guiches; des rouflaquettes (from being sported by
prostitutes’ bullies), des accroche-cœeurs (lit. heart-hooks).

    1836. Dickens, Sketches by Boz, p. 132. His hair carefully twisted
    into the outer corner of each eye, till it formed a variety of that
    description of semi-curls, usually known as ‘aggerawators.’

From the following they would appear at one time to have formed part of
the personal adornment of women in Australia.

    1859. Frank Fowler, Southern Lights and Shadows, p. 38. The ladies
    are addicted to ... straw-coloured gloves, and strained hair,
    embellished with two or three c’s—aggravators they call
    them—running over the temple.


Agility, subs. (low).—A woman who, in mounting a stile, or, when being
swung, exposes more of her person than is usually counted decent, is
said to show her agility. The story told is an absurdly vulgar play
upon words.


Agitate the Communicator! verb. phr. (common).—Ring the bell!


Agitator, subs. (common).—A bell-rope, or knocker.


Agogare, intj. (American thieves’).—Be quick! a warning signal [from
agog].—New York Slang Dictionary.


Agony. To pile up the agony. verbal phr. (popular).—To intensify a
statement or relation by exaggerated or blood-curdling details.
Newspapers pile on the agony when ‘writing up’ murder, divorce, and
other sensations.

    1857. C. Bronté, in Mrs. Gaskell’s Life, ch. xxv. What climax there
    is does not come on till near the conclusion; and even then, I
    doubt whether the regular novel-reader will consider the ‘agony
    piled sufficiently high’ (as the Americans say), or the colours
    dashed on to the canvas with the proper amount of daring.

    1881. W. Black, Beautiful Wretch, ch. vi. ‘Sooner or later that
    organ will shake the Cathedral to bits; the vibrations were
    fearful. I thought there was a great deal too much noise. You lose
    effect when you pile up the agony like that.’


Agony column, subs. phr. (popular).—The second column of the Times;
originally so-called from the fact of its being devoted to
advertisements for missing friends, and private communications, many of
which are of a harrowing character. Most London newspapers, for the
phrase is chiefly local, have now a similar column. Subjoined are a few
examples of these advertisements:—

    I am not sure of identity. Are you Juan of 1873? Longing to see
    you.—B.

    My darling, how often do I say from my heart come and let us reason
    together that we may be happy here and live and love for ever. God
    bless and spare us to meet again.

    Satisfied.—Meet Friday outside Farringdon Street Station, Three
    p.m. Have slip paper in coat button-hole.—J. T.


HERBERT WILLIAM BONNETT, who left Bristol on Thursday, Sept. 5, is
REQUESTED to COMMUNICATE at once with his uncle at Keynsham. If any
shipping agent is aware of his taking passage in any boat leaving
England, either London, Liverpool, or elsewhere, please write at once
to Mr. J. D. Coates, Keynsham, near Bristol. All expenses will be paid.



The earliest mention in Murray’s Dictionary is dated 1880, but from the
following quotation it will be seen that the term has been in use for
at least twenty years.

    1870. L. Oliphant, Piccadilly, part II., p. 78. The advertisement
    of the committee, which appeared in the agony column of the Times,
    who wanted to know how I wished the money applied.

    1881. W. Black, Beautiful Wretch, ch. xxiii. There were anonymous
    appeals to the runaways in agony columns.


Agony Piler, subs. (theatrical).—An actor who performs blood-curdling
parts in sensational plays.


Aground, adv. (common).—Stuck fast; stopped; at a loss; ruined; like a
boat or vessel aground.


Ain’t, sometimes A’N’T, verb. phr. (vulgar).—A corruption for (1) ‘am
not’; (2) ‘are not’; (3) ‘is not.’ This vulgarism appears to be of much
older standing than set down in the New English Dictionary, where the
earliest example is dated 1778.

    1710. Swift, Journal to Stella, 24 Nov., Letter ix. I ain’t vexed
    at this puppy business of the bishops, although I was a little at
    first.

    1800. Coleridge, Piccolomini, II., xiii. Ter. Where’s the hurry?
    Come, one other composing draught.... Goetz. Excuse me—ain’t able.
    Ter. A thimble-full! Goetz. Excuse me.

    1835. Dickens, Sketches by Boz, p. 275. ‘You are a clever fellow,
    Tottle, ain’t you?’


Air and Exercise, subs. phr. (old).—To have had air and exercise,
signified that one had undergone a whipping at the cart’s tail. About
the beginning of the present century the same operation was termed
shoving the tumbler (q.v.). Among thieves at the present time, air and
exercise means penal servitude; in America it is only applied to a
short term of imprisonment.


Airing, subs. (racing).—When it is not intended that a horse shall win
a race for which it is brought to the starting post, it is said to be
out for an airing.

    1889. Evening Standard, June 25 (Sir Chas. Russell’s speech in
    Durham-Chetwynd case).—What he (Sir C. Russell) meant was that Sir
    G. Chetwynd never did anything so gross and vulgar as that [tell
    the jockey to ‘pull’ horses], and that if horses were pulled, that
    was not the way in which in any class of turf society instructions
    were given. A wink was as good as a nod, and trainers and jockeys,
    from various trivial circumstances, very easily gathered whether a
    particular horse was only out for an airing, or whether it was on
    the job.


Air Line, or Air Line Road (American).—To take the air line; to go
direct, and by the shortest route; idiomatically, to avoid
circumlocution. The origin of this expression is to be found in the
straight lines of railway, without expensive detours and grades, which
in the New World are rendered possible by the vast expanses of unbroken
level. These lines of railway are called air line roads, or straight
shoots (q.v.). De Vere remarks that since the number of such roads has
increased in the more thickly settled parts of the Union, the
advantages of direct lines between two great centres over others which
meander from town to town have become very manifest, and for a few
years a tendency to build such air lines has agitated Legislatures,
from whom and from financial circles in the States and abroad help is
asked. These lines not unfrequently run for long distances by the side
of older lines.

    1888. St. Louis Globe Democrat, Jan. 24. The obese style once
    admired is now disliked. Many old English authors had too much
    rhetoric for our age. Of one thing we are profoundly convicted,
    that we have no time to spare for superfluities. An author must
    take the air line or we will not travel.

    1888. Florida Times Union Advertisement, Feb. 11. Ask for tickets
    viâ Augusta or Atlanta and the Piedmont air line.


Air One’s Heels, verb. phr. (popular).—To loiter; to hang about.


Air One’s Vocabulary, verb. phr. (old).—To talk for talking’s sake; to
show off by one’s talk; ‘to flash the gab.’ One of the wits of the time
of George IV., when asked what was going on in the House of Commons
answered that Lord Castlereagh was airing his vocabulary. The term is
now rarely heard, but the practice is with us always.


Airy, subs. (vulgar).—A corruption of ‘area,’ e.g., ‘Down the airy
steps.’


A-Jakes.—See Ajax.


Ajax, subs. (old). (Pronounced with both ‘a’s’ long).—The name of this
hero furnished many unsavoury puns to our ancestors, from its
similarity in sound to the two English words, a jakes. In some of the
passages the allusion is rather obscure, as in this:

    1609. Ben Jonson, Epicœne, or The Silent Woman, iv., 5. A stool
    were better, sir, of Sir Ajax, his invention.

It is plainer in Shakspeare:

    1594. Love’s Labour Lost, v., 2. Your lion, that holds his poll-ax,
    sitting on a close stool, will be given to Ajax.

The cause of all this vein of low wit was, perhaps, Sir John
Harrington, who in 1596 published his celebrated tract called The
Metamorphosis of Ajax, by which he meant the improvement of a jakes, or
necessary, by forming it into what we now call a water-closet, of which
Sir John was clearly the inventor. For this offence to her delicacy,
Queen Elizabeth kept him for some time in disgrace. Used directly for a
necessary house.

    1611. Cotgrave, Eng. Treasury, p. 16. Which (like the glorious Ajax
    of Lincoln’s Inne, I saw in London) laps up naught but filth and
    excrements.

    1720. Hosp. of Incurab. Fooles, p. 6. Adoring Sterculio for a god,
    no lesse unworthily then shamfully constituting him a patron and
    protector of Ajax and his commodities.

To the above work of Sir J. Harrington, Ben Jonson seems to allude, as
a masterpiece in its way, when, at the conclusion of a dirty poem, he
says,

    1574–1637. On the Famous Voyage, vol. VI., p. 290:

        And I could wish for their eterniz’d sakes,
        My muse had plough’d with his that sung A-jax.

The rhyme here proves that the pronunciation of the time was suited to
the English meaning. Even Camden condescends to play upon this word.
Speaking of the French word pet, he says,

    1605. Remains, p. 117. Inquire, if you understand it not, of
    Cloacina’s Chaplains, or such as are well read in Ajax.—See Jakes.


Akerman’s Hotel, subs. (obsolete).—Newgate prison was once so called.
The governor’s name was Akerman.—See Cage.


Akeybo.—A slang phrase used in the following manner:—He beats akeybo,
and akeybo beat the devil.—Hotten.


A-la-Mort.—See Amort.


Albany Beef, subs. phr. (American).—The popular name of the flesh of
the sturgeon. This, in color and taste, has some resemblance to beef,
especially when cut in steaks and grilled. Albany is a town on the
Hudson River as high as which the fish in question is or was to be
caught in large numbers, and as a matter of course, it consequently
formed a not inconsiderable factor in the food supply of the
inhabitants—hence the term Albany beef.


Albertopolis, subs. (popular).—A nickname formerly given by Londoners
to the Kensington Gore district, out of compliment to the late Prince
Consort. The Albert Hall and the Exhibition buildings of 1862, with
which Prince Albert was so closely identified, are situated within the
radius; and the Albert Memorial is hard by.

    1864. E. Yates, Broken to Harness, ch. xxxiii., p. 366 (1877). Mr.
    Cauthar tripped out of the house, and devoted the remainder of the
    evening to working out a composition for the nutriment of the hair,
    which, under the name of Cauthar’s Crinibus, has an enormous
    circulation over the infant heads of albertopolis.


Albonized, ppl. adj. (pugilistic).—Whitened. [From L. albus, white.]


Alderman, subs. (popular).—1. A half-crown. This term is explained by
Brewer as containing an allusion to the fact that an alderman is a kind
of half-king, whatever that may mean.

    1857. Snowden, Mag. Assistant, 3 ed., p. 444. Two shillings and
    sixpence—alderman.

2. A long pipe; also called a churchwarden (q.v.); in both instances
the name is probably an allusion to the penchant these personages had
at one time for the long clay.

    1859. Fairholt, Tobacco (1876), 173. Such long pipes were
    reverently termed alderman in the last age, and irreverently yards
    of clay in the present one.

3. A turkey; a variant is an alderman in chains; i.e., a roast turkey
well stuffed and garnished with sausages. The latter are said to be
emblematical of the gold chain worn by the civic dignitary—what then
about the stuffing?

    1782. George Parker, Humorous Sketches, p. 31. Nick often eat a
    roast fowl and sausage with me, which in cant is called an
    alderman, double slang’d.

4. (thieves’).—A jemmy (q.v.); sometimes alderman jemmy. A weightier
tool is called a Lord Mayor, whereby it is clear that the criminal
classes are not without some kind of respect for the city fathers. The
tool is used for burglary purposes.

    1883. Daily Telegraph, May 14, p. 3, col. 7. A complete set of
    safe-breaking tools had been used and left behind, including
    wedges, an alderman jemmy, a hammer weighing 14 lbs.

    1888. Saturday Review, 15 Dec, p. 719. One side of slang was
    illustrated by the burglar Casey in a well-known case of robbery in
    the City some years ago, who explained in Court that the big jemmy
    with which iron shutters were prised open was called the
    ‘alderman,’ adding, ‘it would never do to be talking about crowbars
    in the street.’

5. Blood and guts alderman, subs. phr. (popular).—A pompous man; one
with a ‘corporation.’ The allusion is to the alleged or real
over-eating and drinking of aldermen as a class.


Alderman Lushington, subs. (Australian).—Intoxicating beverages.


Alderman’s Pace.—A slow and stately gait, like that of a burly man as
aldermen are generally represented. The French have an equivalent
phrase, pas d’abbé.


Aldgate. A draught on the pump at Aldgate, subs. phr. (commercial).—A
bad bill of exchange. A play on the word ‘draught.’


Alecampane.—See Allacompain.


Alecie, Alecy, subs. (old nonce words) [from ale + suffix cie or cy, as
in ‘lunacy’].—The state of being under the influence of ale;
drunkenness; also balmyness.

    1594. J. Lyly, Mother Bombie, cc. 9. If he had arrested a mare
    instead of a horse, it had beene a slight oversight, but to arrest
    a man, that hath no likenesse of a horse, is flat lunasie, or
    alecie.


Ale-Draper, subs. (old) [from ale + draper as in linen-draper].—A
humorous title for an alehouse keeper; probably from the ancient custom
of measuring ale by the yard. It long survived dialectically, but is
now obsolete. Synonyms were rum-cull, and squirt-quester (q.v.).

    1593. Henry Chettle, Kinde-Harts Dreame. Two milch maydens that had
    set up a shoppe of ale-drapery.

    1747. In Parish Register of Scotter, Linc. [Buried], July 8th,
    Thomas Broughton, Farmer and Ale Draper.


Ale-Knight, subs. phr. (old) [from ale + knight, used derisively].—A
tippler; a boon companion.

    1575. Eccl. Proc., Chester. [The Vicar of Whalley, Lanc., is
    charged with being a common dronker and ale knight.]

    1654. Witt’s Recreations.

        Come all you brave wights,
        That are dubbed ale-knights
        Now set out youselves in fight:
        And let them that crack
        In the praises of sack,
        Know malt is of mickle might.

    1863–64. Chambers’ Bk. of Days, ii., 597. This man was a regularly
    dubbed ale-knight, loved barley wine to the full.


Ales, subs. (Stock Exchange).—The shares in the brewery business of S.
Allsopp and Sons, Limited, are thus known.


Ale Spinner, subs. phr. (old) [from ale + spinner, a manufacturer or
producer].—A brewer or publican.


Alexandra Limp, subs. (popular).—The name given to an erstwhile fit of
semi-imbecility on the part of ‘Society.’ The Princess of Wales,
through a slight infirmity, walks with a suspicion of lameness, and
servile imitation of everything pertaining to royalty caused the sudden
appearance (circa 1860–70) of a crowd of limping petticoated toadies.
The craze passed away as suddenly as it came. Cf., Grecian bend.

    1876. Chambers’ Journal, No. 629. Your own advocacy of the Grecian
    bend and the Alexandra limp—both positive and practical imitations
    of physical affliction. [h.]


Alfred David, subs. (common).—An affidavit—obviously a humorous
corruption in pronunciation; also affidavy; and, by an extended process
of curtailment, davy. All are common colloquialisms among the
uneducated classes. After-davy is likewise occasionally heard,
generally in connection with a person in extremis.


Algerine, subs. (theat.).—A member of a company who, when ‘the ghost’
cannot be induced to walk, i.e., when the exchequer is low, and
salaries are not paid, ‘remonstrates’ with the manager. The term is
also used to designate the hard-up borrower of petty sums.


Alive and Kicking, adv. phr. (popular).—An intensive form of ‘alive’ in
its most colloquial sense of being alert and full of action. In the
days of Pierce Egan’s Tom and Jerry, alive partook far more of the
nature of slang than now. Sometimes all alive and kicking is varied by
all alivo; knowing; all fly. The allusion is to a child in the womb
after quickening.

    1889. Globe, Oct. 4, p. 1, col. 3. Next day there appeared a letter
    from a Mr. Basil Watts Phillips, who proclaimed himself as a son of
    the playwright, and stated, moreover, that his mother, the
    playwright’s widow, as well as another son, named Gordon, were—to
    use a popular phrase—‘alive and kicking.’ Miss Emma, therefore,
    could hardly be recognised, with fairness, as the ‘only living
    representative of the late Watts Phillips.’


Allacompain, subs. (rhyming slang).—Forms: alacompain, alicumpane,
elecampain, etc. 1. In the so-called rhyming slang this is the
equivalent of rain.

2. (common).—Candy supposed to be made from the root of inula helenium
or bellwort; it contains, however, little else than colored sugar.


All A-Float, subs. (rhyming slang).—A coat.


All Alive, adv. and adj. (tailors’).—Ill-made garments, and ‘misfits,’
are said to be all alive.


All Along Of (vulgarism).—On account of; by reason of, etc.


All-a-Mort.—See Amort.


All Around Sports, sub. (American).—Obviously a corruption of ‘all
round sportsmen,’ i.e., men whose interest in sport is catholic, and
all embracing.


All at Sea, adv. phr. (popular).—In an uncertain, vague condition. Of
nautical origin, and perhaps more colloquial than slang; equivalent to
all abroad (q.v.).


All Brandy, adv. phr. (common).—When it is desired to commend or speak
well of anything it is said to be all brandy. The use of such a term
suggests curious reflections upon the drinking habits of those who
employ it.

Synonyms. A1; the pure quill; about east; about right; at par; the
cheese.


All Dickey.—See Dickey.


Alleviator, subs. (common).—A drink; refreshment.

    1846. Mark Lemon, Golden Fetters. If any of you feel thirsty after
    this exciting interview, I shall be happy to stand an alleviator.

Synonyms. Gargle; smile; Alderman Lushington; long sleeved ’un
(Australian, when taken from a long glass); shout; etc.—See Gargle.


Alley, Ally, Alay, subs. (schoolboys’ term).—A superior kind of marble.
Supposed to be a corrupted and abbreviated form of ‘alabaster,’ of
which these superior kind of marbles are sometimes made. Alley is the
name given to the medium sizes, smaller ones being called mivvies
(q.v.), and the largest bonces (q.v.). The word sometimes appears as
alley tor, or alley taw. De Foe, in ‘Duncan Campbell,’ as early as
1720, speaks of a large bag of marbles and alleys, and at that time the
term was considered vulgar. It is interesting to note that the supposed
derivation of alley from alabaster is borne out by the fact, that among
school-boys stone marbles are called stoneys (q.v.), and clay ones
commoneys (q.v.). Additional weight is also given to the accuracy of
this derivation, when it is remembered that what are known as ‘Dutch
alleys’ (q.v.), are only stoneys enamelled or glazed different colours.
In old Berlin slang, alley tors were known as Kalbacher.


All-Fired, adj. All-Firedly, adv. (American).—Thought by most to be a
Puritanical corruption of ‘hell-fired,’ and in that respect a profane
euphemistic adjective. In this connection it carries with it the
meaning of ‘immense,’ ‘excessive,’ or ‘inordinate’ in general; but, of
course, the primary signification of this corruption is perfectly
obvious. Some, however, think the word may be taken at its face value
[all + fire + ed.], an intensitive of the merely rhetorical fire.
Common now on both sides of the Atlantic.

    1755. The World, No. 140. How arbitrary is language! and how does
    the custom of mankind join words, that reason has put asunder! Thus
    we often hear of hell-fire cold, of devilish handsome, and the
    like.

    1835. Haliburton, Clockmaker, 1 S., ch. xxiv. ‘Look at that ’ere
    Dives,’ they say, ‘what an all-fired scrape he got into by his
    avarice with Lazarus.’

    1861. Hughes, Tom Brown at Oxford, ch. xl. ‘I knows I be so
    all-fired jealous; I can’t abear to hear o’ her talkin’, let alone
    writin’ to——’

    1883. James Payn, Thicker than Water, ch. xvii. ‘Well,’ he said ...
    ‘you’ve been an all-fired time you have in selling those jars.’


All Fly.—See Fly.


All Fours. To go or be on all fours, verb. phr. (popular).—From the
four legs of a quadruped, or the two legs and two arms of a child or
man. Hence to go on all fours is to go evenly, the figure of speech
presented being the reverse of limping like a lame dog. Thence follows
the metaphorical use of the phrase in the sense of exact analogy and
similarity of relation. It is thus synonymous with ‘as like as two
peas’ (the French say, comme deux gouttes d’eau, as like as two drops
of water); ‘a chip of the old block’; a ‘Chinese copy,’ etc. At the
same time, a show of probability must be conceded to those philologists
who refer the phrase to the masonic symbol of the square, emblematic of
harmony and completeness. Possibly masons gave its use a fresh impetus.


All Gammon! phr. (common).—All nonsense; rubbish!—See All my eye.


All Gay, adv. (thieves’).—All serene; all right; the coast is clear.
The French voleur says, c’est franco!


All-Get-Out, phr. (American).—That beats all-get-out, is an old retort
to any extravagant story or assertion. Barrère says, ‘oh, get out!’
appears to have suggested the phrase, which is, perhaps, not altogether
obvious.


All Hands to the Pump, verb. phr. (old).—An expression borrowed from
seafaring life, signifying concentration of energy in any one
direction. Now-a-days we say, ‘a long pull, a strong pull, and a pull
altogether’; this also is a sailor’s phrase.


All Holiday at Peckham, proverbial phr. (popular).—No work to do; and,
as a concomitant, nothing to eat. A play upon words.—See Peckish.

    1811. Lexicon Balatronicum. All holiday at Peckham ... a saying
    signifying that it is all over with the business or person spoken
    of or alluded to.

    1848. Forster, Oliver Goldsmith, bk. I., ch. vi., p. 55 (5ed.) ‘Oh,
    that is all a holiday at peckham,’ said an old friend very
    innocently one day, is a common proverbial phrase.

It seems that Goldsmith in the early part of his London life passed
some miserable months as usher in a school at Peckham, and the memory
of this doleful period was ever bitter to him. Years afterwards, a
friend in conversation happened to speak facetiously of it being ‘all
holiday at Peckham,’ and was surprised to find that this innocent
reference to a recognised proverbial phrase was regarded by Goldsmith
as an unkind allusion to his past misery, and, therefore, a personal
insult.


All Hollow, adv. (popular).—To beat, or carry all hollow, i.e.,
utterly; completely.


All Hot! subs. (common).—A hot potato. A cry used by peripatetic street
vendors.


All In, phr. (Stock Exchange).—When the market is depressed and a
disposition to sell prevails, it is said to be all in. Conversely, all
out signifies that the market is improving.


All in a Pucker.—See Pucker.


All in Fits, adv. phr. (tailors’).—Badly made clothes are said to be
all in fits, or to have a paralytic stroke. Such garments are also said
to fit where they touch, i.e., nowhere. Now common.


All jaw. All jaw like a sheep’s head, adv. phr. (common).—Said of one
who is a great talker; or, who has the gift of the gab.

    1876. C. Hindley, Life and Adventures of a Cheap Jack, p. 41. ‘Look
    at the man! hear him; why, he’s all jaw like a sheep’s head. He was
    drummed out of the regiment he was in for eating his comrades’
    knapsacks.’

A synonym is all mouth.—See Jaw.


All Lombard Street to a China Orange, phr. (old); sometimes all Lombard
Street to ninepence.—One of many fanciful forms of betting once current
among the sporting fraternity; others were ‘Chelsea College to a sentry
box,’ ‘Pompey’s Pillar to a stick of sealing wax,’ etc.

    1819. Thomas Moore, Tom Cribb’s Memorial to Congress, p. 38.

        A pause ensued—’till crie of ‘Gregson,’
          Brought Bob, the poet, on his legs soon,—
        My eyes, how prettily Bob writes!
          Talk of your camels, hogs and crabs,
        And twenty more such Pidcock frights—
          Bob’s worth a hundred of these dabs,
        All Lombard Street to ninepence on it.


All Moonshine, adverbial phr. (popular).—Moonshine is in old-fashioned
and provincial English ‘an illusive shadow,’ ‘a mere pretence’
[Halliwell]. The expression it is all moonshine is now variously
applied, whether as referring to empty professions, to vain boasts, to
promises not trustworthy, to questionable statements, or to any kind of
extravagant talk. There exist in several languages so many words of
lunar connection, all implying variableness or inconstancy, that
possibly this phrase also, it is all moonshine, may have been primarily
employed to express some degree of fickleness, or caprice; in allusion
to the inconstancy or changeableness of the moon, or rather moonlight.
When anyone professes or promises great things, which we do not expect
to see realized, we say it is all moonshine, for moonshine is very
shifty; one week we have it, another we have it not; nay, it shifts
from night to night. ‘Lunes’ in old English, are not only fits of
insanity, but freaks. And the term ‘lunatic’ itself did not properly
signify a person always insane, but one who was mad at intervals,
dependent as was supposed on the phases of the moon. This distinction
is still very accurately maintained in Spanish philology: ‘Lunatics, El
loco, cuya demencia no est continua, sino por intervalos que proceden
del estado en que se halla la Luna.’ Hence also in French, modern and
old: ‘Il a des lunes,’ he is whimsical or fantastic. ‘Tenir de la
lune,’ to be inconstant, mutable; ‘Avoir un quartier de la lune, en la
teste,’ or ‘Il y a de la lune,’ he is changeable, giddy, capricious. In
the ‘language of symbols’ the moon is the emblem of hypocrisy, as in
the following device:

    ‘La lune avec ces mots,
    Mentiri didicit.
    (Elle trompe toujours.)

    Pour l’hypocrisie, dont la lune est le symbole.’ Menestriar,
    Philosophie des Images, vol. I., p. 266.

Another emblem is the following:

                  ‘La lune,
          Non vultus non color unus,
    Pour une personne qui n’est pas sincère.’

Ibid, I., p. 269.

Moonshine, in conformity with these ideas, was probably employed
originally in characterising the talk of persons too mutable to be
relied on from one time to another.—Notes and Queries.

    1714. Spectator, No. 597. Several of my correspondents have been
    pleased to send me an account how they have been employed in sleep,
    and what notable adventure they have been engaged in during that
    moonshine in the brain.

    1874. Mrs. H. Wood, Johnny Ludlow, 1 S., No. xxii., p. 397. ‘They
    are all pig-headed together ... they are blinded by specious
    arguments that will turn out, I fear, to be all moonshine.’


All Mouth, adv. (common).—Applied to a loquacious talker. Cf., All jaw.


All My Eye, adv. phr. (common).—Variations in form are: all my eye and
Betty Martin—my elbow—Tommy—and my grandmother. All nonsense; rubbish.
The suggested derivations of this significant retort to a tedious
narration containing neither rhyme nor reason are as various as the
forms in which the phrase appears. Not so clear, however, is the
evidence in support of any of them, although Barrère unwittingly
stumbles upon what is probably the true origin. Had he studied the
subject of slang historically, he would have been able to adduce
adequate proof for what he merely puts forth as a ‘more probable’
derivation than those of his predecessors. After stating that some have
suggested the origin of the phrase in the Welsh, al mi hivy, it is very
tedious or all nonsense, he says, ‘It seems far more probable that it
is a contraction of the phrase ‘there is as much of it as there is in
all my eye,’ the words being made more forcible by closing one of the
organs of vision. To express dissent from any statement, or a refusal
to comply with a request. French slang has the corresponding term mon
œil! which is usually accompanied by a knowing wink and a significant
gesture as an invitation to inspect the organ.’ From a comparative
study of the dates and examples which follow, it seems a fair deduction
to assume that the original form of the phrase was simply all my eye,
and that the additional tags given above are later importations.

    1653. Archbishop Bramhall, Answer to the Epistle of M. de la
    Milletière [Works, vol. I., pp. 68–9. ed. Ox. 1842.] Fifthly,
    suppose (all this notwithstanding) such a conference should hold,
    what reason have you to promise to yourself such success as to
    obtain so easy a victory? You have had conferences and conferences
    again at Poissy and other places, and gained by them just as much
    as you might put in your eye and see never the worse.

    1682. Preface to Julian the Apostate (London, printed for Langley
    Curtis). What benefit a Popish successor can reap from lives and
    fortunes spent in defence of the Protestant religion he may put in
    his eye; and what the Protestant religion gets by lives and
    fortunes spent in the service of a Popish successor will be over
    the left shoulder.

    1768. Goldsmith, Good-natured Man, Act iii. Bailiff. That’s all my
    eye. The king only can pardon.

    1811. Poole, Hamlet Travestied, i, 1. As for black clothes,—that’s
    all my eye and Tommy.

Hotten’s contention, that all my eye and Betty Martin was a vulgar
phrase constructed from the commencement of a Roman Catholic prayer to
St. Martin (the patron saint of drunkards), ‘Oh, mihi, beate Martine,’
which in common with many another fell into discredit and ridicule
after the Reformation, is both fanciful and untrue. In the first place
there is no prayer in the Breviary which answers to the description
given; and in the second it has been shown that the essential part of
the phrase is very much older than the Joe Millerism which first set
the copy for every lexicographer of the ‘unwritten word,’ from Hotten
down to Brewer and Barrère, the latter of whom, strangely enough, after
pitching on the right track, stultifies himself by an admission that
all my eye and Betty Martin seems to have been the original phrase. The
earliest example of the ‘Betty Martin’ form, found after long search,
occurs in Tom Crib’s Memorial to Congress, published in 1819, where it
appears simply as all my eye, Betty, but that the phrase was known long
previously is proved by the extract from Poole quoted above.

Among English Synonyms of refusal or incredulity, are: Cock and bull
story; a wild-goose chase; a mare’s nest; fiddle-de-dee; do you see any
green in my eye? that’s a flam; over the left; go teach your grannie to
suck eggs; Walker! you be blowed! You be hanged! Not for Joe! How’s
your brother, Job? Don’t you wish you may get it? Yes, in a horn
(American); That’s all round my hat.

Fr. Des fadeurs (lit. insipidity); C’est des vannes? (lit. floodgates
or sluices); des nèfles (lit. medlars); des navets! (turnips); de
l’anis! (lit. aniseed); du flan! (lit. custard); tu t’en ferais mourir!
(lit. you will die after it); mon œil! (my eye); flûte! Zut! (go to the
deuce!); et ta sœur? (phrase of the ‘who’s your hatter’ stamp); des
plis! (don’t you wish you may get it); la peau! (blow it all!); de la
mousse! (expression of ironical refusal); du vent! (go to pot!); des
emblèmes!; des fouilles!; on t’en fricasse!


All Nations, subs. (old).—1. A mixture of the drainings of all kinds of
spirits and malt liquors; it is of an extremely intoxicating character.
Sometimes called alls, or all sorts.

2. A parti-colored dress or coat; a Joseph’s garment. Also one that is
patched.


All-Night-Man, subs. (old).—A body snatcher. Now obsolete.

    1861. Ramsay, Remin, ser. ii., 133. The body lifters, or
    all-night-men, as they were wont to be called.


All of a Heap.—See Heap.


All of a Hough, adv. phr. (tailors’).—Said of an unskilled workman.
Equivalent to clumsy; bungling; unworkmanlike. Hotten quotes this as a
Suffolk phrase (hough being spelt hugh, and pronounced with a grunt).
Synonymous with ‘all on one side’; falling with a thump.


All of my Lone, adv. phr. (American).—A negro vulgarism for ‘alone.’


All on the Go (vulgarism).—See Go.


All Out, adv. phr. (vulgar).—1. Entirely; completely; by far, as in
‘all out the best.’ This vulgarism must now be classed among depraved
words; but as far as written English is concerned, it can be traced
back to the year 1300. It seems to have fallen out of use about the
middle of the seventeenth century.

    1830. Carleton, Traits and Stories, vol. II., p. 102. ‘He’s now in
    his grave, and, thank God, it’s he that had the dacent funeral all
    out.’

2. Another old English expression, now obsolete, is to drink all out,
to empty a bumper; and hence,—

3. Used substantively, e.g., an all out being equivalent to what ’Arry
would call now-a-days a big drunk. The connection between the ancient
and modern usage is clear.

4. To be all out also signifies to be in error; quite wrong.

5. (turf).—A man is said to be all out when unsuccessful during the
whole of a day’s racing.

6. (Stock Exchange).—See All in.

7. (athletic).—Exhausted; said of a man or crew who, having exerted him
or themselves to the utmost, can do no more.

    1886. Graphic, April 10, p. 392. Pitman the Cambridge stroke, after
    passing the ‘Queen’s Head,’ Mortlake, put on a grand spurt, to
    which his crew fairly responded, though pretty well all out.


All-Overish, adj. (colloquial). An indefinite feeling which pervades
the body at critical periods, when sickening for an illness, or at a
moment of supreme excitement, as when about to ‘pop the question’
which, says Hotten, ‘is sometimes called feeling all over alike, and
touching nowhere.’ Synonyms are ‘to feel all round one’s hat,’ and
‘chippy.’

    1851. H. Mayhew, London Lab. and Lon. Poor, vol. III., p. 52. ‘When
    the mob began to gather round, I felt all-overish.’


All-Overishness, subs. (colloquial).—The state of being
all-overish.—See foregoing.

    1854. Ainsworth, Flitch of Bacon, pt. II., ch. v. ‘I feel a sort of
    shivering and all-overishness.’

    1841. John Mills, Old English Gentleman, ch. xxiv., p. 186 (3 ed.).
    ‘Isn’t it natural for a body to feel a sort of a queer
    all-overishness on the eve of a wedding, I should like to know?’


All over Pattern, subs. phr. (common). Used in describing patterns that
are intricate, or designs in which the pattern is not of a set
character.

    1881. F. E. Hulme. Suggestions in Floral Design. A term [all over
    pattern] used to denote a design in which the whole of a field is
    covered with ornament in contradistinction to such as have units
    only at intervals, leaving spaces of the ground between them. The
    ornament of the Moors as seen in the decorations of the Alhambra,
    and that of Eastern nations generally, is most commonly of this
    nature; the whole surface of the object is covered with decorative
    forms so as to present to the eye a mass of elaborate detail, the
    leading lines of which can often only be detected by careful
    scrutiny. When, as in some Persian surfaces, these lines are often
    quite lost, the result is unsatisfactory.


All Over the Shop, adv. phr. (common).—1. A phrase applied to any
ubiquitous person, thing or deed.—See Shop.

    1883. G. R. Sims, Lifeboat, etc. (Awful Character). He kills little
    babies all over the shop, each day in a river one thrown is.

2. Disconcerted.

    1887. E. E. Money, Little Dutch Maiden, II., xi., 225. ‘Oh, please
    don’t blush; it makes me feel all over the shop.’


Allow, subs. (Harrow School).—A boy’s weekly allowance.


Allowances, subs. (tailors’).—The extra measure in cutting cloth for a
garment to permit of turnings in for seams; also the trimmings, such as
wadding, buttons, braid, etc. Rather technical than slang.


All Round, adj. (popular).—1. Able in all departments; adaptable in
every respect to the purpose in view. Whether applied to sport,
business, or indeed any department of life or thought, within a given
circle, it carries with it, mutatis mutandis, the same meaning. Cf. All
around sports.

    1881. James Payn, Grape from a Thorn, ch. xl. ‘He’s a bad one all
    round.’

    1883. Graphic, August 11, p. 138, col. 2. Foremost still as an
    ‘all-round’ cricketer among the gentlemen stands W. G. Grace.

2. Average; see quotation.

    1869. Notes on N. W. Prov. India, p. 98. We find an all round rent
    of so much per acre charged on the cultivation.


All-Rounder, subs. (popular). [From all round + er] he who or that
which is all round (q.v.); as an all round man; particularly applied,
however, to a shirt collar the same height all round the neck and
meeting in front. Once fashionable, but little worn now.

    1857. A. Trollope, Three Clerks, ch. xxii. But he had bestowed,
    perhaps, the greatest amount of personal attention on his
    collar.... Some people may think that an all-rounder is an
    all-rounder, and that if one is careful to get an all-rounder one
    has done all that is necessary. But so thought not Macassar Jones.

    1860. All the Year Round, No. 42, 369. That particularly
    demonstrative type of the [collar] species known as the all
    rounder. [M.]

    1865. Lord Strangford, Selection (1869), II., 163. Dressed in full
    uniform, with high stand-up collar; the modern all rounder not
    having got so far into Asia. [M.]

    1875. Chambers’ Journal, No. 586. To present himself in an all
    rounder hat and coat of formal cut on Sunday.


All Round my Hat, adv. phr. (popular).—1. To feel all round one’s hat
is to feel queer; out of sorts; all overish.

2. That’s all round my hat is synonymous with gammon! Nonsense! See All
my eye. A music hall song [1834] had this phrase as a refrain.

3. Spicy as all round my hat, i.e., sensational.

    1882. Punch, vol. LXXXII, p. 177, col. 1. ’Arry on a jewry.

Fact is, I have bin on a Jury. New line for yours truly, dear boy, and
I ’oped it might be a rare barney, a thing as a chap could enjoy. I am
nuts upon Criminal Cases, Perlice News, you know, and all that, And,
thinks I, this will be ‘tuppence coloured,’ and spicy as all round my
hat.


Alls, subs.—1. See All nations.

    1868. Brewer, Phrase and Fable, s.v. alls, tap-droppings. The
    refuse of all sorts of spirits drained from the glasses, or spilt
    in drawing. The mixture is sold in gin-houses at a cheap rate.

2. (artisans’).—See Bens.


All’s Blue.—See Blue.


All Serene! intj. (popular).—All right. All’s well! This phrase is
thought to be of Spanish origin, and to be derived from the word serena
a countersign used by sentinels in Cuba. The night watchmen in Spain
likewise end their proclamation of the hour by ‘é sereno!’ It is also
equivalent to O.K., and a few years since was the burden of one of the
senseless street cries, which, every now and again, have a vogue in
large cities. Most of these catches originate in music-hall songs. All
serene, however, was vulgarly colloquial long before the period in
question, as will be seen by the following example:

    1857. A. Trollope, Three Clerks, ch. xlv. ‘You’re all serene, then,
    Mr. Snape,’ said Charley; ‘you’re in the right bon.’


All Smoke, Gammon and Pickles.—See Smoke.


All Sorts, subs. (common).—Explained by quotation.—See All nations.

    1859. Sala, Gaslight and Daylight, ch. vi. A counter perforated in
    elaborately-pricked patterns, like a convivial shroud, apparently
    for ornament, but really for the purpose of allowing the drainings,
    overflowings, and out-spillings of the gin-glasses to drop through,
    which, being collected with sundry washings, and a dash, perhaps,
    of fresh material, is, by the thrifty landlord, dispensed to his
    customers under the title Of all sorts.


All Sorts of, adj. (American).—First rate; excellent. A phrase very
common in the South and West, and used in many different ways. It
carries with it the idea of smartness and chic, as, e.g., when applied
to a woman, a horse, or a building.


Allspice, subs. (popular).—A nickname for a grocer; the derivation is
obvious.


All’s Quiet on the Potomac, phr. (American).—A period of undisturbed
rest, quiet enjoyment, or peaceful possession; a phrase dating from the
Civil War, when its frequent repetition in the bulletins of the War
Secretary made it familiar to the public, who quickly appropriated it
in a metaphorical sense. It has since formed the refrain of many a
song.

    1862. The Picket Guard.

        All quiet along the Potomac, they say,
          Except now and then a stray picket
        Is shot on his beat as he walks to and fro,
          By a rifleman hid in a thicket.


All T. H., adv. phr. (tailors cutters’).—Said in praise or approval; a
tailor’s equivalent of a 1; all right; all there—of which last it is
possibly an abbreviated form.


All the Caboose, adv. phr.—See Caboose.


All the Go, adv. phr. (common).—One of the innumerable superlatives of
work-a-day English; quite up to the mark; in full demand; ‘no
deception, gents!’—See Go.


All There, adv. phr. (popular).—Up to the mark; first-rate; ready for
any emergency; a phrase of general satisfaction and approval; also, in
one’s element.

    1877. Five Years’ Penal Servitude, ch. iii., p. 220. ‘He stayed in
    a place doing the grand and sucking the flats till the folks began
    to smoke him as not all there.’

    1880. Punch, Aug. 7, p. 59. All there! Clerk (who has called to see
    the gas-meter). ‘Is yours a wet, or a dry meter, madam?’ Young Wife
    (who does not like to show ignorance). ‘Well, it is rather damp,
    I’m afraid!’

    1883. James Payn, Thicker than Water, ch. xx. It was his excusable
    boast, though expressed in somewhat vulgar language, that when
    anything was wanted he was ‘all there.’


All the Shoot.—Equivalent to ‘the whole boiling’ (q.v.).


All the Way Down, adv. phr. (popular).—Synonymous with complete
adaptability to the end in view; sometimes varied by ‘up to the
knocker,’ or ‘up to the nines.’


All to His Own Cheek.—See Cheek.


All to Pieces, adverbial phr. (common).—1. [Cf. Go to pieces.] A
superlative of all work. To go all to pieces is to collapse utterly; to
be altogether ruined; to be in a state of utter collapse.

    1667. Pepys, Diary, Aug. 29. I find by all hands that the Court is
    at this day all to pieces, every man of a faction of one sort or
    other.

    1811. Jane Austen, Sense and S., ch. xxx. ‘Fifty thousand pounds!
    and by all accounts it won’t come before its wanted; for they say
    he is all to pieces. No wonder! dashing about with his curricle and
    hunters!’

    1882. Punch, LXXXII., 185, 2. ‘Ah Jerry, we might as well go back
    to the Shades as be among such a shady crowd.’ Young Bob Logic
    seemed rather nettled at this speech of the Corinthian’s, and said,
    ‘Well, don’t you know you can’t expect a fellow to look very bright
    till he’s had an S. and B., or two and a Kümmel? These pals will be
    all right after dinner.’ ‘Let us hope they will,’ said the
    Corinthian, ‘for they look all to pieces now.’

2. When a woman is confined she is said to go all to pieces; variants
being to explode; to bust up.

3. (rowing).—Collapsed; exhausted; said of a crew when rowing wildly.

    1884. Echo, April 7, p. 3, col. 1. The Oxford men were now all to
    pieces! their boat was full of water.

4. (sporting).—In racing and athletic circles equivalent to want of
form.


All to Smash, adv. phr. (common).—Also ‘all to pieces,’ i.e., bankrupt;
ruined; in a state of utter delapidation; or, complete
discomfiture.—See Smash.

    1861. Cuthbert Bede, Our New Rector, ch. x., p. 105. ‘There isn’t a
    fellow at school can match me, Miss Moore! I beat them all to
    smash!’


All Up, adv. phr. (common).—‘It’s all up’ with so-and-so, or with such
and such a thing, or course of action; i.e., the endeavour is
fruitless; utter ruin or collapse is the end of it all; there is
nothing left for hope; sometimes also, death. This phrase, indicative
of total failure, discomfiture, and destruction, does not appear to be
of very ancient standing, and can only be traced back as far as
Fielding (see quotation). The mock epitaph, which the late Mr. W. J.
Conybeare inserted in his novel Perversion, fitly illustrates the
popular usage of all up. It is supposed to be written in commemoration
of a country squire cut off in the midst of festivities.

    ‘Quite well at ten,
      Had a few friends to sup with me;
    Taken ill at twelve,
      And at one it was all up with me.’

Also Up.

Among English Synonyms may be mentioned:—To have missed stays
(nautical); to have gone to pot; to have gone to smash; to have gone to
the devil.

    1752. Fielding, Amelia, book XII., ch. vi. ‘All is up and undone!’
    cries Murphy.

    1838. Dickens, Nicholas Nickleby, ch. lx. A-double l, all,
    everything; a cobbler’s weapon; u-p, up, adjective, not down;
    s-q-u-double e-r-s, Squeers, noun substantive, a educator of youth.
    Total, all up with Squeers.


Allus, adv. (vulgar).—Always.


All Wag Blue, subs. phr. (American).—A frolicing, rollicking time; a
spree; a kick-up.


Allybeg.—See Llybege.


Almighty, adj. (common).—Mighty; great; exceedingly—a superlative of
all work. For example, in the ‘dialect’ of which this word is a
component part, an over-officious man is put down as ‘almighty fast’;
or a horse with good points as an ‘almighty fine beast’; and so on
throughout the whole range of superlative merit. It ranks with ‘awful,’
‘eternal,’ ‘everlasting,’ ‘lovely,’ and a multitude of other words,
orthodox enough when properly handled, but which become the purest
slang when used, as is frequently the case, of things finite, and even
of trifles. So employed, almighty is generally regarded as an
Americanism, and is credited to our kinsmen across the sea, a view
supported by De Quincey’s use of the term. If this be so, there is, in
truth, little at which to wonder. The ‘wild,’ the boundless West is no
unlikely nursery for big, high-sounding words; and though one may
justly condemn such depravation of our mother-tongue, the fact remains.
Thus, amongst the untutored backwoodsmen and rough pioneers of the West
a week is an ‘eternal’ time; a good officer is an almighty general; and
a spell of rain is spoken of as an ‘everlasting’ deluge. The foregoing
examples by no means exhaust the potentialities of the language; as,
e.g., when people talk of a man playing almighty ‘smash’ with his
prospects, meaning that he is hopelessly ruining his chances of
success: or driving a fellow-citizen into a state of almighty ‘shivers’
through ill-treatment; or of a thing lasting till almighty ‘crack,’
i.e., for an interminable period.

    1824. De Quincey, Works (1871), XVI., 261. Such rubbish, such
    almighty nonsense (to speak transatlantice) no eye has ever beheld.

    1833. Marryat, Peter Simple (1863), 328. An almighty pretty French
    privateer lying in St. Pierre’s.

    1888. New York Mercury, July 21. ‘This is a rum world,’ said the
    driver, with a chuckle, as he drove up the street. ‘And of all
    places in it New York is the rummest. And hack-drivin’ is the
    rummest business, leadin’ one into the rummest secrets. Another
    passenger to the “Rookery.” I wonder whether the other boys gits as
    many customers to that place as Luke Hyatt? If they do it must be
    almighty full sometimes.’

In another place De Quincey speaks of a man who cannot live and cannot
die as being ‘in an almighty fix,’ and the expression is otherwise
frequently used by him. Captain Marryat likewise constantly employs it;
in fact, the phrase was well ‘acclimatised’ on this side of the
Atlantic long prior to the publication of My Novel [1853], and Prof.
Barrère, in attributing its popularisation ‘in a certain measure’ to
Lord Lytton, failed to render due credit, if any, either to De Quincey
or Marryat.


Almighty Dollar, subs. (American).—The power of money; Mammon regarded
as an embodiment of the worship of, and the quest for gold. This phrase
is, in reality, an old friend with a new face, for Ben Jonson used the
term in its modern sense when speaking of the power of money. Its
modern application to dollars is traceable to Washington Irving, who
made use of it in a charming little sketch, entitled A Creole Village.

    1574–1637. Ben Jonson, Epistle to Elizabeth, Countess of Rutland.

        Whilst that for which all virtue now is sold,
        And almost every vice, almightie gold.

    1839. Washington Irving, Wolfert’s Roost: A Creole Village, p. 40.
    The almighty dollar, that great object of universal devotion
    throughout our land, seems to have no genuine devotee in these
    peculiar villages.

    1876. Besant and Rice, Golden Butterfly, ch. xxii. ‘Genius,
    gentlemen, is apt to be careless of the main chance. It don’t care
    for the almighty dollar; it lets fellows like me heap up the
    stamps.’

    1886. G. Sutherland, Australia, p. 102. The travelling Yankee, with
    an overwearing confidence in the almighty dollar.


Aloft. To go aloft, verb. phr. (common).—To die; the figure of speech
presented here is nautical in origin.

    1790. C. Dibdin, Sea Songs: Tom Bowling.

        Here a sheer hulk, lies poor Tom Bowling,
          The darling of our crew;
        No more he’ll hear the tempest howling,
          For death has broached him to.
        His form was of the manliest beauty,
          His heart was kind and soft;
        Faithful below, Tom did his duty,
          And now he’s gone aloft.

Few expressions synonymous with the act of dying equal this in force or
pathos; and it is rarely, moreover, that slang climbs on the wings of
hope into a purer atmosphere than that of the vices and follies of men
with which it is mainly concerned. By no means few in number, nor
wanting in sententiousness and dramatic meaning are the phrases
employed in the vulgar tongue to signify the greatest of all human
experiences.

English Synonyms. To kick the bucket; to hop the twig; to go to Davy
Jones’ locker (nautical); to be put to bed with a shovel; to take an
earth bath; to croak; to take a ground sweat; to go under (American:
the visible disposal of the body furnishing a simile for the process of
death); to go up (compare with foregoing: when the victim of lynch law
is enquired after the questioner is told that he has ‘gone up,’ i.e.,
been hanged); to lose the number of one’s mess (a sailor’s phrase); to
snuff it (from snuffing a candle); to lay down one’s knife and fork; to
stick one’s spoon in the wall; to give in; to give up; to peg out; to
slip one’s cable (this, like ‘to go to Davy Jones’ locker,’ is of
nautical origin); to pass in one’s checks (a euphemism drawn from the
game of poker, the simile being that of settling one’s earthly accounts
and the paying in to the banker of the dues at the end of the game);
Kickeraboo (West Indian: a corruption of ‘to kick the bucket’).

French. Passer l’arme à gauche (popular: ‘to lay down one’s arms’);
casser sa pipe (lit. ‘to break one’s pipe’); dévisser or décoller son
billard (lit. ‘to break one’s cue’); graisser ses bottes (lit. ‘to
grease one’s boots’); avaler sa langue (lit. ‘to swallow one’s
tongue’); avaler sa gaffe (‘to lower one’s boat-hook’); avaler sa
cuiller (lit. ‘to lay down one’s spoon’); avaler ses baguettes
(military: lit. ‘to lay aside one’s drum-sticks’); n’avoir plus mal aux
dents (lit. ‘to have toothache no more.’ In Fr. Argot mal de dents is
also synonymous with love); poser sa chique (popular: lit. ‘to lay down
one’s finish, elegance, dash, spirit’—in short all that is distinctive
in a man); claquer (familiar: lit. ‘to chatter with cold’ or ‘fear’);
saluer le public (theat.: lit. ‘to make one’s bow’—to make one’s last
appearance on this world’s stage, and one’s first in that land where
‘the dead are many, and the living few’); recevoir son décompte
(military: lit. ‘to receive deferred pay’; décompte is also military
slang for a ‘mortal wound’); cracher ses embouchures (an expression of
musical origin: the figure is obviously that of losing the power to
perform on wind instruments); déteindre (popular: lit. ‘to wash off the
colour’ or ‘dye.’ Is this a play upon words, or an allusion to death as
the great revealer of man as he is?); donner son dernier bon à tirer
(familiar: equivalent to the American, ‘to pass in one’s checks.’
French printers understand by this phrase ‘to send the last proofs to
press’); lâcher la perche (popular: lit. ‘to slip off one’s perch’);
éteindre son gaz (popular: ‘to turn off the gas.’ Cf., ‘to snuff it’);
épointer son foret (popular: lit. ‘to break off the point of the
drill,’ as in boring); être exproprié (popular: lit. ‘to be
dispossessed’; exproprier is a judicial term signifying ‘to take
possession of the landed property of a debtor’); péter son lof
(sailors’); fumer ses terres; fermer son parapluie (popular: ‘to close
one’s umbrella’); perdre son bâton (popular: ‘to lose one’s walking
stick’); descendre la garde (popular: ‘to come off guard’); défiler la
parade (military: ‘to file off parade’; equivalent to the English ‘to
lose the number of one’s mess’); tourner de l’œil (popular: is there
not here an allusion to the phenomenon attendant on genuine sleep;
feigned sleep can always be detected by turning up the eyelids of the
sleeper, if sleep be genuine only the ‘whites’ of the eyes will be
discoverable); perdre le goût du pain (popular: ‘to lose one’s taste
for bread’); lâcher la rampe (theatrical: ‘to lose sight of the
footlights’); faire ses petits paquets (popular: ‘to pack up one’s
[small] traps’); casser son crachoir (popular: lit. ‘to break one’s
spittoon’ or mouth); remercier son boulanger (thieves’: lit. ‘to thank
the baker.’ It must be explained that boulanger baker is a French
nickname for the devil); canner; dévider à l’estorgue (thieves’);
baiser la camarde (popular: ‘to salute,’ or ‘kiss Death’; camarde is a
popular euphemism for the ‘Messenger of Life’); camarder (popular: see
previous example); fuir (thieves’: lit. ‘to fly’ or ‘escape’—from
justice or capture); casser son câble (popular: ‘to slip the
cable’—evidently a simile drawn from the sea); casser son fouet
(popular: ‘to break’ or ‘lay aside one’s whip’); faire sa crevaison
(popular: crever, ‘to kill’ or ‘die’ is usually only employed in
speaking of animals); déralinguer (sailors’: properly ‘to detach from
the bolt rope’); virer de bord (sailors’: lit. ‘to tack about’);
déchirer son faux-col (popular: verbatim, ‘to burst open one’s
collar’—the allusion is obvious); se dégeler (in good French, ‘to
thaw’); couper sa mèche (coachman’s: ‘to throw down the whip’); piquer
sa plaque (sailors’); mettre la table pour les asticots (popular:
properly ‘to lay the table [become food] for worms’); aller manger les
pissenlits par la racine (popular: ‘to go and feed off dandelion
roots’—observe, by the way, that pissenlit is an exact equivalent for
one of the English field names of the dandelion, viz.,
‘piddle-the-bed’); laisser fuir son tonneau (familiar: lit. ‘to let
fly’ or ‘kick away the cask.’ Cf., ‘to kick the bucket’); calancher
(vagrants’); laisser ses bottes quelque part (familiar: lit. ‘to leave
one’s boots somewhere’); déchirer son habit (popular: properly ‘to
rend’ or ‘cast aside one’s coat’); déchirer son tablier (popular: in
literary French this means, ‘to throw aside or destroy one’s apron’);
souffler sa veilleuse (popular: meaning lit. ‘to blow out one’s
nightlamp’ or ‘floating wick.’ Compare with ‘to snuff it’ or ‘to put
out one’s light’ in English slang); pousser le boum de cygne (popular);
avoir son coke (familiar); prendre sa secousse (popular: i.e., ‘to take
one’s blow’ or ‘shock’); rendre sa buche (tailors’: the allusion is an
obvious one); rendre sa canne au ministre (military: lit. ‘to resign
one’s commission to the Minister [of War]’); rendre sa clef (gypsy:
lit. ‘to give up the key’); rendre son livret (popular: lit. ‘to throw
up one’s cards’).

German Synonyms. See Hop the twig.

Italian Fourbesque. Sbasire (lit. ‘to faint away’); sbasire su le funi
(lit. ‘to faint away on the rope’).


Alone, adv. (old).—In the flash vocabulary of the time of Pierce Egan’s
Tom and Jerry [circa 1800–1825], only an experienced man of the world
could be allowed to go alone. Such a one was said to be fly; up to
snuff (q.v.), etc.


Along Of, adv. (vulgar).—A dialectical form for on account of; owing
to; pertaining, or belonging to. Formerly along on, and it so appeared
as early as A.D. 880: along of was used by Chaucer, but it is now
mainly confined to the illiterate or vulgar.

    1369. Chaucer, Troylus ii., 1001. On me is not along thin evil
    fare.

    1581. W. Stafford, Exam. of Complaints, p. 16 (New Shaks. Soc.:
    Ed.). Complaining of general poverty, he says: ‘Whereof it is
    longe, I cannot well tell.’

    1601. Holland, Pliny, p. 25, quoted in Morris’ Elem. Hist. Eng.
    Gram., p. 198. And that is long of contrarie causes.

    1858. Dickens, Xmas. Stories (going into Society), p. 65 (II. ed.).
    Would he object to say why he left it? Not at all; why should he?
    He left it along of a dwarf.

    1881. W. Black, Beautiful Wretch, ch. xviii. ‘Mayhap the concert
    didn’t come off, along of the snow.’


Alsatia, or Alsatia the Higher, subs. (old slang).—1. Whitefriars, once
a place privileged from arrests for debt, as was also Alsatia the
lower, or the Mint in Southwark. Both were suppressed, in 1697, on
account of the notorious abuses committed there. A charter of liberties
and privileges had been granted, in 1608, by King James I. to the
inhabitants of this district, and it speedily became the haunt of
insolvent debtors, cheats, and gamesters, who conferred upon it the
jocular cant name of Alsatia, a Latinised form of Alsace, a province
which had long enjoyed the reputation of a ‘debateable land.’

    1688. Shadwell, Sq. of Alsatia I., in wks. (1720), IV., 25. Who are
    these? Some inhabitants of White-fryers; some bullies of Alsatia.

    1822. Scott, Fortunes of Nigel, ch. xvi. Whitefriars, adjacent to
    the Temple, then well known by the cant name of Alsatia.

2. Hence any rendezvous or asylum for loose characters and criminals,
where immunity from arrest is tolerably certain; a haunt of thieves,
and the criminal classes; a low quarter.

    1787. Grose, Prov. Glossary, etc. (1811), p. 82. A ’squire of
    Alsatia. A spendthrift or sharper, inhabiting places formerly
    privileged from arrests.

    1861. Miss Braddon, Trail of the Serpent, bk. II., ch. i. So Blind
    Peter was the Alsatia of Slopperton, a refuge for crime and
    destitution.

    1876. Lord Justice James, in ex parte Saffery re Cooke, Law Times,
    35, p. 718. The Stock Exchange is not an Alsatia; the Queen’s laws
    are paramount there, and the Queen’s writ runs even into the sacred
    precincts of Capel-Court.


Alsatian, subs. (old).—A rogue, or debauchee, such as haunted Alsatia
or Whitefriars.

    1691. Luttrell, Brief Rel. (1857), II., 259. The benchers of the
    Inner Temple having given orders for bricking up their little gate
    leading into White-fryers ... the Alsatians came and pulled it
    down.

    c. 1700. Gentleman Instructed, p. 491 [10 ed., 1732]. He spurr’d to
    London, and left a thousand curses behind him. Here he struck up
    with sharpers, scourers, and Alsatians.

    1822. Scott, Fortunes of Nigel, ch. xvii. ‘You shall sink a
    nobleman in the Temple Gardens, and rise an Alsatian at
    Whitefriars.’

Adj.—Pertaining to Alsatia; roguish; debauched.

    1688. Shadwell, Sq. of Alsatia I. in wks. (1720), IV., 27. He came
    out of White Fryers: he’s some Alsatian bully.

    1822. Scott, Fortunes of Nigel, ch. xvii. An extravagantly long
    rapier and poinard marked the true Alsatian bully.

    1882. Besant, All Sorts and Conditions of Men, ch. vii. The road
    has come to be regarded with admiration as one of those Alsatian
    retreats, growing every day rarer, which are beyond and above the
    law.


Alsatia Phrase, subs. (old).—A slang or cant term, such as was used by
Alsatians; or, now-a-days, by thieves and vagrants.

    1704. Swift, Tale of a Tub. Apology for author. The second instance
    to shew the author’s wit is not his own, is Peter’s banter (as he
    calls it in his Alsatia phrase) upon transubstantiation.

Synonymous terms were Pedler’s French, St. Giles’ Greek, etc.


Altamel, Altemal, subs., adj., adv., and intj. (American thieves’).—

Adv.—All together, as ‘Let’s anchor altemal,’ i.e., ‘Let us come to a
stop altogether.’

Subs.—The sum total of a bill or story.

Intj.—An injunction to ‘cut it short.’

Altemal is said to be derived from the Dutch altemal, but Murray has it
as ‘altumal’ with a different derivation. [From L. altum, the deep,
i.e., the sea + al.] Grose leans to the former and quotes Dutch
reckoning as synonymous; from a verbal account without particulars,
such as was given in brothels and sponging houses—accounts which
allowed of no sort of verification. Cf., Flemish account and remarks
under Dutch.

    1711. Medleys, 29 Jan. (1712), 186. His altumal cant, a mark of his
    poor Traffick and Tar-Education.

    1758. Chambers, Cycl. Supp. Altumal, a term used to denote the
    mercantile style, or dialect. In this sense, we meet with altumal
    cant, to denote the language of petty traders and tars.


Altering the Jeff’s Click.—See Jeff’s click.


Altham, subs. (old cant).—A wife; mistress.—See quotation.

    1560. John Awdeley, Fraternitye of Vacabondes (1869. English
    Dialect Society’s Reprint), p. 4. A curtall is much like to the
    Vpright man, but hys authority is not fully so great. He vseth
    commonly to go with a short cloke, like to grey Friers, and his
    woman with him in like liuery, which he calleth his altham if she
    be hys.


Altitudes. In his altitudes, phr. (old).—In an elevated mood, chiefly
from liquor; putting on airs and graces; using lofty phrases; in a
state of excitement; and, in a special slang sense, drunk. The phrase
has been incorrectly given as ‘out of his altitudes.’ The first trace
of it is to be found in Beaumont and Fletcher’s Laws of Candy, II.
[1616].

    1630. Jonson, New Inn, I. I have talked somewhat above my share, at
    large, and been in the altitudes, the extravagants.

    1668. Dryden, An Evening’s Love, Act iii. If we men could but learn
    to value ourselves, we should soon take down our mistresses from
    all their altitudes, and make them dance after our pipes.

    1705. Vanbrugh, Confederacy, Act v. Clar. ‘Who makes thee cry out
    thus, poor Brass?’ Brass. ‘Why, your husband, madam; he’s in his
    altitudes here.’

    1785. Francis Grose, Dictionary of the Vulgar Tongue. The man is in
    his altitudes, i.e., he is drunk.


Altocad, subs. (Win. Coll.).—A somewhat venerable paid member of the
choir who takes alto.


Alybbeg.—See Lybbege.


Alycompaine.—See Allacompain.


Ambassador, subs. (nautical).—A sailor’s practical joke upon ‘green’
hands, similar to the festivities formerly universally observed when
‘crossing the line.’ These tricks have been common to sailors of every
nation. Ambassador was thus managed:—A large tub was filled with water,
two stools being placed on either side of it; over the whole was thrown
a tarpaulin or old sail, kept tight by two persons, who represented the
king and queen of a foreign country, and who were seated on the stools.
To the victim was allotted the part of ambassador, who, after repeating
a ridiculous speech dictated to him, was led in great state up to the
throne, and seated between the king and queen. They rising suddenly, as
soon as the unsuspecting victim was seated, caused him to fall backward
into the tub of water.


Ambassador of Commerce, subs. (familiar).—A commercial traveller; a
bagman (q.v.).


Ambia, subs. (American).—A euphemism for the juice of tobacco, as
expectorated after chewing. Most frequently heard in the Southern and
Western States. Apparently a corruption of ‘amber’ (indeed it is
commonly spelt and pronounced ambeer)—presumably from a similarity in
colour between expectorated tobacco saliva and the mineralised resinous
product.


Ambidexter, also in 17th century, Ambodexter, subs. and adj. (old
slang).—[From ambo, both + dexter, the right hand, i.e., the faculty of
using both hands as right hands, or equally well.] Applied first in a
slang sense to a lawyer taking fees or bribes from both plaintiff and
defendant, ambidexter gradually became identified with double-dealing
of all kinds.

    1532. Use of Dice Play (1850), 17. Any affinity with our men of
    law? Never with those that be honest. Marry! with such as be
    ambidexters, and used to play in both the hands. [M.]

    1555. Ridley, Works, 27. They may be called neutrals, ambidexters,
    or rather such as can shift on both sides. [M.]

    1691. Blount, Law Dictionary. Ambidexter.... That Juror or
    Embraceor who takes Money on both sides, for giving his Verdict.

    1703. De Foe, Ref. Manners, 93. Those ambodexters in Religion, who
    Can any thing dispute, yet any thing can do.

    1864. Sir F. Palgrave, Norman and Eng. III., 278. An ambidexter,
    owing fealty to both Counts, and not faithful to either.


Ambush, subs. (American thieves’).—Fraudulent weights and measures. A
punning allusion to the accepted meaning of the word—to lie in wait
(lying weight). In juxtaposition to this may be placed the Fourbesque
(Italian thieves’ argot); giusta, a pair of scales, a balance, which in
Italian literally means ‘correct.’ Cf., French thieves’ argot, juste
(an abbreviation of justice), for the assizes; also the Spanish
Germania justia, in a similar sense, the last-named being a shortened
form of the Spanish justicia.


Amen Curler, subs. (old slang).—The name formerly given to a parish
clerk. In the army the chaplain’s clerk is called an amen wallah
(q.v.).


Amener, subs. (old).—A nickname given to one who agrees to everything
said or done. [From that sense of amen = to ratify solemnly + er.]


Amen-Snorter, subs. (Australian).—A parson; from which it will be
observed that the fifth continent is evolving words and phrases as
peculiar to itself as America has already done. For synonyms, see Devil
dodger.

    1888. Bulletin, Nov. 24. In Maori-land it is impossible to swing
    any kind of cat without smiting some variety of amen-snorter. Still
    the saints are not happy. They have just held at Wellington a
    ‘United Ker-ristian Conference’ to ruminate on the sinfulness of
    things and the scarcity of the unsanctified threepenny. A Rev.
    vessel, one Potter, opined that the meagre quantity and inferior
    quality of family devotion accounted for the depleted condition of
    the ‘treasury of the Loard,’ and suggested that steps should be
    taken ‘to find out what families omit this important duty.’ Since
    which all the dead-beats and suspected hen-snatchers plead when
    before the Binch that they were ‘only mouching round to find out
    whether the family neglected its religious dooties, yer washup.’


Amen Wallah, subs. (military).—A chaplain’s clerk; the allusion is
sufficiently obvious. ‘Wallah’ is Hindustani for ‘man’ or person. Cf.,
the old English slang, amen curler (q.v.).


Amerace, adv. (American thieves’).—Jargon signifying near at hand;
within call.


American Shoulders, subs. (tailors’).—A particular ‘cut,’ in which the
shoulders of a coat are so shaped as to give the wearer a broad and
burly appearance. This is usually done where a man’s shoulders are of
the champagne (q.v.) order, i.e., like the neck of a wine bottle, with
nothing upon which the garment in question can be hung.


American Tweezers, subs. (thieves’).—An ingenious instrument of
American invention, by means of which it is possible to turn a key in a
door and unlock it from the outside.


Ames Ace, Ambs-Ace, or Ambes-Ace. Within ames ace, subs. phr. (old).—1.
Nearly; very near; ambs-ace was the double ace, the lowest throw at
dice. Hence also

2. Bad luck; misfortune. The expression, according to Murray, dates
back to A.D. 1297.


Aminidab, subs. (old).—A jeering name for a Quaker.—Grose.


Ammunition, subs. (common).—Paper for use at the cabinet d’aisance.
Also called curl papers (q.v.).


Ammunition Leg, subs. (military).—A wooden leg. From the attributive
use of ‘ammunition’ as applied to stores supplied to soldiers for
equipment or rations. To show the length to which this application of
the word has been carried, it may be noted that Robertson, in 1693,
speaks of ‘an ammunition whore.’—scortum castrense.


Amort, adv. and pred. adj. (old).—Usually all amort, an antithetical
phrase to all alive (q.v.), and meaning half dead; in a state of
stupor; without spirit; sometimes used as a synonym of balmy, cracked,
dotty, all of which see. A-la-mort, from the French, is regarded as the
original form, though it is doubtful which took precedence in literary
English. At one time both forms were quite naturalised; they are now of
interest as affording an instance of words, gradually lapsing into
slang or vulgar usage, and then coming to be regarded as Anglo-French
phrases. American thieves still retain them, to signify struck dumb, or
confounded; in these senses they are given by Grose in his Dictionary
of the Vulgar Tongue [1787], which would seem to show they had already
commenced their downward career.


Ampersand, subs. (familiar).—The breech; or posteriors. [From Eng. and
+ Latin per se, by itself, + Eng. and; literally, ‘and by itself and’
used to distinguish the character ‘&,’ which in old nursery books came
at the end of the alphabet. Hence, employed to signify the hinder
parts.] The word in its slang sense is quite a recent introduction,
said to be of American origin. For synonyms, see Blind cheeks.


Amputate. To amputate one’s mahogany or timber (familiar).—To be off;
to begone—the idea being that of quick or violent motion, often, though
not always, the result of moral or physical force. [Probably from that
sense of amputate equivalent to ‘cut off’ or ‘away.’ Cf., ‘cut,’ a
slang synonym.] A welcher is called a timber-merchant, because he
removes himself, or ‘cuts his stick’ with celerity as occasion
requires. Both the English and French have many synonymous words and
phrases to express the same idea. Among the more popular may be
mentioned:—

English Synonyms. To skedaddle (an American term); to cut one’s lucky;
to sling, or take one’s hook; to mizzle; to absquatulate; to pad the
hoof; to give leg bail; to bolt; to cut and run; to chivey; to walk the
trotters; to slip one’s cable; to step it; to leg it; to tip the
double; to make, or take tracks; to hook it; to make beef (thieves’
term); to slope; to cut the cable and run before the wind (obviously a
sailor’s phrase); to slip it; to abskize; to paddle; to guy (used by
thieves); to evaporate; to vamoose (American, from the Spanish
imperative vamos, let us go); to speele (used by thieves); to skip; to
tip one’s rags a gallop; to walk one’s chalks; to pike; to hop the
twig; to turn it up; to cap one’s lucky (a phrase mainly confined to
American thieves); to crush; to cut dirt; to bunk; to pike it; to stir
one’s stumps.

French. Faire or jouer la fille de l’air (lit. ‘to go like the wind,’
fille de l’air, daughter of air, being a poetical embodiment); faire le
lézard (a thief’s term, and meaning properly ‘to imitate a lizard,’ an
allusion to swiftness of motion); faire le jat-jat; faire la paire
(lit. ‘to go double,’ Cf., ‘to tip the double’); faire gille (a very
old French phrase; it means also to become bankrupt. The connection
between bankruptcy and decamping is obvious); se déguiser en cerf
(popular: lit. ‘to play the stag’); s’évanouir (popular: lit. ‘to
vanish’ or ‘fade away’); se cramper or tirer sa crampe (cramper is a
popular term for rapid flight, and contains an allusion to the cramp or
nervous contraction sometimes caused by violent motion. Old French had
the verb crampir in the sense of ‘to bend’ or ‘double up.’ Tirer sa
crampe is lit. ‘to get cramped’); se lâcher du ballon (popular: ‘to let
loose the balloon,’ an allusion to the rapidity with which a balloon
shoots up into the air when set free); se la couler (exactly equivalent
to the English slang ‘to slip it’); se donner de l’air (popular: Cf.,
faire la fille de l’air); se pousser du zeph (popular: properly ‘to
push forward with the wind.’ Zeph is a contraction of zephir); se
sylphider (popular: from sylphide, a sylph; a reference to what in
English racing terminology would be termed the ‘light-weight’ character
of such creatures enabling them to get over the ground quickly); se
faire la débinette; jouer des fourchettes (popular: ‘to put one’s forks
into play’); fourchettes (in French argot = legs or ‘pins’); se la
donner (Michel says la here refers to ‘la clef des champs,’ an
expression synonymous with ‘liberty’ or ‘freedom’); se la briser
(popular); ramasser un bidon (thieves’); se la casser (popular); se la
tirer; tirer ses granches; valser (lit. to dance); se tirer les
pincettes (popular: lit. ‘to pull along’ or to extricate ‘one’s tongs’
or ‘nippers.’ Cf., English ‘nip along’); se tirer les baladoires; se
tirer les pattes (lit. ‘to move one’s paws’); se tirer les trimoires
(thieves’: trimoires is a cant term for legs, and trimer signifies
painful progression, or doing most of a journey on foot); se tirer les
flûtes (popular: les flûtes = ‘shanks’ or ‘pegs’); jouer des guibes
(guibe is a popular term for the leg, chiefly employed in burlesque);
jouer des quilles (this expression is very old. Quilles properly
signifies ‘crutches,’ and is popularly employed for the legs); se
carapater (lit. ‘to run on one’s paws.’ Cf., ‘to take to one’s heels’);
se barrer (lit. ‘to dash over’); baudrouiller (thieves’: this has the
signification of ‘to whip up’); se cavaler (thieves’: cavaler was once
synonymous with chevaucher; therefore, se cavaler signifies in reality,
‘to go on horseback on oneself,’ in which connection it may be compared
with ‘shanks’ mare,’ the ‘marrow-bone stage’ [the Marylebone stage], or
the German Schuhster’s Rappen, the shoemaker’s black horses, i.e., the
shoes. Se cavaler likewise has reference to running away with the tail
between the legs when fright has seized hold of an animal, and as
employed by thieves conveys the idea of cowardice as well as that of
locomotion); faire une cavale or se payer une cavale (popular: Cf., se
cavaler); jouer des or se tirer les paturons (popular and thieves’:
this may be translated ‘to pad the hoof.’ Paturons is properly the
‘pasterns.’ The frequent use of se tirer in connection with the idea of
moving from place to place with a celerity which is oftentimes
accentuated by a fear of arrest or unwelcome obstruction is extremely
fitting. Se tirer means literally to extricate oneself; to get through;
to pull oneself forward—extra endeavour resulting in rapid
progression); happer le taillis (thieves’: lit. ‘to catch, lay hold of’
or ‘gain the copse’; i.e., a place of concealment); flasquer du poivre
à quelqu’un or la rousse (thieves’: Cf., Amuse; ‘to fly from the
police’; lit. ‘to shake the pepper box in the eyes of the police’;
rousse is a cant term for a guardian of the peace); décaniller
(thieves’: this word, derived from canille, a French provincialism for
chenille, a caterpillar, is an allusion to the metamorphosis of the
grub into a butterfly when it takes unto itself wings); décarrer
(thieves’: to leave prison; décarrer de belle, to be released from
prison without having been tried); exhiber son prussien (popular:
prussien is a common colloquialism for the posteriors, and the phrase
literally means ‘to show one’s behind,’ or ‘turn tail.’ It may be worth
while remarking that the term prussien as applied to the breech is no
vulgar expression of contempt towards the Prussians. The word is
derived, says Michel, from the gypsy prusiatiñi, which Borrow
translates by pistol. Formerly the French called ‘the behind’ by the
name of a Parisian church, Saint-Jean le Rond); démurger (thieves’: to
leave a place; to be set at liberty); désarrer (thieves’: ‘to guy’; to
make beef); gagner les gigoteaux (also gagner au trot, au pied, gagner
le camp, la colline, le taillis, la guérite, etc.); se faire une paire
de mains courantes à la mode (thieves’); fendre l’ergot (lit. ‘to split
the spur,’ an allusion to the toes being pressed to the ground, and
thus naturally parted); filer son nœud, or son cable (sailors’ and
popular: lit. ‘to cut the ropes’ or ‘cable’); se défiler (popular, but
derived from the military term, signifying to go off parade: might be
translated ‘to leg it’); s’écar-bouiller (popular: properly ‘to crush’;
compare with the English synonym ‘crush’); esballonner (popular); filer
son cable par le bout (sailors’); faire chibis (thieves’: ‘to escape
from prison’); déraper (common); fouiner (popular: this is, in reality,
no more slang than the English ‘to sneak away’); se la fracturer
(popular: properly a surgical term, meaning ‘to fracture’); jouer des
gambettes (popular: may be translated ‘to leg it’; ‘to stir one’s
stumps’; gambettes is from the old French gambe, a leg); s’esbigner
(popular: properly ‘to give the slip’); ramoner ses tuyaux (popular:
lit. ‘to sweep one’s chimney’; ramoner, in its primary cant
signification of ‘to mutter’ or ‘to mumble,’ is an allusion to the
rumbling noise produced by sweeping a chimney. Se faire ramoner is ‘to
go to confession,’ or ‘to take a purgative’—the one a moral, and the
other a physical cleansing. Hence ramoner ses tuyaux, ‘to run away,’ in
reference to the speedy locomotion consequent upon the process of
purging); foutre le camp (popular: equivalent to ‘hook it’; a coarse
expression); tirer le chausson (popular); se vanner (thieves: Michel
derives this from the Italian vannare, ‘to flap the wings,’ but another
authority refers it to the motions of the body and arms of a winnower;
the word in literary French signifying ‘to sift’ or ‘to winnow.’ Others
trace it to the old French vanoyer, ‘to disappear.’ In all cases,
however, it would seem to be equivalent to the English ‘come shake
yourself! be off!’); ambier (thieves’); chier du poivre (popular: ‘to
abscond,’ or ‘to fail to be at hand when needed’); se débiner, or se
débiner des fumerons (popular: ‘to stir one’s stumps’); caleter
(popular); attacher une gamelle (popular and thieves’); camper (low);
affuter ses pincettes (thieves’: lit. ‘to sharpen the pins’ or ‘to leg
it’); and many others.

German Synonyms. Abbaschen (from paschen, ‘to smuggle’); abbauen
(literally ‘to remove, or finish’ [a building]); abfocken; abhalchen
(from Hebrew holach, ‘to go’); schefften; abschnurren (a
beggar-musicians’ term; also to beg through a lane, town, or district.
[M.H.G., snurren, schnurren, schnurrant]); abtarchenen; abtippeln (to
run away secretly); alchen (from Hebrew holach, ‘to go’); aschween
(Hanoverian: according to Thiele hascheweine—probably corrupted from
schuw; heschiw, ‘to turn round’); blättern (corrupted from
plettern—Hebrew pleto); caball (from Latin caballus, ‘a horse’; hence,
to fly quickly as if on horseback); dippeln (a Viennese thieves’ term)
fucken or focken.

Italian Fourbesque. Sbignare or svignare (these words though given as
cant by the author of the Nuovo Modo are now received words); comprare
(lit. ‘to buy’); comprar viole; allungare il muro (lit. ‘to lengthen
the wall’); balzare (lit. ‘to caper,’ ‘to skip,’ ‘to bounce’); batter
la calcosa (lit. ‘to beat the earth.’ Cf., American ‘to cut dirt’);
dare a lata; scoscare.

Spanish Germania. Piñarse (an old and now obsolete term); alar; alarse;
alolargo (lit. ‘at large’); picar (lit. ‘to use the spurs’); safarse
(lit. ‘to escape’ or ‘save oneself’ [from arrest]).


Amuse, verb. (old cant).—To fling dust or snuff in the eyes of a person
intended to be robbed. Also, to invent some plausible tale, to delude
shop-keepers and others, thereby to put them off their guard, and so to
obtain an opportunity of robbing them.


Amusers, subs. (old cant and American thieves’).—A certain class of
thieves’ accomplices who throw snuff, pepper, and other noxious
substances in the eyes of the person they intend to rob, a confederate
then, while apparently coming to the rescue, completing the operation.
In this, as in much of the slang of the criminal classes, there runs a
vein of brutal cynicism. Though obsolete in England the term survives
in America amongst the criminal classes.


Anabaptist, subs. (old slang).—A pickpocket caught in the act, and
punished with the discipline of the pump or horse-pond.—Grose.


Anchor. To come to an anchor, verb. phr. (nautical and common).—To
stop; to sit down; to rest. [From the operation of bringing ships to a
standstill by casting anchor.]


Anchorage, subs. (common).—An abode; where one dwells. Of nautical
origin (see Anchor). For synonyms, see Diggings.


Ancient Mariners, subs. (Univ. Oxford).—A term applied to rowing dons.


And Don’t You Forget It, phr. (American).—A senseless string of words
employed indiscriminately in season and out of season. Like ‘Who’s your
hatter?’ ‘How’s your poor feet?’ ‘Not for Joe!’ ‘Does your mother know
you’re out?’ ‘What! again! so soon?’ and many others, which every now
and then have caught the ‘fancy’ of the streets of our large towns, the
phrase under consideration has run an almost riotous course through the
large centres of population in America. In most cases these strings of
words convey no special idea, and can only be described as utterly
vulgar, without the slightest scintillation of wit or humour of any
kind.

    1888. Boston Weekly Globe, Feb. 29. There can be no two opposing
    opinions in that respect. Great capital demands dividends.
    Dividends can be had only from a prosperous business. A prosperous
    business must recognise the law of supply and demand, and if the
    public demand dirt the newspapers will furnish dirt—and don’t you
    forget it.

    1888. Detroit Free Press, Oct. 6. ‘Did you see any Quakers in
    Philadelphia?’ was asked of a Detroiter who lately returned from
    that city.

    ‘Only one that I was sure of.’

    ‘Did he ‘thee’ and ‘thou’ you?’

    ‘He did. He got down off his hack and said: ‘If thee don’t pay me
    2 dols. I’ll knock thy blamed head off,’ and I paid, although I
    knew the regular fare was twelve shillings. You don’t want to fool
    with those Quakers any, and don’t you forget it.’


And He Didn’t, phr. (tailors’).—A phrase of the all my eye (q.v.)
stamp, i.e., ‘You tell me you have not; but for all that I think you
have’—the action referred to being generally of a discreditable
character.


And No Mogue? phr. (tailors’).—Used in a variety of ways to signify
doubt and uncertainty. It is equivalent to the street gamin’s ‘no kid?’
when used interrogatively, i.e., ‘there’s no mistake, is there?’ ‘Now,
joking apart?’ Also used as a ‘set down’ to narrators claiming descent
from Baron Munchausen, in which case it is equivalent to the ‘You don’t
say so!’ of politer circles; in both cases the spokesman conveys the
idea that one’s credulity has been somewhat taxed.


And No Whistle, phr. (tailors’).—A kind of tu quoque; usually applied
to a man by a listener desiring to convey to the speaker the idea that
no matter what others may think to the contrary, he [the listener]
believes that what has been said refers to the person speaking.


Andrew Millar, subs. (nautical).—A curious cant name for a ship of war;
sometimes simply Andrew. Its origin is quite unknown; but it has been
pointed out that Antonio, in the Merchant of Venice, speaks of one of
his vessels as his ‘wealthy Andrew’; and it has been conjectured that
in this case the ship was named after the celebrated Admiral Andrea
Doria, who died in 1560. But to trace any connection between this
Andrew, however general the use of the name may have become, and the
Andrew Millar of modern sailors’ slang, would be difficult.

    1598. Shakspeare, Merchant of Venice, i., i., 27.

        But I should think of shallows and of flats,
        And see my wealthy Andrew dock’d in sand.

Among Australian smugglers the term still survives for a revenue
cutter.


Angel or Flying Angel, subs. (common).—Explained by quotation.

    1880. James Greenwood, Seaside Insanity in Odd People in Odd
    Places, p. 45. It is at this point when the one day excursionist,
    who, as well as his wife, has an olive-branch or two with him,
    finds his fortitude suddenly collapse. With the youngest but one
    (his good lady, of course, carries the baby) bestriding his
    shoulder, he puts his best foot foremost from the beach to the town
    so as to be in good time at the station. He is hot and fagged, and
    his temper is not improved by the knowledge that the cherub to whom
    he is giving a ‘flying angel’ is smearing his Sunday hat with the
    seaweed with which its little fists are full.


Angelicas.—See Angelics.


Angelics, subs. (old).—Unmarried young ladies. Now Angelicas.

    1821. Moncrieff, Tom and Jerry, p. 5. (Dicks’ ed., 1889.) Jerry.
    You think the cut of my clothes rather too rustic—eh? Tom. Exactly;
    dress is the order of the day. A man must have the look of a
    gentleman, if he has nothing else. We must assume a style if we
    have it not. This, what do you call it?—this cover-me-decently, was
    all very well at Hawthorn Hall, I daresay; but here, among the
    pinks in Rotten Row, the ladybirds in the Saloon, the angelics at
    Almack’s, the top-of-the-tree heroes, the legs and levanters at
    Tattersall’s, nay, even among the millers at the Fives, it would be
    taken for nothing less than the index of a complete flat.


Angeliferous, adj. (American).—Angelic; also super-excellent; a
factitious word. It is interesting to note that ‘angelification,’
‘angelify,’ and ‘angelified,’ were in use in the seventeenth century,
but never to any great extent. [From angel + iferous, a spurious form
based on the model of ‘auriferous.’] It is said to have been first used
by Bird in his novel, entitled Nick of the Woods.


Angels Altogether, subs. phr. (West Indian).—A sobriquet applied to
habitual drunkards. It originated about the year 1876, and was, in the
first instance, a bon-mot of a well-known sugar planter on the East
Coast Demerara. A negro hand, notorious for his hard drinking, applied
for a holiday, and the manager having a suspicion that Quashie wanted
it simply to go ‘on the drink,’ bantered him as follows:—‘John! you
were drunk on Sunday?’ ‘Yes, massa!’ ‘Monday too?’ ‘Yes, massa!’ and on
the question being repeated as regards Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday,
and Friday, it elicited similar responses, whereupon the ‘boss’
quietly, but pointedly said, ‘But John, you can’t be an angel
altogether, you know!’ The story got abroad, caught on, and in a short
time the whole colony rang with the expression.


Angel’s Footstool, subs. phr. (nautical).—Yankee skippers, given to
high falutin’, aver that their craft carry far more canvas than any
vessel afloat of ‘foreign’ origin (the term ‘foreign’ including British
bottoms, as well as those of nations other than Anglo-Saxon). Imaginary
sails are crowded on their craft, among these being one which they
jokingly call an angel’s footstool. It is pretended to be a square
sail, and is supposed to top the skyscrapers, moon-sails, and cloud
cleaners (q.v.).


Angel’s Gear, subs. phr. (nautical).—It is thus that ‘jolly tars’
sometimes speak of female attire. Jack is notoriously most susceptible
where a petticoat is concerned.


Angel’s-Oil, subs. (old).—A seventeenth century colloquialism for money
used for bribery; sometimes oil of angels. For synonyms, see Actual,
and Boodle.


Angel’s Suit, subs. phr. (tailors’).—A ‘combination’ garment for males.
The coat and waistcoat were made in one, and the ‘unmentionables’
buttoned on to it. Neither garment nor name was extensively adopted.


Angel’s Whisper, subs. phr. (military).—A name given to the call to
defaulter’s drill. Needless to say it is, as Artemus Ward would express
it, ‘wrote sarcastic.’


Anglers, Hookers, or Starrers, subs. (old).—Pilferers or petty thieves,
who, with a stick having a hook at the end, steal goods from shop
windows, etc. So far Grose; but Duncombe adds that starrers are an
order of thieves who break show glasses in jewellers’ windows and, in
the consequent confusion steal the goods. The term is a very ancient
one. Dekker in English Villanies [1632], thus describes an ‘angler for
duds’:—‘He carries a short staff in his hand, which is called a filch,
having in the nab or head of it a ferme (that is to say a hole) into
which, upon any piece of service, when he goes a filching, he putteth a
hooke of iron, with which hook he angles at a window in the dead of
night for shirts, smockes, or any other linen or woollen.’ It would
appear from this that modern thieves are both much more daring and
expert. It is not an uncommon thing for a crack thief, in the broad
daylight, in the most crowded streets of London, to break a jeweller’s
window, snatch some valuables, and make off with them. An iron
instrument is used for the purpose which is concealed by the coat
sleeve.—See Area sneak.


Angling Cove, subs. (thieves’).—A receiver of stolen goods.—See Fence.


Angling for Farthings, verb. phr. (old thieves’).—Begging out of a
prison window with a cap or box, let down at the end of a long
string.—Grose. Such a practice, it is needless to say, would be
impossible nowadays.—See Hooker.


Anglomaniacs, subs. phr. (American).—A club in Boston is thus
self-styled. Its members are opposed to anything British in every shape
and form. The term is of course a contradiction, and should, to express
the policy of its members, be Anglophobists.


Angry Boys.—See Bloods.


Angular Party, subs. phr. (common).—A term given to any gathering of
people of which the number is odd; say three, seven, thirteen, etc.


Animal, subs. (American).—A new arrival at the United States Military
Academy at West Point. Cf., Snooker.

To go the whole animal (American).—A variant of ‘to go the whole hog.’
In the West Indies it is varied by ‘to go the whole dog.’—See Hog.

    1838. C. Dickens, Nicholas Nickleby, p.... Opposing all half
    measures, and preferring to go the extreme animal.

    1859. G. A. Sala, Twice Round the Clock, p. 62.... that they had
    much better pay first-class, and go the entire animal.


Animules, subs. (American).—This expression is very generally used in
the South-western territories, and in California, as a substitute for
‘mules.’ A witty play upon ‘animals’ and ‘mules.’

    1834(?) Centre-Pole Bill, in Overland Monthly. ‘Ten miles to town!
    Waal, stranger, I guess I’ll stake out here to-night. Them animules
    is too beat to do that. Where’s yer water?’ ‘It’s all around you
    to-night; but you can turn your mules into the corral.’


Ankle. To sprain one’s ankle, verb. phr. (old).—When a girl has been
seduced she is said to have sprained her ankle. Both French and German
slang have analogous expressions; in the former, elle a mal aux genoux
is said of a woman who is pregnant, i.e., ‘she has a bad knee.’ In
German, ladies so placed ‘lose a shoe’; but of synonyms there are
plenty.—See Leg.


Ankle-Beaters, subs. phr. (old).—A class of boys who attended cattle
markets for the purpose of driving to the slaughter-house the animals
purchased by the butcher. They were called ankle-beaters from their
driving the animals with long wattles, and beating them on the legs to
avoid spoiling or bruising the flesh. Also called penny-boys (q.v.),
because they received one penny per head as remuneration.


Anne’s Fan, properly Queen Anne’s Fan, subs. phr. (common).—Putting the
tip of the thumb of either hand to the nose, and then spreading the
fingers in the shape of a fan. A gesture of contempt often intensified
either by twiddling the digits when in the position named, or by
similarly placing the other hand in an extended line. It is also called
taking a sight (q.v.), and biting the thumb (q.v.).


Annex, verb. (American).—To steal; in England the wise it call
‘convey.’—See Bone.


Anodyne, subs. (American thieves’).—A euphemism for death. From the
figurative sense of the word—anything that soothes wounded or excited
feelings, or that lessens the sense of misfortunes. Cf., Old English
slang term for a halter, Anodyne necklace.

Verb. (American thieves’).—To kill. Cf., foregoing; also To cook one’s
goose.


Anodyne Necklace, subs. phr. (old).—A halter. An anodyne is that which
allays or extinguishes pain, and the hangman’s rope may indeed be
regarded, from one point of view, as a cure for all pains. The
expression is old, being traced back to 1639. During the period when
the death penalty was inflicted for all kinds of comparatively trivial
offences—for sheep stealing, and even highway robberies of not more
than forty shillings value—synonyms equally grim and sententious were
numerous. According to Wilyam Bullein, an anodyne necklace was that
which ‘light fellows merrily will call ... neckweede, or Sir Tristam’s
knot, or St. Andrew’s lace (q.v.).’ Other terms for the hangman’s noose
were hempen cravat, horse’s nightcap, Tyburn tippet (q.v.).

    1639. F. Beaumont, Bloody Brother, Act iii., Sc. 2. [Speaks of the
    hangman’s halter as a ‘necklace.’]

    1766. Oliver Goldsmith, Vicar of Wakefield [works, Globe ed., chap.
    xx., p. 43.] [George Primrose’s cousin exclaims] ‘May I die by an
    anodyne necklace, but I’d rather be an under-turnkey in Newgate
    [than an usher in a boarding-school]’.

The water poet (John Taylor, a Thames waterman, 1580–1654), explaining
the virtue of hemp, says:—


    Some call it neck-weed, for it hath a tricke
    To cure the necke that’s troubled with the crick.


An anodyne necklace was also the name of a quack amulet, which, for a
long period, was a household word. This famous remedy occupied as
prominent a position in the advertising columns of the journals of the
middle of the eighteenth as Holloway’s pills in the latter part of the
nineteenth century. This necklace was of beads artificially prepared,
small, like barleycorns, and cost five shillings. For foreign synonyms,
see Horse’s nightcap.


Anoint, verb. (familiar).—To beat soundly; to thrash; humorously
derived from the proper meaning of the word, ‘to smear’ or ‘rub over
with oil or other unctuous substances.’ In the North of England the
saying is somewhat more analogous—‘to anoint with the sap of a hazel
rod.’

    1175. Rom. of Partenay (Skeat), 5653.

        Then thay put hym hout, the kyng away fly,
        Which so well was anoynted indede,
        That no slene ne pane had he hole of brede.

    1703. Fuller’s Trip to Bridewell, quoted in Ashton’s The Fleet, p.
    211. The whipper began to noint me with his instrument, that had, I
    believe, about a dozen strings notted at the end.

    1748. Smollett, Rod. Random, ch. v. ‘I’ll bring him to the gangway,
    and anoint him with a cat-and-nine-tails.’

    1824. W. Irving, Tales of a Trav., II., 287. Seize a trusty staff
    and anoint the back of the aggressor.

There seems to be some connection, too, between this sense of to
anoint, and the depraved use of anointed (q.v.) to signify great
rascality. Cf., Strap oil.


Anoint or Grease the Palm, verb. phr. (common).—To bribe. The Scotch
say ‘to creesh the luif.’ The expression is very old.

    1584. Knox, Hist. of Reformation, works [1846] I., 102. Yea, the
    handis of our Lordis so liberallie were anoynted.

See Grease the palm.


Anointed, ppl. adj. (old).—1. Used in a depraved sense to signify
eminence in rascality. The most probable derivation appears to be that
suggested by Prof. Skeat [N. and Q., 3 S., ix., 422]. In a French MS.,
Romance of Melusine, is an account of a man who had received a thorough
and severe beating, which is thus referred to:—Qui anoit este si bien
oignt. The English version [Early English Text Society] translates
this, ‘which so well was anoynted indeed.’ From this it is clear that
to anoint a man was to give him a sound drubbing, and that the word was
so used in the fifteenth century. Thus, an anointed rogue means either
one who has been well thrashed or who has deserved to be. Cf., To
anoint.

    1769. Robertson, Hist. of Reign of Charles V. Many assumed the
    clerical character for no other reason than that it might screen
    them from the punishment which their actions deserved. The German
    nobles complained loudly that their anointed malefactors, as they
    called them, seldom suffered capitally even for the most enormous
    crimes.

    1825. Scott, St. Ronan’s Well, ch. xxxvii. ‘But, not being Lord
    Etherington, and an anointed scoundrel into the bargain, I will
    content myself with cudgelling him to death.’

2. Knowing; ripe for mischief.—Duncombe.


Anonyma, subs. (popular).—A lady of the demi-monde; generally, though
not invariably, applied to one of the better class. Women of this
status were also called by the Times pretty horsebreakers, a notorious
anonyma (circa 1868) having been a good horsewoman. Another and earlier
name was Incognita; this as well as anonyma had reference to the
unrecognised position these ladies hold in what is called ‘Society,’
which tries to shut its eyes to a product of its own vice. The French
cocotte best corresponds to the English term. For synonyms generally,
see Barrack hack.

    1864. G. A. Sala, Quite Alone, ch. i. Is that anonyma driving twin
    ponies in a low phaeton, a parasol attached to her whip, and a
    groom with folded arms behind her? Bah! there are so many anonymas
    nowadays. If it isn’t the Nameless One herself, it is Synonyma.

    1865. Ouida, Strathmore, ch. vi. ‘I’m getting tired of Mondes, one
    confounds so easily with Demi-monde, and aristocrats that are so
    near allied to anonyma.’

    1881. Doran, In and about Drury Lane, vol. II., p. 159. Those
    anonymas, who dress with such exquisite propriety lest they should
    be mistaken for modest women.

    1889. Modern Society, July 13, p. 852. ‘Christopher’s Honeymoon,’
    by Mr. Malcolm Watson, produced at the Strand, on Wednesday, is not
    wholly bad, but it is too thin. The honeymooner is surprised at his
    wedding breakfast by the news that a former wife, whom he thought
    dead, is still alive. Matters are still further complicated when
    his mother-in-law mistakes his buxom laundress for a fair anonyma.


Another. You’re another, phr. (common).—A retort—in usage hardly
courteous or suave. Generally spoken in anger or resentment. The
quotations which follow specify clearly the manner of use. It is
interesting to note how very old is this common rejoinder—nearly 350
years; it is, moreover, an example which fully illustrates the value of
the historical method in dealing with slang words and phrases.

    c. 1534. N. Udall, Roister Doister, III., v., p. 58 (Arber). R.
    Royster. If it were another but thou, it were a tenane. M. Mery. Ye
    are an other your selfe, sir. [M.]

    1750. Fielding, Tom Jones, bk. IX., ch. vi. ‘You mistake me,
    friend,’ cries Partridge, ‘I did not mean to abuse the cloth; I
    only said your conclusion was a non-sequitur.’ ‘You are another,’
    cries the Serjeant, ‘an’ you come to that. No more a sequitur than
    yourself.’

    1836. Dickens, Pickwick, ch. xv., p. 123. ‘Sir,’ said Mr. Tupman,
    ‘you’re a fellow.’ ‘Sir,’ said Mr. Pickwick, ‘you’re another.’

    1888. Sir W. Harcourt, Speech at Eighty Club, Feb. 21. You know the
    little urchins in the street have a conclusive argument. They say
    ‘you’re another.’


Another Acrobat, phr. (music-hall).—Another drink—acrobat being a play
upon the word ‘tumbler,’ i.e., a glass.


Another Guess, adj., or Another Guess Sort of Man, phr. (old). A cute
man; one who is, in modern lingo, up to snuff (q.v.). ‘Guess’ suggests
an erroneous derivation; the word is really a corruption of
‘another-gates’ [according to Murray the original genitive case ‘of
another-gate, i.e., of another way, manner, or fashion’].


Another Lie Nailed to the Counter, phr. (American).—A detected slander.
The practice of nailing spurious coins to shop counters is, even yet,
not an obsolete custom in country districts; and hence, probably, is
derived this colloquialism.

    1888. Texas Siftings, Oct. 20. ‘Who employed you last?’ ‘A
    Republican speaker, who had me back up his declaration that
    Cleveland was in the habit of beating his wife!’ ‘But that lie was
    nailed a good while ago.’ ‘I know it,’ chuckled the C.L., ‘but it’s
    easy enough to pull out the nail.’


Antagonise, verb. (sporting).—This, ‘to act as an opponent,’ sounds
very like slang; but, as a matter of fact, so long as the antagonising
forces are of the same kind the word is legitimate enough. It has been
so used from 1634 downwards, by Herbert, Keats, John Stuart Mill, and
others. Only when (as for example in America a person in political
phraseology is said to antagonise a measure when it is meant that he
opposes it) the word is used in connection with antagonistic forces not
of a kind can it be regarded as partaking of slang. In the quotation by
Barrère from the Saturday Review (no date given: refer, however, to
Sat. R., Dec. 18, 1886, p. 799) the word is used in a perfectly correct
manner.

    1886. Saturday Review on Sporting Slang, 18 Dec, p. 799, col. 1.
    Dingley Dell sent Jones and Robinson to the wickets, where they
    were antagonised with the leather by Alf and the Young Phenomenon.


Anthony, or To Cuff Anthony, verb. (old).—To knock one’s knees together
from an infirmity. Also called to cuff Jonas.

Antony, or Anthony Cuffin, subs.—A knock-kneed man.


Anthony, or Tantony Pig, subs. (old).—See Tantony pig.

    1787. Grose, Dictionary of the Vulgar Tongue. The favourite or
    smallest pig in the litter; to follow like a tantony pig, i.e., St.
    Anthony’s pig, signified to follow close at one’s heels. St.
    Anthony, the hermit, was a swine herd, and is always represented
    with his bell and pig.


Antimony, subs. (printers’).—Type; so called from one of its component
parts.


Anyhow. Anyhow you can fix it, phr. (American).—A slang expression of
acquiescence as, e.g., ‘I don’t know if you’ll succeed, but anyhow you
can fix it.’


Any Other Man! phr. (American).—A call to order addressed to prosy,
discursive speakers when they give themselves over to the use of
synonymous terms.


Any Racket, subs. (rhyming slang).—A penny faggot.


Anything. Like, or as anything, adv. phr. (common).—A vulgarism rather
than slang. Used in the same manner, as are like one o’clock; like old
boots (q.v.), when a person is at a loss for a simile.—See Winkey.

    1542. Udall’s Erasmus Apoph., p. 32. The young maiden, where the
    lokers on quaked and trembled for feare, daunced without any feare
    at all emong sweardes and kniues, beyng as sharpe as anythyng.

    1740. Richardson, Pamela, ii., 57. O my dear father and mother, I
    fear your girl will grow as proud as anything.

    1840. Barham, I. L. (Misadv. at Margate).

        The tear-drop in his little eye again began to spring,
        His bosom throbb’d with agony, he cried like anything.

    1878. Carroll, Through a Looking Glass, iv., 73. They wept like
    anything to see such quantities of sand.


Anythingarian, subs. (common).—A contemptuous term for one who is
apathetic as regards his political or religious creed, or other matters
upon which mankind generally hold decided views. [From anything +
arian, after trinit-arian, unit-arian.]

    1717. Entertainer, Nov. 6 [quoted in N. & Q., 7 S., vi., 66]. Nor,
    which is ten times worse, Free-thinkers, Atheists, Anythingarians.

    1738. Swift, Polite Conversation (conv. i.).

    Lady Sm. What religion is he of?

    Lady Sp. Why, he is an anythingarian.

    Lady Ans. I believe he has his religion to chuse, my lord.

    1849. C. Kingsley, Alton Locke, ch. xxii. They made puir Robbie
    Burns an anythingarian with their blethers.


Anythingarianism, subs. (popular).—The creed or doctrine of an
Anythingarian.—[See preceding].

    1851. C. Kingsley (Life, i., 215). Schiller’s ‘Gods of Greece’
    expresses, I think, a tone of feeling very common, and which finds
    its vent in modern Neo-Platonism—Anythingarianism.


Anything Else.—See Not doing anything else.


Anywhere Down There! (tailors’).—If, in a workroom or elsewhere where
tailors congregate, an article is dropped upon the floor, anywhere down
there! is used as a kind of catch-phrase.


Apartments. To have apartments to let, verb. phr. (popular).—1. To take
rank in the estimation of one’s fellows as an idiot; ‘a born fool’—one
who is empty-headed, not furnished with brains.

English Synonyms. To be dotty; to have a screw loose; to be balmy; to
have a bee in one’s bonnet (Scotch); to be off one’s chump; to have no
milk in the cocoa-nut; to be touched; to be balmy in one’s crumpet; to
be wrong in the upper storey; to have rats in the upper storey; to have
a tile loose; to be half baked.

French Synonyms. Avoir une écrevisse dans la tourte, or dans le
vol-au-vent (popular: that is ‘to have a crawfish in the pie,’ or ‘in
the head.’ Cf., ‘to have rats in the upper storey’); avoir la boule
détraquée (popular: lit. ‘to have one’s ball turned’); avoir le coco
félé (popular: lit. ‘to have one’s cocoa nut cracked.’ In English slang
the head is also called a ‘cocoa-nut’); avoir le trognon détraquée
(popular: ‘to have a bee in one’s bonnet.’ Trognon is also a slang term
for the head or ‘noddle’); avoir un asticot dans la noisette (popular:
lit. ‘to have a maggot in one’s nut.’ In English slang the head is
likewise ‘the nut.’ Cf., also the expression ‘a worm in the bud’);
avoir un bœuf gras dans le char (popular); avoir un cancrelat dans la
boule (popular: lit. ‘to have a cockroach in one’s ball’—‘ball’ here
referring to the head or ‘nut.’ Cancrelat is properly kakerlac or
American cockroach); avoir un hanneton dans le reservoir (popular: lit.
‘to have a May-bug’ or ‘cockchafer in one’s cistern’ or ‘well.’ This
seems to be on all fours with ‘a bee in one’s bonnet.’ The phrase
sometimes runs avoir un hanneton dans le plafond, i.e., to have a
cockchafer in one’s ceiling, and here the analogy between the two
phrases is more clearly marked); avoir un moustique dans la boite au
sel (popular: lit. ‘to have a mosquito in the salt-box or cellar’);
avoir un voyageur dans l’omnibus (popular); avoir une araignée dans le
plafond (popular: lit. ‘to have a spider in the head’; plafond, ‘a
ceiling,’ be it noted is a slang term for ‘the head’); avoir une
grenouille dans l’aquarium (popular: lit: ‘to have a frog in one’s
aquarium’); avoir une hirondelle dans le soliveau (popular: ‘to have a
swallow in the head’); avoir une Marseillaise dans le Kiosque
(popular); avoir une punaise dans le soufflet (popular: ‘to have a bug
in one’s brain’); avoir une sardine dans l’armoire à glace (popular:
‘to have a sardine in the head or brain.’ Armoire à glace = the head);
avoir une trichinne dans le jambonneau (popular: jambonneau, the head);
avoir une sauterelle dans la guitare (popular: lit. ‘to have a
grasshopper in the guitar’).

For other synonyms, see Tile loose.

2. A widow is said to have apartments to let.


Ape-leader, subs. (old).—An old maid. Leading apes in hell was the
employment jocularly assigned to those who neglected to assume marital
functions while living.

    1581. Lyly, Euphucs (Arb.), 87. Rather thou shouldest leade a lyfe
    to thine owne lyking in earthe, than ... leade apes in hell. [M.]

    1605. Lond. Prodigal, I., 2. ’Tes an old proverb, and you know it
    well, that women dying maids lead apes in hell.

    1717. Mrs. Centlivre, Bold Stroke, II., 1. Poor girl; she must
    certainly lead apes, as the saying is.

    1830. General P. Thompson, Exerc. (1842), I., 198. Joining with
    other old women, in leading their apes in Tartarus. [M.]

There are several proverbial sayings in which the ape plays an
important part. To say an ape’s paternoster is to chatter with cold;
this corresponds with the French, dire des patenôtres de singe. To put
an ape into one’s hood or cap, to make a fool of one, etc.


Apes, subs. (Stock Exchange).—Atlantic and North-Western Railway first
mortgage bonds.


Apostles, or The Twelve Apostles, subs. phr. (Cambridge
Univ.).—Formerly, when the Poll, or ordinary B.A. degree list was
arranged in order of merit, the last twelve were nicknamed The Twelve
Apostles. They were also called The Chosen Twelve, and the last, St.
Poll or St. Paul—a punning allusion to 1 Cor. xv., 9, ‘For I am the
least of the Apostles, that am not meet to be called an Apostle.’ The
list is now arranged alphabetically and in classes. Hotten suggests
that Apostles is a corruption of post alios, i.e., ‘after the others.’
It may perhaps also be mentioned that in one American University at
least, Columbia College, D.C., the last twelve on the B.A. list
actually receive the personal names of the Apostles.

    1795. Gentleman’s Magazine, Jan., p. 19. [The last twelve names on
    the Cambridge list are here called The Twelve Apostles.]

Manœuvering the Apostles, a variant of the familiar expression, ‘to rob
Peter to pay Paul’; i.e., to borrow from one person to pay another.


Apostle’s Grove, subs. (common).—The London district known as St.
John’s Wood. Also called grove of the evangelist. Both names are
applied sarcastically in allusion to the large numbers of the
demi-monde who live in that quarter of town.


Apothecary. To talk like an apothecary, verb phr. (old).—To talk
nonsense; from the pseudo gravity and affectation of knowledge often
assumed by these gentlemen at a time when their status was not legally
held under examination and license of the Apothecaries’ Company.

Apothecaries’ bill, subs. (old).—A long bill.

Apothecaries’, or raw Latin, subs. (old).—Now called dog-Latin (q.v.).


Apple Cart, subs. (common). 1. The human body. A slang term similar to
‘potato trap,’ ‘bread-basket,’ ‘bellows,’ ‘blue plumb,’ ‘bacon,’ and
‘beer-barrel’ (all of which see). There are numerous variations in
usage; e.g., if two men are quarrelling, and a friend of one interferes
saying ‘I will upset his apple cart’ it means, ‘while you are parleying
with the enemy I will knock him down.’ Again, if a child falls down,
says W. W. Skeat (referring to his early Kentish remembrance of the
word), you first enquire if he is much hurt. If he is merely a little
frightened you say, ‘Well, never mind, then; you’ve only upset your
apple cart and spilt the gooseberries.’ The child laughs and all is
well again.

2. Also employed in a figurative sense. To upset an apple cart
sometimes means, not so much to knock a man down, as to prevent him
from doing what he wants to do by the upsetting as it were, of an
imaginary apple cart; i.e., to thwart; to disarrange; to overthrow; to
ruin an undertaking. Sometimes the expression is varied by to upset the
old woman’s apple cart. Barrère’s reference of the genesis of the
phrase to the costermonger’s imaginative powers is ‘all conjecture and
fancy’; as also is his American derivation of the expression in its
more figurative sense. In the first place apple carts are perfectly
familiar objects in all country districts; and, in the second, the
phrase is too old a provincialism to need deriving from the peripatetic
vendors in question. Further, though to upset his apple cart and spill
the peaches may be an American variation for the second sense, as it
appears to have been so used, dialectically, throughout England, the
weight of assumption must be given to its English origin, and
subsequent transference to America.

English Synonyms. Beer-barrel; bacon.

French Synonyms. Acabit (literally, quality); cylindre (popular: lit.
‘a cylinder,’ or ‘barrel.’ Cf. with English ‘beer barrel’); grosse
caisse (popular: lit. ‘a large case,’ or ‘box’); paillasse (popular:
lit. ‘a straw mattress’); also place d’armes; casaquin.


Apple Dumpling Shop, subs. phr. (common).—A woman’s bosom. For
synonyms, see Dairies.


Apple-Monger.—The same as apple-squire (q.v.).


Apple-Pie Bed, subs. phr. (common).—A practical joke, which consists in
making up a bed with the sheets doubled half way up, so as to prevent a
person from stretching out at full length, and filling the bag thus
formed with brushes, soap-dishes, etc. So called, either from the
apple-turnover, in which the ‘paste’ is turned over the apples, or from
the French, à plis, folded.

    1811. C. K. Sharpe, in Correspondence (1888), i., 466. After
    squeezing myself up, and making a sort of apple-pye bed with the
    beginning of my sheet.

    1883. Saturday Review, Nov. 3, p. 566, col. 2. Some ‘evil-disposed
    persons’ have already visited his room, made his bed into an
    apple-pie, plentifully strewn with hair-brushes and razors.

The French have an analogous phrase, ‘mettre un lit en portefeuille.’


Apple-Pie Day, subs. phr. (Winchester Coll.)—The day on which
Six-and-Six (q.v.) is played. It is the Thursday after the first
Tuesday in December. So called because hot apple-pies were served on
gomers (q.v.) in College for dinner.


Apple Pie Order, subs. phr. (familiar).—Exact or perfect order.
Etymologists have long puzzled themselves concerning this expression,
and many derivations have been put forward in explanation. Some have
found in it an allusion to the regular order in which the component
parts of some varieties of that toothsome delicacy, apple pie, were
formerly laid one on the top of, or side by side with each other.
Others, on the contrary, scout such a homely origin, and suggest that
apple pie order is cap à pied order. The authorities who incline to
this view point out that cap à pied in the sense of ‘perfectly
appointed’ occurs in one of the scenes of Hamlet. Though
orthographically the transition from one to the other, at first sight,
would appear to be somewhat lame and halting, yet phonetically the
difference is much less marked. It has further been suggested that
apple pie order is a corruption of ‘Alpha-beta’ i.e., alphabetical
order, but this would seem rather far-fetched, as also is the reference
of it to the nursery rhyme of ‘A was an apple pie; B bit it; C cut it;
D divided it,’ and so on, the allusion being to the regular order in
which the letters of the alphabet occur. Probably the weight of
evidence is on the side of the derivation from cap à pied, more
especially as that phrase was once very familiar.

    1813. Scott in Lochart, Life, IV. (1839), 131. The children’s
    garden is in apple pie order.

    1835. Marryat, Jacob Faithful, viii., 29. Put the craft a little
    into apple pie order.

    1837. Barham, I. L. (Old Woman in Grey).

        I am just in the order which some folks—though why,
        I am sure I can’t tell you—would call apple pie.


Apples. How we apples swim! phr. (common).—i.e., ‘What a good time we
are having.’ This expression, a very old one, is synonymous with
pleasureable experience coupled with brisk action.

    1697–1764. Hogarth (Works by J. Ireland and J. Nichols, London,
    1873), III., p. 29. And even this, little as it is, gives him so
    much importance in his own eyes, that he assumes a consequential
    air, sets his arms akimbo, and strutting among the historical
    artists cries, ‘how we apples swim.’

    1860. Cornhill Mag. (D. Mallett, Tyburn), Dec., p. 737. While
    tumbling down the turbid stream, Lord, love us, how we apples swim.


Apples and Pears, subs. phr. (rhyming slang).—A pair of stairs.


Apple-Squire, subs. (old).—A harlot’s attendant, or fancy man (q.v.);
these gentry are now commonly called ‘bullies’ (q.v.). Nares gives
‘squire of the body’ as a synonymous term; also apron-squire.

    1500. (circa) Way to Spyttel Hous, 832 in Hazl. E. P. P., iv., 60.
    [Here given as applesquyers.]

    [1580–1654] Taylor, Discourse by Sea (works II., 21).

        Are whoremasters decai’d, are bawds all dead,
        Are pandars, pimps, and apple-squires all fled? [N.]

    1738. Poor Robin.... Little truth will be found amongst cut-purses,
    liars, bawds, whores, pimps, pandars, and apple-squires; only the
    pimp pretends to something more of truth than the other, for if he
    promise to help you to a whore, he will be sure that she shall not
    be an honest woman. [N.]

For synonyms, ancient and modern, and also foreign equivalents, see
Fancy man.


Apron. Green apron, subs. (old).—A contemptuous term for a lay
preacher.—See Bible-pounder.

    1654. Warren, Unbelievers, 145. It more befits a green-apron
    preacher, than such a Gamaliel. [M.]

    1705. Hickeringill, Priestcraft I. (1721). 21. Unbeneficed Noncons.
    (that live by Alms and no Paternoster, no Penny, say the
    green-aprons). [M.]

    1765. Tucker, Lt. Nat., II., 451. The gifted priestess amongst the
    Quakers is known by her green apron. [M.]


Aproneer, subs. (old).—A shop-keeper; a tradesman. Murray states that
the term was used contemptuously of the Parliamentary party during the
Civil Wars.

    1659. Gauden, Tears of Church, 238. Some prating sequestrator, or
    some surly aproneer.

    1690. D’urfey, Collin’s Walk, c. iii., p. 107. But every sturdy
    aproneer, arm’d with battoon, did straight appear.


Apron-Rogue, subs. (old).—A labourer; a mechanic.

    1663. Killegrew, Parson’s Wedding in Dodsley’s Old Plays (1780),
    XI., 382. Apron-rogues with horn hands. [M.]


Apron-Squire.—See Apple-squire.


Apron-String Hold or Tenure, subs. phr. (familiar).—An estate held by a
man during his wife’s life; or by virtue of her right.

    1647. Ward, Simp. Cobler, 67. Apron-string tenure is very weak.
    [M.]

    1753. Richardson, Grandison, iv., 23. He cursed the apron-string
    tenure, by which he said he held his peace. [d.]

    1804. Mrs. Barbauld, Richardson I., 160. All her fortune in her own
    power—a very apron-string tenure.


Apron-Strings. To be tied to or always at a woman’s apron-strings,
verb. phr. (common).—Under petticoat government; to dangle after a
woman. Formerly said only of children; later of all who follow a woman
subserviently.

    1712. Spectator, No. 506. The fair sex are so conscious to
    themselves, that they have nothing in them which can deserve
    entirely to ingross the whole man, that they heartily despise one,
    who, to use their own expression, is always hanging at their
    apron-strings.

    1834. Miss Edgeworth, Helen, ch. viii. A homebred lordling, who,
    from the moment he slipped his mother’s apron-strings, had fallen
    into folly.

    1849. Macaulay, History of England, II., 649. He could not submit
    to be tied to the apron-strings even of the best of wives.


Aqua, subs. (American thieves’).—Water. From the Latin.


Aqua Pompaginis, subs. phr. (old).—Pump water [Dog-Latin; from L.,
aqua, water + English, pump + simulated Latin termination, aginis].

    1785. Grose, Dictionary of the Vulgar Tongue. Aqua Pompaginis....
    Apothecaries’ Latin.

    1839. Harrison Ainsworth, Jack Sheppard [1889], p. 13. ‘Exactly my
    sentiments,’ rejoined Blueskin. ‘I wouldn’t force him for the
    world; but if he don’t tip the stivers, may I be cursed if he don’t
    get a taste of the aqua pompaginis. Let’s have a look at the
    kinchen that ought to have been throttled,’ added he, snatching the
    child from Wood. ‘My stars! here’s a pretty lullaby-cheat to make a
    fuss about—ho ho!’

    1839. Harrison Ainsworth, Jack Sheppard [1889], p. 15. ‘He shall go
    through the whole course,’ replied Blueskin, with a ferocious grin,
    ‘unless he comes down to the last grig. We’ll lather him with mud,
    shave him with a rusty razor, and drench him with aqua pompaginis.’

For synonyms, see Adam’s ale.


Aquatics, subs. (Eton college).—The particular game of cricket in which
men in the boats play.


Aqua-Vitæ, subs. (old).—Formerly an alchemic term; but, after a while,
popularly received as a generic name for ardent spirits, such as
brandy, whiskey, etc. [From L. = water of life. Cf., French eau-de-vie,
and Irish usquebaugh.]


Arabs, subs. (common).—Nicknames for young street vagrants are
numerous. They are ‘Bedouins,’ ‘Street Arabs,’ and ‘Juvenile Roughs’ in
London; they are ‘Gamins’ in Paris; ‘Bowery Boys’ in New York;
‘Hoodlums’ in San Francisco; and ‘Larrikins’ in Melbourne. This last
phrase is an Irish constable’s broad pronunciation of ‘larking,’
applied to the nightly street performances of these young scamps,
there, as elsewhere, a real social pestilence.—See Street Arab.

    1848. Guthrie, Plea for Ragged Schools. [In this work the homeless
    wanderers and children of the streets were spoken of as Arabs of
    the City, and City Arabs.]


Arbor Vitæ, subs. (old).—The penis. [Latin; = the Tree of Life]. For
synonyms, see Creamstick.


Arch.—See Ark.


Arch-Cove or Arch-Rogue, subs. (thieves’).—The chief or leader of a
gang of thieves. [From Greek, archo to be first, to command, to rule +
cove, a slang term for a man.] Formerly also dimber damber, upright
man.—See Cove and Area sneak.


Archdeacon, subs. (Oxford Univ.).—Merton strong ale.


Arch-Dell or Arch-Doxy, subs. (old).—The wife or female companion of an
arch-cove.—See Dell.


Archduke, subs. (old slang).—A buffoon; an eccentric person.


Arch Gonnof.—See Dimber damber.


Ard, adj. (American thieves’).—Hot; a corrupted form of ‘ardent.’
Formerly ‘a foot.’—See Creepers.


Area-Sneak, subs. (common).—A thief who lurks about areas for the
purposes of theft.

    1838. Dickens, Nicholas Nickleby, ch. lix., p. 480. ‘Why wasn’t I a
    thief, swindler, housebreaker, area-sneak, robber of pence out of
    the trays of blind man’s dogs?’

    1869. English Mechanic, 14 May, p. 181, col. 1. [They] would
    invariably become pickpockets or area-sneaks.

    1883. Daily Telegraph, June 13, p. 7, col. 3. The area-sneak, too,
    may find his occupation partially gone through the strictness of
    the rules which encompass the trade of the second-hand dealer.

Among other names for thieves may be mentioned:—

English and American. Beak or beaker-hunter (a poultry thief);
bug-hunter (speciality—breast pins, studs, etc.); buz-faker (a
pickpocket); buttock and file (a shoplifter); bouncer (one who steals
while bargaining with a tradesman; a shoplifter); bridle-cull (a
highwayman); cracksman (a burglar); crossman (an old term. Literally a
man ‘on the cross,’ or who gets his living surreptitiously); cross-cove
(see foregoing); conveyancer (a pickpocket); dancer (a thief who gains
entrance to houses from the roof); flash-cove (a sharper); flashman (a
prostitute’s bully who pretends to catch the victim in flagrante
delicto with his wife, and thus makes an excuse for robbery and
extortion); finder (a thief who confines his depredations to
meat-markets and butchers’ shops); gun (a contraction of gonnof, which
see); gleaner, hooker, or angler (these are petty thieves, who work
with hooks and rods); lob-sneak; lully-prigger (one who steals clothes
when they are hanging out to dry); snakesman or sneaksman (a
shoplifter; a petty thief); sneeze-lurker (this kind work by first
blinding victims with pepper, etc.); moucher (a prowling thief);
mill-ben (an old cant term, which see); prig; prop-nailer (a ‘prop’ is
a scarf pin); palmer (a thief who ‘rings the changes’; but see under
Palmer); pudding-snammer (an eating-house thief); drummer or drammer
(these gentry stupify their victims prior to robbing them);
stook-hauler (speciality—pocket-handkerchiefs); tooler (a pickpocket);
toy-getter (a watch thief).

French Synonyms. Un droguiste (corresponds to the English ‘hawk’ or
‘rook’); un chêne affranchi (a ‘flash cove’); un careur, or voleur à la
care (thief who robs money-changers while pretending to offer old coins
for sale); un enfant de la matte (‘a child of folly.’—See Family man);
un tiretaine (a country thief); un garçon de cambrouse (a highwayman);
un garçon de campagne (same as example last quoted); un frère de la
manicle; un philantrope (a peddlar’s term); un bonjourier or voleur au
bonjour (an early morning thief, but see under Thieves); un philibert
(of the sharper stamp); un philosophe (lit. ‘a philosopher’); un enfant
de minuit (formerly, says Cotgrave, enfants de la messe de minuit,
i.e., companions of the midnight mass, not for devotion, but for
robbery and abuse); ramastiqueur (one who swindles by means of
pocket-book dropping, etc.—a variety of the confidence trick); un
jardinier, un Americain (‘confidence trick’ men); un tirebogue (a watch
thief; in English slang a ‘toy-getter’); un friauche; un grinchisseur
de bogues (a watch thief); un mion de boule (equivalent to the English
‘prig’); un fil de soie; un doubleur (= English ‘prig’; un doubleur de
sorgue, ‘a night thief’); un voleur à la tire (a pickpocket); un tireur
(a pickpocket; literally ‘one who draws out’); etc.

German Synonyms. Broschem-blatter; cochem (a thieves’ accomplice; from
Hebrew chochem, wise, instructed); erntemackener (thieves who steal
from houses while the owners are away harvesting. From erndte, harvest
+ machen, to make); anstiebler (one who plans robberies; an instigator
to theft. A corrupted form of anstifter, an instigator); achbrosch
(also achberosch, achperosch, achprosch, approsch, an infamous thief or
robber, a rogue, a sharper. Not so much from the Chaldean achbero, a
mouse + rosch, head, as from the passage Jer. Baba. Mez. 8., achberi
reschii, i.e., ‘the mice are vile.’ Hence applied primarily to a
notorious thief. Thiele says the expressions have not been so much in
use since the suppression of the famous Rhenish robber gang; the words,
however, particularly achbrosch, are not by any means obsolete, being
very much in use by cattle and horsedealers, and sharpers generally);
ganof (Hebrew, ‘a thief’; from gonaw, ‘to steal’); achelpeter (an
inactive lazy old thief who sponges upon his confederates. From Hebrew
ochal, to eat + putzen, from O.H.G., bizan, pizzan, ‘food’); golehopser
(a thief who jumps on a loaded cart or other vehicle whilst in motion
to steal boxes or small packages. In English slang this kind of thief
is called a ‘dragsman’); goleschàchter (the same as preceding, but
instead of making off bodily with the booty, the packages are cut open,
and the contents thrown down for an accomplice to secure); bihengst (a
thief who steals bees); baldower (a principal, or leader of a gang of
thieves; one who advises and plans robberies. Balhoche is also a man
who has an opportunity for theft; balspiess, the host of an inn,
frequented by thieves and rogues); brenner (a thief who preys upon
others of his kind, by demanding, under threats of exposure, a share of
a successful robbery, without having taken part in it. From brennen,
‘to claim’; literally ‘to burn’; or it may be from berennen, ‘to run
against or blockade’); chalfan (also chalfen, chalfener, chilfer,
legitimately ‘a money changer,’ but amongst German thieves the name of
the rogue who, in changing money, commits theft. Cf., English, ‘ringing
the changes’); chawer (Hebrew: literally an associate; chaweress
[fem.], a thief’s confederate; a comrade. Chawrusse, kabruse, a gang or
confederation of thieves; chawrusse melochenen, to form a gang of
thieves; chenneter, a thief who knows how to conduct himself with tact
and address in good society. From the Hebrew chono, gentle, kind,
affable); chessenspiess, fem., chessenspiesse (the landlord or mistress
of an inn frequented by thieves—a place where they may find refuge
without fear of discovery. From the Hebrew); chechom (also chochem,
chochemer,—more frequently spelled with ‘K’—from the Hebrew, the wise
one. A prudent, cunning thief. Chochem lehorre, a dangerous thief, one
prepared for the worst; of a similar meaning is chochem mechutten, a
dangerous companion, a rogue of the worst type); bahnherr (also
bohnherr and Herr by itself: literally ‘a road-master’; a burglar—one
who prepares a robbery); diffler (a thoroughly dexterous thief; from
tupfel, ‘a point’); drängler (a thief, who, to divert the attention of
people from his intention, causes a crowd to assemble); paddendrücker
(a pickpocket—one whose speciality is purses: drücker is a corrupted
form of trecken, ‘to draw’ or ‘steal’ quickly and adroitly. Drücker,
like drücken, ‘to steal’ is never used by itself, but always with the
object of the theft; hence paddendrücker, a purse thief; luppendrücker,
a watch thief; torfdrücker, a generic name for a pickpocket);
eintreiber (a confederate who entices a victim to play so that his
comrade may swindle him); erefschieber (a thief who goes out at evening
time to commit robberies. Also erefhalchener, erefgänger, erefhändler.
Eref = evening); fichtegänger (a night thief or burglar); fiesel
(supposed to be derived from faser, ‘a birch,’ ‘rod,’ or ‘fibre.’ In
Vienna, the scum of society is meant by fiesel—the commonest thief,
professional vagabond, a protector of brothels and whores of the most
repulsive kind. These thieves are of great daring, utterly
unscrupulous, and are consequently much dreaded. Some feign to carry on
the business of a rag and bone-picker, what in the fiesellange or
Viennese thieves’ lingo is termed, ‘going out for profit.’ In the sense
of ‘a rod,’ fiesel is applied to the membrum genitale masculi; hence
fiesel as synonymous with strength, i.e., pertaining to the stronger
sex. It was formerly used in connection with many other words; e.g.,
mädchenfiesel, ‘one who habitually runs after women,’ ‘a molrower,’ a
‘loose fish.’ Fiesel-language means the language of the strong, of
those belonging to the fellowship of thieves, burglars, and rowdies);
freikäufer (a thief whose speciality it is to steal at fairs and
markets); freischupper (a card sharper; a gambling cheat who carries on
his business in crowded places of public resort); gacheler (also
gachler, gackler, kachler, kakler, kegler: a pantry thief; one who
steals eatables and plate from kitchens whilst servants are attending
at table); gannew (from Hebrew gonaw, ‘to steal’); gaslan (from Hebrew
gosal, ‘to rob’); glitscher (gypsy: glitschin, ‘the key’: a thief who
works by means of skeleton keys); godler chochem (from Hebrew godol,
great, strong, celebrated + Hebrew chochem, the wise one; hence, a
clever rogue, a thief who thoroughly understands his business); goi
gomur (an utterly unreliable confederate. Goi, plural gojim is applied
to those not Jews, to Christians; in the plural, especially, in the
sense of ignorant people, suspicious or two-faced characters; also used
as a synonym for Philistine—a man of whom one has to be careful. Goje
[fem.] is almost always used contemptuously for a female); götte (also
götti, göde, göttling [O.H.G., gataling] a confederate, a
relative—especially used to denote one who has been doing good
business); gutenmorgenwünscher (literally ‘good morning wisher’:
thieves who break into rooms early in the morning for purposes of
robbery. The French have an analogous expression in bonjourier, or
voleur au bon jour). For other synonyms, see Thieves.

Italian Synonyms (Fourbesque). Quadro (a cut-purse. In the Germania or
Spanish argot, quadro is used in the sense of ‘a poignard,’ and
quadrata in that of ‘purse.’ Possibly the Fourbesque quadro is derived
from one of these words. In Italian it is literally ‘a square’ or ‘a
rule’); granchetto (also ‘one who speaks gibberish’); lavorante di
scarpe (a pickpocket or cut-purse: lit. ‘working shoes’); camuffo;
fiadetto (also ‘a dolt,’ ‘a duffer’); carpione; truccante (also ‘a
beggar’).

Spanish Synonyms (Germania). Aquila (a sharper: lit. ‘an eagle’);
bolador (thought to be derived from the French voleur); comendadores de
bola (thieves who work principally at fairs and markets); gerifalte
(lit. ‘a gerfalcon’—one of the ‘hawk’ species); lince (lit. ‘a lynx.’
This class of thief varies robbery with begging); piloto (a thief who
directs others to the place of rendezvous, i.e., where a robbery has
been planned; lit. ‘a pilot’); trabajar (lit. ‘a traveller’).—See
Thieves.

Portuguese Synonyms (Calão). Pai (a captain of thieves—an Aaron or
arch-cove); maguino (a highwayman).

For exhaustive and comparative description of all classes of thieves,
both English and foreign, see Thieves—their names and methods.


Arf, adj. (vulgarism).—Half; e.g., ‘’arf an ’our,’ i.e., half an hour.

’Arf and ’arf.—See Four-half.


Argal.—See Argol-bargol.


Argol-Bargol, subs. and verb. (old).—Argol, sometimes argal, is a
corrupt pronunciation of Latin ergo, therefore; hence, from that word
being frequently used in conversation, a clumsy, unsound piece of
reasoning or cavilling; and verbally, to bandy words. Hotten says
argol-bargol is Scotch, but argal is found in Hamlet, v. i., and the
fuller form is probably onomatopoetic like ‘shilly-shally,’
‘hocus-pocus,’ etc., unless it comes from the Hebrew through the
Yiddish bar-len ‘to talk or speak’ [anyhow].

    1596. Shakspear, Hamlet v. i., 21., 1st Clown. Here lies the water;
    good: here stands the man; good: If the man go to this water, it
    is, will he, nil he, he goes; mark you that: but if the water come
    to him, he drowns not himself: argal, he that is not guilty of his
    own death, shortens not his own life.

    1823. J. Galt, The Entail, i., 53. ‘Weel, weel,’ said the laird,
    ‘dinna let us argol-bargol about it; entail your own property as ye
    will, mine shall be on the second son.’

    1861. Times, 23 Aug. Mr. Buckle’s argument [is] as absurd an argal
    as ever was invented by philosopher or gravedigger. [M.]


Argol-Bargolous, adj. (old).—Quarrelsome.—See Argol-bargol.

    1822. J. Galt, The Provost, p. 194. No doubt his argol-bargolous
    disposition was an inheritance accumulated with his other conquest
    of wealth from the mannerless Yankees.


Argufy, verb. (vulgar).—A corrupted form of ‘to argue,’ usually
associated with cavilling or a bandying of words; also, ‘to signify’;
e.g., ‘It doesn’t much argufy.’

    1758. A. Murphy, The Upholsterer, Act i. Well, it does not signify
    argifying.

    1837. Lytton, Ernest Maltravers, bk. IV., ch. vii. ‘Lord! how I
    should like to have you on the roadside instead of within these
    four gimcrack walls. Ha! ha! the argufying would be all in my
    favour then.’


Aristippus, subs. (old).—1. A diet drink or decoction of sarsaparilla
and other drugs, sold at the coffee-houses, and drank as tea.—Grose.

2. Also a cant name for canary wine.

    1627. (circa) Middleton, Wks. (Halliwell), II., 422. Rich
    aristippus, sparkling sherry.


Arkansas Toothpick, subs. (American).—A grimly facetious name for a
folding bowie knife of large dimensions.

    1854. Sir Theo. Martin (with Prof. Aytoun), Bon Gaultier Ballads.

        ‘Straightway leaped the valiant Slingby
          Into armor of Seville,
        With a strong Arkansas toothpick,
          Screwed in every joint of steel.’

    1881. A. B. Greenleaf, Ten Years in Texas, p. 27. All these (men)
    irrespective of age, size, or condition in life, could be seen with
    a Navy six-shooter and an Arkansas toothpick suspended to a
    raw-hide belt tucked around their waists. Supplement the above
    equipment with a sore-backed mustang pony, an old army saddle-tree
    and rope bridle, and you have an exact picture and entire
    possession of the fifteenth constitutional amendment.

    1888. Detroit Free Press, Aug. It is not good form to use a
    toothpick in Arkansas now. A big revolver is the thing in the best
    society.

For synonyms, see Chive.


Ark-Floater, subs. (theatrical).—An actor well advanced in years. [From
an allusion to the proverbial saying concerning anything ancient, ‘He,
or it, must have come out of Noah’s ark,’ + floats, the footlights.]


Arkman, subs. (old).—A Thames waterman. Cf., Ackman.


Ark-Ruff, or Ark-Ruffian.—The same as ack-man (q.v.).


Armour. To be in armour, verb. phr. (old).—To be pot-valiant; ‘primed’;
full of Dutch courage.—See Screwed.


Armpits. To work under the armpits, verb. phr. (old).—To sail so far to
the windward of the law in petty larceny, that, if caught and tried,
the punishment would not amount to more than transportation. On the
passing of Sir Samuel Romilly’s Act, capital punishment was abolished
for highway robberies under 40s. in value. Hence, formerly, to work
under the armpits was to avoid the halter or neck-squeezer (q.v.),
which is applied above the armpits.


Arm-Props, subs. (common).—Crutches; otherwise wooden legs (q.v.).

    1825. W. T. Moncrieff, Tom and Jerry, Act ii., Scene 6. Beggar: You
    did quite right; vell, vile I can get fifteen bob a day by
    gammoning a maim, the devil may vork for me. If any lady or gemman
    is inclined for a dance, I’ll nash my arm-props in a minute.

    (Throws down his crutches.)


Arms and Legs, subs. phr. (common).—Poor, weak beer, because there is
no body in it!—See Swipes.


Armstrong. To come Captain Armstrong.—See Captain Armstrong.


Arrow (vulgarism).—A corruption of ‘e’er, a,’ or ‘ever a.’

    1750. Fielding, Tom Jones, bk. V., ch. viii. ‘I don’t believe there
    is arrow a servant in the house ever saw the colour of his money.’

    1771. Smollett, Humphrey Clinker, i., 126. ‘I now carries my head
    higher than arrow private gentlewoman of Vales.’


’Arry, subs. (common).—The Christian name Harry without the aspirate. A
popular embodiment of the vulgar, rollicking, yet on the whole
good-tempered ‘rough’ of the great metropolis. His ‘get-up’ is, as he
would himself put it, ‘immense’; he is seen to most advantage—his
own—on Sundays and bank holidays; his ‘young woman’—generally
‘’Arriet’—is en suite; taken altogether he is a lively, jovial, but
ill-bred ‘cuss.’ Mr. Punch in an inimitable series of sketches has ‘hit
off’ his man ‘to a T.’

    1880. Millikin, Punch’s Almanac.

        January! Tailor’s bill comes in.
        Blow that blooming snip! I’m short of tin.
        Werry much enjoyed my autumn Caper,
        But three quid fifteen do look queer paper.
        Want another new rig out, wuss luck,
        Gurl at Boodle’s bar seems awful struck.
        Like to take her to pantermime;
        That and oysters after would be prime.
        Fan’s a screamer; this top coat would blue it,
        Yaller at the seams, black ink wont do it.
        Wonder if old snip would spring another?
        Boots, too, rayther seedy; beastly bother!
        Lots o’ larks that empty pockets ‘queer.’
        Can’t do much on fifty quid a year.

        Febrywary! High old time for sprees!
        Now’s yer chance the gals to please or tease.
        Dowds to guy and pooty ones’ to wheedle,
        And give all rival chaps the needle.
        Crab your enemies,—I’ve got a many,
        You can pot ’em proper for a penny.
        My! them walentines do ’it ’em ’ot.
        First-rate fun: I always buy a lot.
        Prigs complain they’re spiteful, lor’ wot stuff!
        I can’t ever get ’em strong enough.
        Safe too; no one twigs your little spree,
        If you do it on the strict Q.T.
        If you’re spoons, a flowery one’s your plan,
        Mem. I sent a proper one to Fan.

        March! I’m nuts upon a windy day,
        Gurls do get in such a awful way.
        Petticoats yer know, and pooty feet;
        Hair all flying,—tell you it’s a treat.
        Pancake day. Don’t like ’em—flabby, tough,
        Rayther do a pennorth o’ plum-duff.
        Seediness shows up as Spring advances,
        Ah! the gurls do lead us pretty dances.
        Days a-lengthening, think I spotted Fan
        Casting sheep’s eyes at another man.
        Quarter-day, too, no more chance of tick,
        Fancy I shall ’ave to cut my stick.
        Got the doldrums dreadful, that is clear,
        Two d left!—must go and do a beer!

        April! All Fools’ Day’s a proper time,
        Cop old gurls and guy old buffers prime.
        Scissors! don’t they goggle and look blue,
        When you land them with a regular ‘do?’
        Lor! the world would not be worth a mivvey,
        If there warn’t no fools to cheek and chivy.
        Then comes Easter. Got some coin in ’and,
        Trot a bonnet out and do the grand.
        Fan all flounce and flower; fellows mad,
        Heye us henvious; nuts to me, my lad.
        ’Ampstead! ’Ampton! Which is it to be?
        Fan—no flat—prefers the Crystal P.
        Nobby togs, high jinks, and lots o’ lotion,
        That’s the style to go it, I’ve a notion!

        May! The month o’ flowers. Spooney sell!
        ‘Rum ’ot with,’ is wot I likes to smell.
        Beats yer roses holler. A chice weed,
        Licks all flowers that ever run to seed.
        Nobby button ’oler very well,
        When one wants to do the ’eavy swell;
        Otherwise don’t care not one brass farden,
        For the best ever blowed in Covent Garden.
        Fan, though, likes ’em, costs a pretty pile,
        Rayther stiff, a tanner for a smile.
        Blued ten bob last time I took ’er out,
        Left my silver ticker up the spout.
        Women are sech sharks! If I don’t drop ’er,
        Guess that I shall come a hawful cropper!

        June! A jolly month; sech stunning weather!
        Fan and I have lots of outs together:
        Rorty on the river, sech prime ’unts,
        Foul the racers, run into the punts.
        Prime to ’ear the anglers rave and cuss,
        When in quiet ‘swims’ we raise a muss.
        Snack on someone’s lawn upon the quiet,
        Won’t the owner raise a tidy riot
        When he twigs our scraps and broken bottles?
        Cheaper this than rusty-rongs or hottles.
        Whitsuntide ’ud be a lot more gay
        If it warn’t so near to Quarter-day.
        Snip turns sour, pulls ‘county-courting’ faces,
        Must try and land a little on the races.

        At July! just nicked a handy fiver,
        (Twenty-five to one on old ‘Screw-driver’!)
        New rig-out. This mustard colour mixture
        Suits me nobly. Fan appears a fixture.
        Gurls like style, you know, and colour ketches ’em,
        But good show of ochre,—that’s what fetches ’em.
        Wimbledon! I’m not a wolunteer,
        Discipline don’t suit this child—no fear!
        But we ’ave fine capers at the camp,
        Proper, but for that confounded scamp:
        Punched my ’ead, because I guyed his shooting.
        Fan I fancied rather ’igh faluting;
        Ogled the big beggar as he propped me,
        Would ’a licked ’im if she ’adn’t stopped me.

        August! Time to think about my outing.
        No dibs yet, though, so it’s no use shouting.
        Make the best of the Bank ’Oliday.
        Fan ‘engaged’! Don’t look too bloomin’ gay.
        Drop into the bar to do a beer.
        Twig her talking to that volunteer.
        Sling my ’ook instanter sharp and short,
        Took Jemimer down to ’Ampton Court,
        Not ’arf bad that gurl. Got rather screwed,
        Little toff complained as I was rude.
        ’It ’im in the wind, he went like death;
        Weak, consumptive cove and short o’ breath.
        Licked ’im proper, dropped ’im like a shot’—
        Only wish that Fan had seen that lot.

        ’Ere’s September! ’Oliday at last!
        Off to Margit—mean to go it fast.
        Mustard-coloured togs still fresh as paint,
        Like to know who’s natty, if I ain’t.
        Got three quid; have cried a go with Fan,
        Game to spend my money like a man.
        But stickin’ tight to one gal ain’t no fun,—
        Here’s no end of prime ’uns on the run
        Carn’t resist me somehow, togs and tile
        All A1—make even swell ones smile.
        Lor! if I’d the ochre, make no doubt
        I could cut no end of big pots out.
        Call me cad? When money’s in the game,
        Cad and swell are pooty much the same.

        Now October! Back again to collar,
        Funds run low, reduced to last ’arf dollar.
        Snip on rampage, boots a getting thin,
        ’Ave to try the turf to raise some tin.
        Evenings getting gloomy; high old games;
        Music ’alls look up the taking names.
        Proper swells them pros! If I’d had my choice,
        There’s my mark. Just wish I’d got a voice;
        Cut the old den to-morrow, lots o’cham,
        Cabs and diamonds—ain’t that real jam?
        Got the straight tip for the Siezerwitch,
        If I honly land it, I’ll be rich.
        Guess next mornin’ wouldn’t find me sober—
        Allays get the blues about October.

        Dull November! Didn’t land that lot.
        Fear my father’s son is going to pot.
        Fan jest passed me, turned away ’er eyes,
        Guess she ranked me with the other guys.
        Nobby larks upon the Ninth, my joker
        But it queers a chap to want the ochre.
        Nothing like a crowd for regular sprees,
        Ain’t it fine to do a rush, and squeeze?
        Twig the women fainting! oh, it’s proper!
        Bonnet buffers when the blooming copper
        Can’t get near yer nohow. Then the fogs!
        Rare old time for regular jolly dogs.
        If a chap’s a genuine ’ot member,
        He can keep the game up in November!

        Dun December! Dismal, dingy, dirty.
        Still short commons—makes a chap feel shirty.
        Snip rampageous, drops a regular summons.
        Fan gets married; ah! them gurls is rum ’uns!
        After all the coin I squandered on ’er!
        Want it now. A ’eap too bad, ’pon honour.
        Snow! ah, that’s yer sort though, and no error,
        Treat to twig the women scud in terror.
        Hot ’un in the eye for that old feller;
        Cold ’un down ’is neck, burst his umbreller.
        Ha! ha! then Christmas,—’ave a jolly feast!
        The Boss will drop a tip,—’ope so, at least.
        If I don’t land some tin, my look-out’s queer.
        Well, let’s drink, boys—‘Better luck next year!’


Arse, subs. (low).—The posterior; the breech; the fundament. Once in
polite use, but now considered very vulgar. As Grose in his Dictionary
of the Vulgar Tongue [1785] prints the word thus, ‘a—e,’ it is evident
that it had then fallen into disfavour. Murray traces the word back to
about A.D. 1000. [A.S., ears, œurs; Icelandic and Swedish, ars; Danish,
arts, and German, arsch].

    1000 (circa). Ælfric, Glossary in Wright, 44·2 [Nates, ears-lye].
    [M.]

    1480. Caxton, Chronicles of England, ccxxvi., 233. They lete hange
    fox tailles ... to hele and hyde her arses.

    1663. Butler, Hudibras I., iii., 964. Then mounted both upon their
    Horses, But with their Faces to the arses. [M.]

    1704. Swift, Battle of the Books (1711), 235. Do you think I have
    nothing else to do but to mend and repair after your arse [i.e.,
    behind you, in your rear].

Heavy-arse, a hulking, lazy fellow; a sluggard.

    1530. Palsgrave, 436, 2. What up, heavy-arse, cannest thou nat
    aryse? [M.]

To hang the arse, to hang or hold back; to be afraid to advance.

    1633. Massinger, Guardian, V., v. Nay, no hanging an arse. [M.]

Arse-upwards in good luck.

    1600 (circa). Timon I., 5 (1842), 20. This man this daye rose with
    his arse upwards: To daye a fidler, and at night a noble.

Also such forms as arse-board, the tail board of a cart—this is still
dialectical; arse-gut, the rectum; arse-long; arse-push, a heavy
backward fall; arse-ropes, the intestines.


Arse-Cooler, subs. (low).—A bustle or dress-improver. [From arse, see
preceding + cooler; in reference to the manner in which this article of
feminine attire extends the dress, and prevents it clinging to the part
of the body referred to.]

For synonyms, see Bird-cage.


Ars-Musica, subs. (low).—The podex when used as a noisy vent.—A play
upon words.


Arst (vulgarism).—A mispronunciation of ‘asked.’


Arsy-Varsy or Arsy-Versy, adv. and adj. (low).—Topsy-turvy; topside
t’other way; heels over head; or ‘the cart before the horse.’ [From
arse + Latin versus ‘to turn,’ following model onomatopoetic compounds
like ‘hirdie-girdie,’ ‘higgledy-piggledy,’ etc.] Once in polite use,
but now confined to the low and vulgar.

    1539. Taverner, Erasm. Prov. (1552), 62. Ye set the cart before the
    horse ... cleane contrarily, and arsy-versy as they say.

    1728. Bailey, Dictionary. Arsy-versey, topsy-turvy, preposterously,
    perversely, without order.

Still dialectical. See English Dialect Society’s Glossaries, e.g., West
Somerset Word Book.


Arter (vulgarism).—An incorrect pronunciation of ‘after.’


Artesian, subs. (Australian).—In Gippsland, Victoria, a well-known and
popular brew of beer is manufactured with water obtained from an
artesian well at Sale—and hence artesian as a common nickname for all
Colonial beer.—See also Cascade.

English synonyms for beer will be found under Swipes.


Artful Dodger, subs. (rhyming and thieves’ slang).—1. A lodger.

    1881. New York Slang Dictionary. Artful dodgers, fellows who dare
    not sleep twice in the same place for fear of arrest.

2. An expert thief. The artful dodger in Dickens’ ‘Oliver Twist’ will
occur to mind in this connection.


Arthur. King Arthur (old).—A sailor’s game, thus described, in effect,
by Grose. When near the line, or in a hot latitude, a man who is to
represent King Arthur, is ridiculously dressed, having a large wig made
out of oakum, or some old swabs. He is seated on the side, or over a
large vessel of water, and every person in turn is ceremoniously
introduced to him, and has to pour a bucket of water over him, crying
out, ‘Hail, King Arthur!’ If during the ceremony the person introduced
laughs or smiles (to which his majesty endeavours to excite him by all
sorts of ridiculous gesticulations), he changes places with, and then
becomes King Arthur, till relieved by some brother tar who has as
little command over his muscles as himself.—See also Ambassador.


Artichoke, subs. (American thieves’).—An aged prostitute of the lowest
type. For general synonyms, see Barrack hack.


Article, subs. (popular).—1. A term of contempt for a worthless or
insignificant person or animal—‘A pretty article he is.’

    1843. Dickens, Martin Chuzzlewit, ch. xxvi., p. 268. You’re a nice
    article, to turn sulky on first coming home!

2. A woman. In this sense generally current at the beginning of the
century—‘a prime article,’ a handsome girl, or, as the Lexicon
Balatronicum [1811] has it, ‘a hell of a goer.’

    1857. A. Trollope, Three Clerks, ch. xxxi. ‘She’d never have done
    for you, you know; and she’s the very article for such a man as
    Peppermint.’

See also Sappy for English and foreign synonyms.


Articles, subs. (thieves’).—A suit of clothes. Formerly current in
England [circa 1780–1825]; now surviving principally amongst American
thieves.


Articles of Virtue, subs. phr. (popular).—Virgins. A play upon the word
‘virtue,’ in allusion to the absence of defloration; and also upon
vertu in its special English usage.


Artist, subs. (American thieves’).—An adroit rogue; a skilful
gamester.—N.Y.S.D.


As ... as They Make ’Em, phr. (common).—Generally employed with such
adjectives as ‘hot,’ ‘drunk,’ ‘bad,’ etc.; e.g., as bad as they make
’em.

    1889. Bird o’ Freedom, Aug. 17, p. 3. On reaching the party it was
    evident that one of the Frenchmen was, not to put too fine a point
    on it, about as drunk as they make ’em. He opened the campaign by
    asking us to have a drink with him. Of course, he spoke in French.


Asia Minor, subs. (popular).—The Kensington and Bayswater districts in
London, on account of the many Anglo-Indians who, on their retirement,
take refuge therein. The nickname, however, is a double-barrelled one,
inasmuch as this quarter is also the headquarters of the Greek
community in the metropolis. Sobriquets of the kind are not infrequent.
The district between Maida Vale and St. Peter’s Park, Paddington, is
called ‘the New Jerusalem,’ because of the large number of Jews who
live there; and the same reason has given an exactly identical
appellation to Brighton, while Cheltenham is nicknamed ‘the Black Hole’
from its numerous Anglo-Indian residents.

A sketch appeared under the title of ‘The Ladies in Parliament’ in
Macmillan’s Magazine [Nov., 1866], wherein Tyburnia was described as
‘the pension’d Indian’s undisturbed retreat.’

    1888. Daily News, 9 Feb., p. 2, col. 5. The Ladbroke Hall,
    Notting-hill ... is in the centre of a district where Indians in
    the British metropolis mostly congregate, a circumstance which has
    acquired for this part of London the nickname of Asia Minor, by
    which it is sometimes called.


Ask Bogy! phr. (old nautical slang).—An evasive reply.


Askew, subs. (old cant).—A cuppe.—Harman [1567].


Asquirm.—See Squirm.

    1866. W. D. Howells, Venetian Life, ch. xviii. It is wet and slimy
    underfoot, and the innumerable gigantic eels, writhing everywhere,
    set the soul asquirm.


Ass, subs. (printers’).—A compositor, so nicknamed by pressmen, who, in
turn, are called pigs (q.v.). Ass is sometimes varied by donkey. In
French printing offices compositors are called mulets, i.e., ‘mules.’


Assay It! intj. (American thieves’).—Commence! try it! Obviously from
the verb ‘to assay,’ and probably introduced by counterfeit coiners.


Assig., subs. (old).—An assignation.—Grose.


Aste, subs. (old cant).—Nares quotes this as an old cant term for
money. For modern synonyms, see Actual.

    1612. The Passenger of Benvenuto. These companions, who in the
    phisionomie of their forehead, eyes, and nose, carry the impression
    and marke of the pillerie galley, and of the halter, they call the
    purse a leafe, and a fleece; money, cuckoes, and aste, and crowns.


Astronomer, subs. (old).—A horse which carries its head high.


Athanasian Wench, subs. (old).—A forward, abandoned woman, of obliging
disposition—one who practises prostitution from libidinous desire
rather than for gain. Also Quicunque vult. For synonyms, see Barrack
hack.


Atlantic-Ranger, subs. (common).—A herring. The derivation is too
obvious to need particularization.

    1883. Good Words, p. 378. Peas-pudding, and hard-boiled eggs,
    rubbing shoulders, as it were, with Atlantic rangers (i.e., red
    herrings).

Among other curious synonyms for this fish may be mentioned
Billingsgate pheasant; two-eyed steak; Yarmouth capon; sea rover; and
Glasgow magistrate, all of which see. A very common request at
Lockhart’s coffee-houses in London is for ‘a door step and a sea
rover,’ i.e., a halfpenny slice of bread and butter and a herring.


Atmosphere, subs. (American).—By the atmosphere of a thing, whether
book, church, or individual, is meant its tone or influence. Atmosphere
is one of the most recent introductions into the canting-slang
phraseology of ‘Culchaw, don’t you know!’ It belongs to the same
category as that which employs awfully and dreadfully for ‘very’; or
lovely for anything pleasing, etc. The number of legitimate words
perverted from their legitimate meanings and used in senses oftentimes
ludicrous is much larger than most people would care to admit.


Atomy, subs. (familiar).—1. A diminutive, or deformed person. [From a
jocular pronunciation of ‘anatomy.’] As will be seen from the
historical examples which follow, this expression has been in the
mouths of the English people for at least 300 years.

    1595. Shakspeare, Romeo and Juliet, iv., i., 57.

        ... I see, Queen Mab hath been with you.
        She is the fairies’ midwife; and she comes
        In shape no bigger than an agate-stone
        On the forefinger of an alderman,
        Drawn with a team of little atomies,
        Athwart men’s noses as they fall asleep.

    1598. Shakspeare, 2 Henry IV., v., 4, 33. Host. Thou atomy, thou!

    Dot. Come, you thin thing, come, you rascal.

    1822. Scott, The Fortunes of Nigel, ch. iii. ‘He was an atomy when
    he came up from the North, and I am sure he died ... at twenty
    stone weight.’

    1866. Sala, Gaslight and Daylight, ch. ix. A miserable little
    atomy, more deformed, more diminutive, more mutilated than any
    beggar in a bowl.

    1884. Cornhill Magazine, May, p. 478. ‘And atomy scarecrow and
    atomy, what next will you call me? Yet you want to marry me!’

    1886. Miss Braddon, Mohawks, ch. xxii. ‘How lovely his young wife
    looks to-night; lovely enough to keep that poor old atomy in
    perpetual torment.’

2. (American thieves’).—Amongst the fraternity atomy has the special
meaning of an empty-headed person, and not necessarily one deformed or
of small, mean stature.

For synonyms, in first sense, see Sappy.


Attack, verb. (common).—A jocular rendering of the legitimate word; to
commence operations, not necessarily, however, with the idea of force,
which is always associated with the proper usage. Also as a subs.

    1812. Combe (Dr. Syntax), Pictur. xvii., 62. The Doctor then ...
    pronounced the grace ... The fierce attack was soon begun.

    1849. Thackeray, Pendennis, ch. i. It was a double letter, and the
    Major commenced perusing the envelope before he attacked the inner
    epistle.


At That, adv. phr. (American and Australian).—An intensitive phrase
tacked on to the end of an assertion or statement already made. ‘He’s a
slick ’cute rascal, and a pretty demon at that,’ i.e., he is a rascal
of rascals, an adept at villainy. It is a purely cant phrase, and has
achieved a degree of popularity quite out of proportion to its
merits—if any. Proctor suggests that the expression is an abbreviation
of ‘added to that,’ but others regard it as the German dazu, a theory
which is not improbable, in view of the large German element in the
States.

    1882. Pinkerton’s Mollie Maguires and Detectives. A miner from
    Wadesville, was spoken of as an ancient Mollie—Cooney being
    actually what the detective assumed to be, and a sharp one at that.

    1888. Forest and Stream, March 15. Worth a year’s subscription, and
    cheap at that.

    1888. New York Herald, July 22. Who would have supposed that the
    self-contained Mr. French, the icily regular T. Henry French, with
    a disposition as undemonstrative as the Alpine edelweiss, would
    suffer his temper to go away because of the loss of a hat—aye, and
    of an old hat at that.


Attic or Attic-Storey, subs. (common).—The head, from its being the
highest or crowning member, the body being figuratively regarded as a
house. Sometimes upper-storey. For synonyms, see Crumpet.

    1870. Alford, in Life (1873), 467. Tolerably well all day, but the
    noise in the attic unremoved.

Queer in the attic, etc. Drunk; also weak-minded, or ‘cracked.’


Attic-Salt, subs. (literary).—Well-turned phrases spiced with wit and
humour. A reference to the peculiar style and idiom of the Greek
language as used by the Athenians, and, says Hotten, ‘partly a sly hit
at the well-known poverty of many writers.’ Whether so, or not, the
phrase is one of long standing.

    1748. T. Dyche, Dictionary (5 ed.) In Philology, we say attic-salt,
    for a delicate, poignant kind of wit and humour after the Athenian
    manner, who were particular in this way.

    1779. Sheridan, The Critic, Act i., Sc. 2. I have the plot from the
    author, and only add—characters strongly drawn—highly coloured—hand
    of a master—fund of genuine humour—mine of invention—neat
    dialogue—attic-salt.

    1848. Jas. Hannay, King Dobbs, ch. ix., p. 129 (1856). ‘If you joke
    in that style, we’ll lose the day,’ said Dobbs, who had some quiet
    homely superstitions. ‘What? is it unlucky to spill attic-salt, as
    well as the ordinary kind?’


Attleborough, subs. (American).—Sham jewelry; used in precisely the
same manner as ‘Brummagem,’ and as widely applied to men and things. It
has passed from the classics of thiefdom into general use, and is
applied to anything of a sham, pinchbeck, insincere, or doubtful
character. Attleborough is a town celebrated for its manufacture of
trashy jewelry.


Attorney, subs. (popular).—A drumstick of goose, or turkey, grilled and
devilled. [From devil = a lawyer who does routine work for another =
attorney.]

    1828. G. Griffin, Collegians, ch. xiii. ‘I love a plain beef steak
    before a grilled attorney.’

(Thieves’).—A shrewd, and often not over honest or scrupulous man who,
possessing some knowledge of the law, acts in the capacity of legal
adviser to those of the ‘crooked craft’ unfortunate enough to need
assistance. Such men are generally solicitors and others whose names
have been struck off the rolls, as also, occasionally, solicitors’
clerks who have otherwise failed in life. Their practices are shady,
but their fees are low.


Attorney-General’s Devil.—See Devil.


Auctioneer. To tip or give the auctioneer.—A phrase borrowed from the
sale room, and signifying ‘to knock a man down.’

    1863. G. A. Sala, Breakfast in Bed, Essay I., p. 4 (1864). And who,
    in return for a craven blow, can deliver the auctioneer well over
    the face and eyes.


Audit-Ale, subs. (Cambridge Univ.).—A special brew of ale, peculiar to
Trinity College, made in the first instance for draught on audit days,
whence its name.

    1837. Barham, Ingoldsby Legends (Lay of S. Dunstan).

              To be sure the best beer
              Of all did not appear,
        For I’ve said ’twas in June, and so late in the year
        The ‘Trinity audit ale’ is not come-at-able,
        As I’ve found to my great grief when dining at that table.

    1876. Trevelyan, Life of Macaulay (1884), ch. iv., p. 127. A glass
    of the audit ale, which reminded him that he was still a fellow of
    Trinity.


Audley.—See John Audley.


Aufe.—See Oaf.


Auger, subs. (American thieves’).—A person given to prosiness is so
called; a bore.


Aught, subs. (vulgarism).—A common illiteracy for ‘naught’ when naming
the cipher—‘o’.


Auld Hornie, subs. (common).—One of the numerous nicknames given to the
devil. Others are, old nick; old scratch; old Harry; skipper; old
gentleman; deuce; dickens; ruffian, etc.—See Skipper for synonyms.


Auld Reekie (popular).—A sobriquet for the old town of Edinburgh. It
means ‘old smoky.’ Of late years it has been applied to the whole city.

    1806. Miss Pitman, in C. K. Sharpe’s Correspondence (1888), i.,
    271. We are within two hours-and-a-half of Auld Reeky.

    1816. Scott, Antiquary, ch. vi. ‘And what news do you bring us from
    Edinburgh, Monkbarns?’ said Sir Arthur; ‘how wags the world in Auld
    Reekie?’

    1889. Colonies and India, July 24, p. 10, col. 1. The Australasian
    Colony in Auld Reekie is prospering apace, and it may soon be
    necessary to plant some gum trees along Princes Street to meet the
    growing demands of the population.


Auly-Auly, subs. (Win. Coll.).—A game formerly played in ‘Grass Court’
on Saturday afternoons after chapel. It consisted in throwing an
india-rubber ball at one another, and everybody was obliged to go down
and join in it. ‘Haul ye, call ye,’ is the supposed derivation; but, as
the game, though in vogue in 1830, was not played as late as 1845,
there is some difficulty in defining it in detail.


Aunt, subs. (old).—Applied, especially during the Elizabethan period,
to either a procuress, a prostitute, or a concubine. It survived till
the commencement of the present century and then gradually died out.
For synonyms, see Mother.

    1608. Middleton, Trick to Catch the Old One, II., i. Was it not
    then better bestowed upon his uncle than upon one of his aunts?—I
    need not say bawd, for everyone knows what aunt stands for in the
    last translation.

    1623. Shakspear, Winter’s Tale, iv., 3.

        Summer songs for me and my aunts,
        While we lie tumbling in the hay.

To go and see one’s aunt (common).—To go to the W.C.—See Mrs. Jones.


Aunt Sally, subs. (familiar).—A well-known game, common to race-courses
and fairs, which consists in throwing short staves at a wooden head
mounted on a stick, placed upright in the ground, and forming a kind of
target. In the mouth of the image is placed a clay pipe, and the object
of the player, who stands at say twenty or thirty yards distance, is to
demolish this. The amusement is not unlike the more popular ‘three
shies a penny.’ The origin of Aunt Sally is wrapped in mystery; nor is
it known whether she is any relation to the black lady whose effigy
some few years since was frequently to be met with suspended outside
the shops of rag and ‘marine store’ dealers. A writer in Notes and
Queries [2 S., x., 117] affirms that Aunt Sally is the heroine of a
popular negro melody, in which the old lady meets with several
ludicrous adventures, but evidence in support of this theory is at
present wanting.

    1866. G. A. Sala, Gaslight and Daylight, ch. i., p. 11. They will
    go to Epsom by the rail, and create disturbances on the course, and
    among the ‘sticks’ and aunt sallies.

    1883. Punch, June 2, p. 264, col. 1. The average number of ‘chucks’
    at cocoa-nuts before achieving success is six, and of ‘shies’ at
    aunt sally, four.


Au Reservoir! intj. phr. (common).—Au revoir. A mere play upon sounds.
Common in America, where it originated, and now often heard in England.


Australian Flag, subs. (Anglo-Australian).—The tail of a shirt, when,
after exertion, it rucks up in folds between the trousers and the
waistcoat—an ‘up-country’ phrase.—See Cornstalk.


Australian Grip, subs. (Australian).—A hearty shake of the hands.


Autem, Autum, Autom, subs. (old cant).—A church. The term first appears
in Harman’s Caveat [1573]; again in Rowland’s Martin Mark-all [1610];
in Head’s English Rogue [1665]; in Cole’s English Dictionary [1724]; in
Grose’s Dictionary of the Vulgar Tongue [1785], and in Duncombe’s Sinks
of London Laid Open [1848].—See also Autem mort.

Adj.—Married. So quoted in Cole’s English Dictionary, whence autem
mort, etc.


Autem-Bawler, subs. (old cant).—A parson. [From autem (q.v.), a church
+ bawler, a speaker.] For modern English and foreign synonyms, see
Gospel shark. Other ancient expressions for a clergyman are autem-jet,
autem-cackler, and autem-pricker; the last two named, however, apply,
as a rule, only to Dissenters.


Autem-Cackler, subs. (old cant).—A Dissenter; sometimes specially
applied to Dissenting ministers.

    1876. Hindley, Life and Adventures of a Cheap Jack, p. 260. ‘On one
    occasion a Jew was selling cocoa-nut, when the autem-cackler, i.e.,
    Dissenting minister, came and wanted to impart to the Israelite the
    sin he committed in carrying on his vocation on such a day
    [Sunday]. The Jew half listened to what the other said, but kept on
    calling out “Cocoa-nut a half-penny a slice, a very nice
    cocoa-nut—cocoanut!”’

2. A married woman.—See Autem. In this sense it is used in a canting
song in the New York Slang Dictionary, first published in 1881, and
which, as a specimen of the verse affected by the light-fingered
fraternity, it may not be out of place to give entire. It should be
read in connection with the remarks On canting songs (q.v.).


        ‘A HUNDRED STRETCHES (1) HENCE.’

        ‘Oh! where will be the culls of the bing (2)
          A hundred stretches hence?
        The bene morts (3), who sweetly sing,
          A hundred stretches hence?
        The autumn-cacklers, autumn-coves (4),
        The jolly blade who wildly roves;
        And where the buffer (5), bruiser (6), blowen (7),
        And all the cops (8) and beaks (9) so knowin’
          A hundred stretches hence?

        ‘And where the swag (10), so bleakly (11) pinched (12),
          A hundred stretches hence?
        The thimbles (13), slang (14), and danglers (15) filched,
          A hundred stretches hence?
        The chips (16), the fawneys (17), chatty-feeders (18),
        The bugs (19), the boungs (20), and well-filled readers (21);
        And where the fence (22) and snoozing-ken (23),
        With all the prigs (24) and lushing men (25),
          A hundred stretches hence?

        ‘Played out they lay, it will be said
          A hundred stretches hence;
        With shovels they were put to bed (26)
          A hundred stretches since!
        Some rubbed to wit had napped a winder (27),
        And some were scragged (28) and took a blinder (29),
        Planted the swag and lost to sight,
        We’ll bid them, one and all, good-night,
          A hundred stretches hence.’


    1, Stretch, a year; 2, culls of the bing, innkeepers, publicans; 3,
    bene morts, pretty girls or women; 4, autumn cove, married men; 5,
    buffer, smuggler, rogue, or cheat; 6, bruiser, prostitute’s bully
    or prize-fighter; 7, blowen, a showy prostitute; 8, cop, policeman;
    9, beak, a magistrate; 10, swag, plunder, proceeds of robbery; 11,
    bleakly, cleverly, also handsome; 12, pinched, stolen; 13, thimble,
    a watch; 14, slang, a watch chain; 15, danglers, a bunch of seals;
    16, chips, money; 17, fawney, a ring; 18, chatty-feeder, a spoon;
    19, bug, a breast pin; 20, boung, a purse; 21, reader, a
    pocket-book; 22, fence, a receiver of stolen goods; 23,
    snoozing-ken, a brothel; 24, prig, a thief; 25, lushing-men,
    drinking-men; 26, put to bed with a shovel, buried; 27, to nap a
    winder—to nap, to cheat, winder, a life sentence; 28, scragged,
    hanged; 29, to take a blinder, to drown oneself.


Autem Cackle Tub, subs. (old cant).—The meeting house of Dissenters of
every description. Also a pulpit.


Autem-Cove, subs. (old cant).—A married man. [From autem (q.v.), a
church + cove, a man.]


Autem-Dippers or Autem-Divers, subs. (old cant).—1. Formerly a nickname
for Baptists, from their practice of immersing adult converts, as
distinguished from infant sprinkling.

2. Pickpockets who practised in churches were called autem-divers; also
churchwardens and overseers of the poor who defrauded, deceived, and
imposed upon the parish.


Autem-Goglers, subs. (old cant).—Pretended French prophets—Grose.
Conjurors, fortune-tellers—Duncombe.


Autem-Jet, subs. (old cant).—A parson. [From autem, a church + jet,
black, in allusion to the black garments usually worn by ‘the cloth.’]
For some curious synonyms, see Devil-dodger.


Autem, or Autem-Mort, subs. (old cant).—A married woman, i.e., one
wedded in a church. [From autem, a church + mort, or mot, a woman.] The
term belongs to the oldest cant, and is the subject of a long
description in Harman’s Caveat. (See quotation.) The old fraternity of
vagabonds (for a full description of which, see Cadgers—ancient and
modern) was divided into well marked classes, as also were the women
who accompanied them in their peregrinations. The men were not strict
monogamists, either as regards lawful companions or those of another
grade—

    1567. Harman, Caveat (1814), p. 49. These Autem Mortes be maried
    wemen, as there be but a fewe: For Autem in their language is a
    church, so shee is a wyfe maried at the church, and they be as
    chaste as a cowe I have, that goeth to bull eury moone, with what
    bull she careth not. These walke most times from their husbands
    companye a moneth and more to gether, being asociate with another
    as honest as her selfe. These wyll pylfar clothes of hedges; some
    of them go with children of ten or xii years of age; yf tyme and
    place serue for their purpose, they will send them into some house,
    at the window, to steale and robbe, which they call in their
    language, Milling of the ken; and wil go with wallets on their
    shoulders, and slates at their backes. There is one of these Autem
    Mortes, she is now a widow, of fyfty yeres old; her name is Alice
    Milson: she goeth about with a couple of great boyes, the youngest
    of them is fast Upon xx yeares of age....

    1592. Greene, Quip, in works IX., 283. The pedler as bad or rather
    worse, walketh the country with his docksey at the least, if he
    have not two, his mortes dels, and Autem Mortis.

    1610. Rowlands, Martin Mark-all, p. 7 (H. Club’s Reprint, 1874).
    Here another [complains] that they could not quietly take their
    rest in the night, nor keepe his autem, or doxie sole vnto
    himselfe.

    1834. H. Ainsworth, Rookwood, bk. III., ch. v. Morts, autem-morts,
    walking morts, dells, doxies with all the shades and grades of the
    canting crew, were assembled.

Toward the end of the eighteenth century autem-mort was used as
synonymous with a female beggar alone; then another meaning crept into
the word—a prostitute.—See Cadger.


Autem-Prickear.—The same as autem-cackler (q.v.).


Autem-Quaver, subs. (old cant).—A Quaker. [From autem, a church +
quaver, referring to the shaking, peculiar to some of the religious
exercises of the Society of Friends.]


Autem-Quaver-Tub, subs. (old cant).—A Quaker’s meeting-house; also a
desk therein.


Author-Baiting, subs. (theatrical).—Calling the author of an
unsuccessful play before the curtain, and then, wanting all sense of
decency and feeling, to overwhelm him with every imaginable source of
annoyance—yelling, hooting, bellowing, etc.


Avast! intj. (nautical).—Hold on! Stop! Shut up! Stow it! etc., etc. No
word perhaps has more suggested derivations than avast! Webster writes
it down as from the Italian basta, enough; literally, it suffices, from
bastare, to suffice. He does not, however, seem to have been altogether
certain, for he queries whether it is not a worn-down form of the Dutch
houd vast, hou’ vast, hold fast! a derivation which Dr. Murray endorses
as ‘probable’ in his New Dictionary of the English Language. Bearing in
mind that avast, although used colloquially is first and foremost a
sailor’s term, this derivation does not seem far-fetched; for, the
Dutch having been themselves one of the great maritime nations of the
past, it is not unlikely that the term should have come from them,
especially when it is borne in mind that a large proportion of nautical
terms are so derived.

Such are boom; sprit; reef; schooner; skate; sloop; stiver; taffrail;
yacht (jaghten, ‘to chase’), etc.

On the other hand, as regards the Italian basta, it is only fair to
point out that French workmen use basta, in the sense of enough! no
more! The same term occurs also in the Spanish.

Hotten connects it with the old cant bynge a waste, get out of the way!
go hence! but though one cannot speak with certainty, this is not, on
the face of it, apparent. There seems no discoverable connection
between the two; moreover, the comparative and historical method of
dealing with slang shows us that avast in its present form and sense
can be traced as far back as 1681, within about a hundred years of the
publication of Harman’s Caveat where bynge a waste first occurs. The
probability therefore is that the two terms are distinct, and that
avast is derived from a different source to bynge a waste (q.v.) which,
as Leland points out, has probably its origin in the Romany.

    1681. Otway, Soldiers’ Fortune, iv., i. Hoa up, hoa up; so avast
    there, sir.

    1748. Smollett, Rod. Random, ch. xli. ‘Avast there, friend: none of
    your tricks upon travellers.’

    1751. Smollett, Peregrine Pickle, ch. xcvii. ‘And upon this scrap
    of paper—no, avast—that’s my discharge from the parish.’

    1884. W. C. Russell, Jack’s Courtship, ch. xiv. But avast now!
    we’ve had enough of philosopherising.


Avoirdupois-Lay, subs. (old thieves’ cant).—This is given by Grose as
meaning the theft of brass weights off shop counters.


Avuncular-Relation, subs. (common).—A pawnbroker—a facetious variant of
uncle (q.v.), another name for the same individual.


Awake, adv. (old, and modern American thieves’).—On the alert;
vigilant. Cf., wide-awake, a certain kind of hat, so called,
by-the-bye, from its never having a ‘nap.’ For synonyms, see Fly.

    1821. Moncrieff, Tom and Jerry (Dicks’ ed., 1889), p. 6.

Prime. From the cut of the gentleman’s clothes, I presume he’s lately
come from the Esquimaux Islands.

Tom. Ha! ha! very good, Primefit; I say, Jerry—you see he’s down upon
you.

Jerry. Yes, he’s up, he’s awake, he’s fly—Ha! ha!

    1838. Dickens, Nich. Nickleby, ch. xxxix., p. 314. ‘If you hear the
    waiter coming, sir, shove it in your pocket and look out of the
    window, d’ye hear?’ ‘I’m awake, father,’ replied the dutiful
    Wackford.


Awful, subs. (common).—A sensational newspaper, tale, or narration;
e.g., a penny awful. Sometimes called a dreadful; other names for this
kind of mental pabulum are blood and thunder tales, and gutter
literature.

Adj.—Generally colloquial as an intensitive, conveying no more awe-full
meaning than ‘very,’ ‘exceedingly,’ etc. Strange as it may appear this
familiar usage is very old, and was frequently heard north of the Tweed
long prior to its use by Southrons. An intermediate stage was its
appearance across the Atlantic, whence its re-introduction into the
Mother Country may be traced.

    1834. Lamb, Gent. Giantess, Misc. Wks. (1871), 363. She is indeed,
    as the Americans would express it, something awful.

    b. 1789, d. 1880. Planché, Good Woman in the Wood.

        ‘A poor widow and her orphan chicks
        Left without fixtures, in an awful fix.’

    1883. Hawley Smart, At Fault, III., v., 82. ‘I’m awful glad you two
    have made acquaintance.’

Awfully, the adverbial form, is subjected to the same ill-treatment, as
the following examples will show.

    1877. Punch’s Pocket Book for 1878, p. 165. You should have come
    with us. It’s too awfully nice, as I told you I thought it would
    be.

    1878. M. E. Braddon, Cloven Foot, ch. vii. ‘Awfully,’ was Miss
    Clare’s chief laudatory adjective [sic]; her superlative form of
    praise was ‘quite too awfully,’ and when enthusiasm carried her
    beyond herself she called things ‘nice.’ ‘Quite too awfully nice,’
    was her maximum of rapture.

    1889. Illustrated Bits, July 13.

        An Old Proverb Twisted.

        ‘The ham of the sandwich was awfully tough,’
          He said, for, oh, it was dry,
        As at first he tried to bite into the stuff,
          All in vain, how hard he would try.
        But at last, when fairly bit into the thing,
          He found that it was all right,
        And he said, as happy as any king,
          ‘The bark was worse than the bite.’

French equivalents are, bigrement; jusqu’à la troisième capucine; and
pommé.


Awkward-Squad, subs. (military and naval).—Recruits when commencing to
learn their drill.


Ax, Axe, verb. (vulgar).—To ask. Though now looked upon as a vulgarism,
ax is still largely dialectical, and is really the most correct form of
the word. ‘Ask’ is the northern gloss which has gradually supplanted
ax. The latter, down to nearly 1600, says Dr. Murray, was the regular
literary form.

    c. 1380. Chaucer, Tale of Melibeus. Seint Jame eck saith: If eny
    fellow have neede of sapiens, axe it of God.

    1474. Caxton, Game of the Chesse, bk. III., ch. viii. He must nedes
    begge and axe his breed.

    1758. A. Murphy, The Upholsterer, Act i. An old crazy fool—axing
    your pardon, ma’am, for calling your father so.

    1763. Foote, Mayor of Garratt, Act ii., Sc. 2. Mrs. Sneak. Where is
    the puppy? Sneak. Yes, yes, she is axing for me.

    1861. H. Kingsley, Ravenshoe, ch. vi. ‘I axed her would she like to
    live in the great house, and she said no.’

    1883. Echo, Jan. 25, p. 2, col. 3. To axe, considered but a
    vulgarism, for to ask, is good Saxon.


Axe. An axe to grind, phr. (American).—A much-used phrase of political
origin. Men are said to have axes to grind when suspected of selfish or
interested motives. From politics the expression has passed into use
among all classes of society. The Chicago Daily Inter-Ocean (Feb. 1888)
spoke of certain politicians as ‘men with axes to grind.’ What we
believe is right is more often so because it grinds our axe than
otherwise.

    1871. (From Hoppe’s Conversations Lexicon). Miner. ‘Who’ll turn the
    grindstones?’ When I see a merchant over-polite to his customers,
    begging them to taste a little brandy, and throwing half his goods
    on the counter, thinks I, that man has an axe to grind.

    1888. Detroit Free Press, Sept. 22. William Black, the novelist,
    says the only ax a novelist has to grind is the climax.


Axe-My-Eye! subs. (cheap jacks’).—One who is up to every trick; a cute
fellow.

    1876. C. Hindley, Life and Adventures of a Cheap Jack, p. 232.

        Stow your gab and gauffery,
          To every fakement I’m a fly;
        I never takes no fluffery,
          For I’m a regular axe-my-eye.


Ayrshires, subs. (Stock Exchange).—Glasgow and South-Western Railway
Stock.








                              B


B Not to know b from a battledore, phr. (old).—To be entirely
illiterate; very ignorant. This old cant phrase has several variants,
all of them alliterative in character. For example, not to know b from
a bull’s-foot—from a broomstick—chalk from cheese, etc. Each and all
indicate inability to distinguish between familiar objects that differ.
Battledore is an old name for the hornbook from which children used to
learn the alphabet.

    1401. Pol. Poems, II., 57. I know not an a from the wynd-mylne, ne
    a b from a bole foot. [M.]

    1609. Dekker, Guls-Hornebooke, 3. You shall not neede to buy
    bookes; no, scorne to distinguish a b from a battledore; onely
    looke that your eares be long enough to reach our rudiments, and
    you are made for ever.

    1846. Brackenridge, Modern Chivalry, 43. There were members who
    scarcely knew b from a bull’s-foot. [M.]


B (fenian).—Mr. H. J. Byron, the playwright, in his annotated copy of
the Slang Dictionary, mentions this as the title of a captain in the
‘army of the Irish Republican Brotherhood.’


B’s.—See B flat.


Babe, subs. (parliamentary).—The last elected member of the House of
Commons. The oldest representative of the chamber is called the father
of the house (q.v.).

(American).—The youngest member of a class at the United States
Military College at West Point. A term sans wit, sans point, sans
almost everything.


Babe in the Wood, subs. phr. (old).—1. A victim of the law’s
solicitude; in other words, a culprit sentenced to the stocks or the
pillory. Obsolete.

2. Dice are also called babes in the wood.


Babes, subs. (auctioneers’).—A set of auction thieves, who attend sales
for the express purpose of blackmail. Their modus operandi is as
follows. In consideration of a small bribe of money or beer, or both,
they agree not to oppose the bidding of the larger dealers, who thus
dishonestly keep down the price of lots. The practice is generally
worked in connection with knock-outs (q.v.).

(American).—A set of Baltimore rowdies are so-called; at various times
they have also received the names of blood tubs and plug-uglies (q.v.).


Baboo-English, subs. (Anglo-Indian).—A species of ‘English as she is
wrote’ (q.v.). Its main peculiarity is its grandiloquence, a feature
born of an attempt to adapt Western speech to Eastern imagery and
hyperbole.


Baby-Herder, subs. (American).—A nurse; a simile drawn from life on the
plains, and worked out with true cowboy humour.


Babylonitish, subs. (Winchester College).—A dressing gown. An
abbreviated form of ‘Babylonitish garment.’


Baby-Pap, subs. (thieves’).—A cap; part of the so-called rhyming slang
(q.v.).


Bacca.—See Baccy.


Bacca-Pipes, subs. (common).—Whiskers when curled in ringlets, a now
obsolete fashion.—See Mutton-chops.


Baccare! Backare! intj. (old cant).—Go back! [a humorous form of back +
a simulated Latin termination]. In use from about 1553–1660.

    1592. Lyly, Midas, V., 2. The masculine gender is more worthy than
    the feminine. Therefore, Licio. backare.

    1593. Shakspeare, Taming of the Shrew, ii.;

        Saving your tale, Petruchio, I pray
        Let us, that are poor petitioners, speak too;
        Baccare! you are marvellous forward.

                                                    [N.]


Baccy, also Bacca, subs. (common).—A corrupted form of ‘tobacco.’
Apparently of quite recent introduction. An equivalent term in French
is perlot, from perle.

    1833. Marryat, Peter Simple, ch. ii. ‘You must larn to chaw baccy.’

    1861. Jas. Conway, Forays among Salmon and Deer, p. 228. I lay on
    an Affghan goat-rug spread over fresh heather, with a pipe filled
    with good baccy in my mouth.


Bach or Batch, verb. (American).—To live as a bachelor.


Bachelor’s Baby, subs. (old).—An illegitimate child. For synonyms, see
Bye-blow.


Bachelors-Fare, subs. (familiar).—Bread and cheese and kisses—a
humorous allusion to the real or alleged ‘short commons,’ generally
assumed to be meted out to a man who is unattached. Like many other
proverbial sayings there is more sound than truth in it.

    1738. Swift, Polite Conversation, conv. i. Lady Ans. Colonel, some
    ladies of your acquaintance have promised to breakfast with you,
    and I am to wait on them; what will you give us? Col. Why, faith,
    madam, bachelor’s-fare, bread and cheese and kisses.


Back, verb. (popular).—To bet or wager; to support by means of money,
kind, or influence, on the turf or elsewhere. From the earlier and more
legitimate meaning to support, maintain, or strengthen. Possibly in the
sense of to wager or support by betting, back can hardly nowadays be
classed as slang; there seems too, to be long and constant usage to
support its claim as a regular dictionary word.

(Uppingham School).—At football, to be ready for a chance.

To put or set up one’s back, phr. (familiar).—To rouse oneself to
antipathy; to get angry; to resist. The figure presented is that of a
cat, which, when irritated, arches or sets up its back. Also used
negatively as an exhortation to keep one’s temper. Don’t get your back
up! For synonymous phrases, see Hold your hair on!

    1726. Vanbrugh and Cibber, Provoked Husband, V., iii., 112. O Lud!
    how her back will be up then when she meets me.

    1771. Smollett, Humphry Clinker, ch. 66. My uncle’s back was up in
    a moment; and he desired him to explain his pretensions.

    1855. Thackeray, Newcomes, ch. xvi. ‘I know she is flighty, and
    that; and Brian’s back is up a little. But he ain’t a bad fellow;
    and I wish I could see you and his wife better friends.’

    1883. Greenwood, Grandmother Cooper, in Odd People in Odd Places, p
    2. ‘You don’t know what you’re sayin’; therefore you don’t mean no
    harm. If so be you think what you just now said, keep it to
    yourself, don’t say it to me. It sets my back up, and when my
    back’s set up I’m sometimes orkard.’

To ride on one’s back, phr. (old).—To deceive successfully.


Back and Belly, phr. (vulgar).—1. Back and before; all over.

2. To keep one back and belly, phr. (old).—To feed and clothe. Cf.,
Belly-timber and Back-timber.


Back-Breaker, subs. (common).—One who sets, or that which is, an
example of more than ordinary human powers of endurance; e.g., in
pedestrianism or racing a man or horse whose pace is considerably over
the average. In sporting phraseology he or it is called a scorcher
(q.v.) and the pace of such is also eloquently called ‘killing.’
Back-breaking is therefore synonymous with excessive exertion or effort
of all kinds.


Back-Cap. To give a back-cap, phr. (American).—To expose; to reveal
what one knows of another, in a detrimental sense.

    1883. Mark Twain, Life on the Mississippi, p. 462. [A pretended
    converted thief is made to say]:—i told him all about my being in
    prison and about you, and how i had almost done giving up looking
    for work and how the Lord got me the job when i asked him ... and
    then i felt better than ever i had done in my life, for i had given
    Mr. Brown a fair start with me and now i didn’t fear no one giving
    me a back-cap and running me off the job.


Back-Cheat, subs. (old cant).—A cloak. Also called a wrap-rascal
(q.v.).


Back-Door. A gentleman of the back-door, subs. phr. (common).—A
sodomist; formerly a backgammon player. The vice itself is called
back-door work. For synonyms, see Usher.


Backdoor-Trot, subs. (provincial).—Diarrhœa. The allusion is obvious. A
more common term is jerry-go-nimble (q.v.).


Back Down, verb, (common).—To yield; to retreat from a position; to
abandon a line of argument; to eat one’s words. Originally an American
turn of expression.—See Back track and Back out.

Subs.—Usually a square back down; a severe rebuff; sometimes, utter
collapse.


Backed, ppl. adj. (old).—Dead—a figurative use of to ‘put on one’s
back,’ i.e., to place hors de combat.


Back-End, subs. (racing).—The last two months of the racing season.
More technical than slang.

    1820. Blackw. Mag., Oct., p. 3. When you did me the honour to stop
    a day or two at last back-end.

    1883. Hawley Smart, Hard Lines, ch. xxix. ‘Most of what I got over
    that steeplechase I dropped at the back-end over the October
    handicaps.’

Adj.—The meaning, mutatis mutandis, is the same as back-end.

    1883. Daily Telegraph, April 30, p. 3, col. 6. And neither [horse]
    could beat Palermo on back-end form.


Back-Gammon Player.—See Back-door.


Backhand, verb. (common).—To detain the decanter when it is passed
round, and thus to drink more than one’s share; a more recent phrase is
‘not drinking fair.’—See, however, Backhander.

    1857. G. A. Lawrence, Guy Livingstone, ch. viii. ‘Livingstone, if
    you begin backhanding already, you’ll never be able to hold that
    great raking chestnut I saw your groom leading this evening.’


Back-Handed Turn (Stock Exchange).—An unprofitable bargain.


Backhander, subs. (common).—1. A drink out of turn; also detention of
wine at table so as to get an extra share.

    1855. Thackery, Newcomes, ch. xliii. ‘Thank you, Mr. Binnie, I will
    take a backhander, as Clive don’t seem to drink.’

    1873. Saturday Review, p. 798. Long experience has shown us that to
    get small advantages over us gives the Scotch so much pleasure,
    that we should not think of grudging them the mild satisfaction,
    just as a kindly host affects not to notice a valued guest, who, he
    observes, always helps himself to an innocent backhander.

2. A blow on the face with the back of the hand.

    1836. Marryat, Midshipman Easy, p. 11. ‘Go away, Sarah,’ said
    Johnny, with a backhander.

    1862. Farrar, St. Winifred’s, ch. xxxiii. He administered a
    backhander to Elgood, as he spoke, and the next minute Charlie,
    roused beyond all bearing, had knocked him down.

    1870. Mansfield, School-Life at Winchester College. The doctor
    comes suddenly round a corner, and finds Tibbs [a fag] mopping the
    rosy fluid from his nose with a rueful countenance, having just
    received a sharp backhander from one of his lords and masters.

3. Hence, figuratively, a rebuke; a ‘setting down.’

    1850. Whyte Melville, Kate Coventry, ch. i. I knew this was what
    John calls a back hander at me, but I can be so good-natured when I
    have anything to gain, therefore I only said ——.


Backing and Filling, adj. (colloquial).—A backing and filling policy is
one that is shifty; irresolute; trifling. A figurative usage derived
from backing and filling a vessel, i.e., keeping it in the middle of
the stream of a narrow river by advancing first to one shore, and then
backing to the other, allowing the stream to make the way, the wind
blowing in an opposite direction to the stream.


Backing-On.—See Turning-on.


Backings Up, subs. (Winchester College).—The unconsumed ends of
half-burned fagots. They are collected and sometimes made into
surreptitious fires by ‘Juniors.’


Back Jump, subs. (thieves’).—A back window.—See Jump.


Backmarked. To be backmarked, verb. (pedestrian).—In handicapping to
receive less start from ‘scratch’ than previously given—even to being
put back to ‘scratch.’


Back Out, verb. (colloquial).—To retreat cautiously and tacitly; from
stable phraseology; e.g., the backing out of a horse. Very much the
same as to back down (q.v.).

    1817. Scott, Rob Roy, ch. viii. Jobson, however, was determined
    that Morris should not back out of the scrape so easily.

    1855. A. Trollope, The Warden, ch. xii. How was he to back out of a
    matter in which his name was already so publicly concerned?

    1870. L. Oliphant, Piccadilly, pt. IV., p. 152. I am sure that he
    had done his best to spread the report of my marriage with his
    sister for fear of my backing out.


Back Scuttle, verb. (thieves’).—The same as back-slang (q.v.).


Back-Seam. To be down on one’s back-seam, phr. (tailors’).—To be down
on one’s luck; to be unfortunate.


Back Seat. To take a back seat, phr. (American).—Figuratively, to
retire into obscurity; it also sometimes implies a silent confession of
failure; an inability to accomplish what one has attempted. The
colloquialism has gained a world-wide currency; it received an immense
‘send off,’ as the Americans say, from Andrew Johnson’s famous saying
in 1868, that in the work of Reconstruction traitors should take back
seats.

    1885. Society, Feb. 7, p. 9. This great batting achievement must,
    however, take a back seat when compared with the enormous total
    recently scored by Shaw’s Eleven in Australia, against a powerful
    Colonial team.

    1888. Daily News, Feb. 24, p. 5, col. 2. Any form of art which is
    barred by its very nature from perfection must take what the
    Americans call a back seat.

    1888. Texas Siftings, p. 426. Who will say the Britishers are not a
    forbearing and forgiving race, and the inhabitants of
    Stratford-on-Avon don’t by any means take a back seat in that line?
    Ignatius Donnelly actually visited the birthplace of Shakespeare,
    and wasn’t lynched! Far from it, he was hospitably received and
    entertained.


Back-Slum, subs. (colloquial).—The lowest and most disreputable
quarters of a town or city; generally applied to the dens and rookeries
of the criminal and ‘outcast’ classes.

    1821. W. T. Moncrieff’s Tom and Jerry, Act ii., Scene 5. Log. Well,
    don’t grumble—every one must pay for his learning—and you wouldn’t
    bilk the schoolmaster, would you? But, come, I’m getting merry; so
    if you wish for a bit of good truth, come with me, and let’s have a
    dive among the cadgers in the back slums, in the Holy Land. Jerry.
    Back slums—Holy Land!—I’m at fault again. Log. Why, among the
    beggars in Dyot Street, St. Giles’s. Tom. Beggars! ah, we shall be
    very good figures for the part.

        (Turns out his pockets.)

    1876. M. E. Braddon, Joshua Haggard’s Daughter, ch. xx. Not in
    fetid alleys and festering London back-slums only is man’s fight
    with difficulty a bitter and crushing battle.

(Australian thieves’.)—A back room or entrance.


Backstaircase, subs. (common).—A bustle, or ‘dress improver.’ For
synonyms, see Birdcage.


Backstair Influence, subs. (familiar).—Underhand dealing or persuasion;
a stab in the dark; intrigue. [From the use of the back or private
stairs of a palace, etc., for other than state visitors; hence, a
secret mode of approach; and, attributively, applied to indirect,
oblique, and unfair intrigue.]

    1697. Vanbrugh, Relapse, II. He is like a backstair minister at
    Court, who, while the reputed favourites are sauntering in the
    bed-chamber, is ruling the roast in the closet.

    1877. Grenville Murray, Round about France, p. 77. These men are
    the most indefatigable retailers of backstairs small talk to the
    little fry of journalism.


Back-Stall, subs. (thieves’).—An accomplice who ‘covers’ the actual
thief; especially used in relation to garrote-robberies, in which the
back-stall has two functions, first to screen his companion, and then,
if necessary, to ‘make off’ with the booty.


Back Talk. No back talk! phr. (common).— 1. A slang catch-phrase
indicating that the matter in question is closed to discussion;
‘there’s nothing more to be said.’

2. Underhand insinuation.


Back Teeth. To have one’s back teeth well afloat, phr. (popular).—A
facetiously brutal way of implying that the subject of such a remark is
well primed with liquor—even to the verge of drunkenness.—See Screwed.

    1888. Missouri Republican, Jan. 25. When sober on the bench, Judge
    Noonan is a model of all the virtues. On Friday night, however, in
    company with Dr. Munford, of Kansas City, ex-Speaker Wood, Mr.
    Charles Mead and several other gentlemen, his honour once more
    drank until, as an onlooker put it, his back teeth were well
    afloat.


Back-Timber, subs. (old).—Clothes. A humorous term which dates back to
the middle of the seventeenth century. Other slang equivalents are togs
and toggery; also war-paint in the sense of fine or showy garb. In
French argot, alpague is used synonymously.

    b. 1574, d. 1656. Bp. Hall, Works V., 543. Was there ever more riot
    and excess in diet and clothes, in belly-cheer and back-timber,
    than we see at this day? [d.]


Back Tommy, subs. (tailors’).—A piece of cloth used to cover the
‘stays’ at the waist.


Back-Track. To take the back-track, phr. (American).—To retreat from
any assumed position; to back out (q.v.).


Back Up, verb. (Winchester College).—To call out. In ‘College’ various
times are called out by Junior in ‘Chambers,’ such as ‘Three quarters!’
‘Hour!’ ‘Bells go single!’ ‘Bells down!’


Back-Slang, subs. (street and costermonger).—A species of slang, in
which every word, as far as possible, is pronounced backwards. See ‘A
Comparative and Historical Study of Slang’ at the end of this work.

verb. 1. (thieves’).—To talk in the back-slang lingo.

2. (thieves’).—To go or come stealthily from a place; to sneak by a
roundabout way; also, to go away quickly.

3. (Australian).—Up country in Australia, as in most parts a little out
of the beaten tracks of civilization, a traveller is welcome at most of
the homesteads in his way. Though unknown to the inmates, and bearing
no letter of introduction, it is a common thing for a wayfarer to ride
or drive up to a house, maybe call for help, and then take up his
quarters for the night. This, in Australia, is called back-slanging it,
though how the phrase is derived is not quite clear, for there is no
suggestion of sneaking or proceeding stealthily in the question.


Backwardation, subs. (Stock Exchange).—A penalty paid for an extension
of time, by sellers, when unable to deliver stock or shares which they
have contracted to deliver by a certain date. Backwardation is the
reverse of contango (q.v.). Obviously this sometimes permits the
purchase of stock cheaper on credit than for cash.

    1850. Keyser, Law of the Stock Exchange. The term backwardation is
    employed when stock is more in demand than money, and a premium is
    given to obtain the loan of stock against its value in money.

    1886. Daily News, 14 Dec, p. 6, col. 1. The 1873 loan is, on
    balance, about ⅝ lower, at 94, after being 93½. The backwardation
    on the stock went off at the close.


Backy, subs. (tailors’).—A shop-mate who works behind another.


Bacon, subs. (popular).—The human body. A reference probably to the
fact that the flesh of the pig forms the staple meat diet of the rural
population, and lower classes generally. Formerly, no doubt, the term
was applied, at first ironically or contemptuously, to a sleek, gross
person; hence such compounds as ‘chaw-bacon,’ ‘bacon-brains,’
‘bacon-face,’ ‘bacon-slicer,’ ‘bacon-picker,’ etc. A transference in
sense, and a curtailment in form, in which bacon came to signify the
human body was, from this point, easy enough. For synonyms, see
Apple-cart.

To save one’s bacon, phr. (popular).—To escape narrowly from loss,
danger, or damage; to just get off. The term is here an attributive
usage of the slang sense, in which bacon signifies the human body. When
it is said that a man has just saved his bacon, it refers to the
individual himself. So also in the kindred phrase, ‘Oh, spare my
bacon,’ the suppliant asks to be spared in his own person; and the same
idea occurs in ‘to sell one’s bacon,’ i.e., one’s flesh or body, as in
the case of women of the town. Falstaff, in. I. Henry IV., Act ii., Sc.
2. 93 [1596] thus applies bacon to human beings—‘On! Bacons, on!’ So
far the general aspect of the question; in regard to particulars, Mr.
Thomas Boys has some curious remarks upon the subject [N. and Q., 2 S.,
iv., 132] in effect as follows. In connecting the phrase to save one’s
bacon with its original meaning, we are carried back to times when
imputed heresy was expiated at the stake; and a man was said to have
just saved his bacon (i.e., from frying), who had himself narrowly
escaped the penalty of being burnt alive. This connection of the two
ideas is thus shown. When a pig is killed, it is the custom in some of
the southern countries of Europe, as well as in many parts of England,
to remove the bristles from the dead pig’s hide, not by scalding but by
singeing. This is an operation of some nicety; for too much singeing
would spoil the bacon. But practice makes perfect; and by the aid of
ignited stubble, straw, or paper, the object is effected. The bristles
are all singed off, and the bacon remains intact. This operation of
singeing is in Portugal called chamuscar, from chama or chamma, a flame
or blaze. Chamuscar, to singe, as pigs, to takeoff the hair (Moraes).
Hence the noun chamusco, which is the smell of anything that has been
singed. Hence also the phrase cheira a chamusco (he smells of
singeing). This last phrase, however, cheira a chamusco, was specially
applied to any suspected heretic:—‘o que merece ser queimado, e faz per
onde o seja, o que dizião por afronta aos Judeos encobertos.’ That is
‘he who deserved to be burnt, and acted in a way that was very likely
to lead to it,’ was said to smell of singeing (‘cheirar a chamusco’),
i.e., to smell of the fire. Consequently, the phrase was contumeliously
addressed to anyone who was secretly a Jew (Moraes). Thus the
persecuted Israelite, who steadfastly adhered to his forefathers’
creed, and lived in daily peril of the stake, was allusively but
threateningly and insultingly compared to the abhorred carcass, which,
though not yet roasted, boiled or fried, had already the smell of fire.
If, after all, he was actually burnt alive, the same allusion was
carried out to the end; for he was then said, ‘morrer frito,’ to be
fried to death (literally, ‘to die fried’). But even if not burnt he
still had the chamusco, or ‘smell of fire’; that is, he had only just
saved his bacon.

    1691. Weesils, I., 5. No, they’l conclude I do’t to save my bacon.
    [M.]

    1705. Ward, Hudibras Redivivus, vol. I., pt. II., p. 12.

        For could their talent be forsaken,
        And they unite truth to save their bacon.

    1721. Mrs. Centlivre, The Artifice, v., ii. That pretence shan’t
    save your bacon, you old villain you.

    1836. M. Scott, Cringle’s Log, ch. v. ‘You know I saved your bacon
    in that awkward affair, when through drunkenness you plumped the
    Torch ashore.’

    1866. C. Reade, Never Too Late, ch. lii. Jem drew a long breath and
    said brutally, yet with something of satisfaction, ‘You have saved
    your bacon this time.’

The French equivalent it may be noticed is somewhat analogous—sauver
son lard, i.e., ‘to save one’s bacon.’

Possibly, however, most people will be inclined to take the phrase at
its face value, without resort to complicated argumentative derivation.
In such a case the figurative use of bacon as signifying the body will
suffice to explain its origin.

To pull bacon, phr.  (popular).—An operation described by the immortal
Ingoldsby in the line—

    He put his thumb unto his nose and spread his fingers out.

In other words to take a sight (q.v.), or to make Queen Anne’s fan
(q.v.).

    1886. Household Words, Oct. 2, p. 453. [This] peculiar action has,
    I believe, almost invariably been described as ‘taking a sight.’ A
    solicitor, however, in a recent police case at Manchester,
    described it as pulling bacon.

    1887. Leeds Evening News, Sept. 15. ‘Pulling bacon’ at Leeds
    policemen.—Before Mr. Goodman and Mr. Farrar Smith, at the Leeds
    Police Court to-day, George Evans (50), coachman to the Earl of
    Mexborough, Mexborough Hall, near Methley, was summoned under the
    Hackney Carriage Bye-laws for having driven on the wrong side of
    the road. Police-constables Moody and Lockwood were on duty in Boar
    Lane on the 6th inst., when they saw the defendant driving a pair
    of horses attached to a carriage on the wrong side of the road for
    a distance of one hundred yards. The officers spoke to him, when he
    put his fingers to his nose and pulled bacon at them. He had been
    previously cautioned, but had not taken the slightest notice.
    Defendant said he had been a driver in London for eighteen years,
    and knew they had policemen in the road there, but he did not
    understand the law of driving in Yorkshire. He was fined 20s.


Bacon-Faced, adj. (colloquial).—With sleek, fat face; full faced. Otway
in the Atheist [1684] speaks of one with a ‘bacon face like a
cherubim.’


Bacon-Fed, adj. (colloquial).—Fat or greasy. The expression occurs in
Shakspeare’s King Henry IV.—See Bacon.


Bacon-Slicer, subs. (old).—A rustic.—See Chawbacon.

    1653. Urquhart, Rabelais, bk. I., ch. xv. (Bohn), I., 149. If he
    have not a better judgment, a better discourse, and that expressed
    in better terms than your son, with a complete carriage and
    civility to all manner of persons, account me for ever hereafter a
    very clounch, and bacon-slicer of Brene.


Bad, adj. (popular).—Hard; difficult. Used as in quotation.

    1884. Hawley Smart, Post to Finish, ch. xi. ‘I have heard you say
    over and over again that, when they are in the mood, their very
    temper makes them bad to beat.’

To go to the bad, phr.  (colloquial).—To be ruined; to become depraved.
Virgil has a similar phrase in pejus ruere, ‘to go to the worse.’

    1864. M. E. Braddon, Aurora Floyd, ch. xi. ‘A reckless man, ready
    to go to the bad by any road that can take me there; worthless
    alike to myself and to others.’

    1880. G. R. Sims, Ballads of Babylon (Beauty and Beast). Let him go
    to the bad at his own mad pace.

To the bad, i.e., on the wrong side of the account; in deficit.

    1816. ‘Quiz,’ Grand Master, viii., 25. I’ve really to the bad some
    thousand of rupees to add. [M.]

    1884. Pall Mall G., 6 Feb., 4. He was between £70 and £80 to the
    bad. [M.]

Want ’em or him bad, phr. (American).—A humorous manner of expressing
strong desire.

    1888. Daily Inter-Ocean, March 9. Myers’ absence is seriously
    annoying to the defense, and does not appear quite as funny as it
    did when the prosecution called for him on Saturday last. It is not
    probable that the Court will very long suspend the trial if Myers
    does not appear. As the case now stands, the defense want Myers,
    and want him bad.


Bad ’Apenny.—See Bad halfpenny.


Bad-Bargain, subs. (old).—Formerly a worthless soldier; a malingerer.
Nowadays the term is applied to any worthless person or scapegrace.


Bad-Break, subs. (American).—A corruption of ‘bad outbreak,’ i.e.,
riotous conduct, generally attributable to drink.


Bad Crowd Generally, phr.  (American).—Of Western origin, and
equivalent to the English no great shakes (q.v.). ‘Crowd,’ it may be
remarked, in America, signifies either one or more individuals.


Bad-Egg, subs. (familiar).—A scoundrel; a blackguard; a ‘loose fish.’
In America the meaning attached to the term does not necessarily
involve such an idea of depravity as on this side of the Atlantic. In
the States the term is also applied to a worthless speculation.

    1866. Sala, Trip to Barbary, p. 130. The man in black baize with
    the felt képi, and who had a hatchet face desperately scarred with
    the small-pox, looked from head to heel a bad egg.

    1877. Five Years’ Penal Servitude, ch. ii., p. 123. There is no
    doubt, but there are many of the officials of the convict prisons
    who are what the Yankees call bad eggs.

English Synonyms. Bad-lot; bad halfpenny; bad-hat. In Australia
‘ne’er-do-wells’ are termed sundowners; dry hash; or, a stringy bark.

French Synonyms. Malfrat (popular); mauvais gobet (popular: mauvais,
bad; gobet, properly a mouthful, morsel, lump, or piece); ferlampier or
ferlandier (thieves’: ferlampié formerly signified a dunce); clique
(popular); mariasse (popular).


Bad Form, subs. (society).—He who, or that which fails to conform to
the shifting fads and fancies of Society, with a big S; and, in a more
general sense, anybody or anything vulgar or lacking polish.

    1882. Punch. Eton boy. What an awful lot of energy you’ve got
    uncle! Uncle. Pretty well, my boy, for my time of life, I think! e.
    b. Yes! but energy’s such awful bad form, you know!


Badge, subs. (old).—Used in the canting sense, for one branded in the
hand. ‘He has got his badge, and piked’; i.e., ‘he was burned in the
hand, and is at liberty.’—Grose.


Badge-Cove, subs. (old).—A parish pensioner; also in the sixteenth,
seventeenth, and eighteenth centuries a licensed beggar or almsman. The
remarks under Abram man and Abram sham are to the point in this
connection.


Badger, subs. (old).—1. A river thief. A good account of these gentry
appears in Harrison Ainsworth’s Jack Sheppard.

2. (American thieves’).—In the cant language of the American criminal
classes a badger or panel thief (q.v.) is one who robs a man after a
woman accomplice has enticed the victim into her den.

3. (schoolboy).—A red haired individual.

4. (harlotry).—A common prostitute.—See Barrack-hack.

5. (nautical).—Sometimes badger-bag. The fictitious individual
personating Neptune in the festivities incident to ‘crossing the
line.’—See Ambassador and Arthur.

6. (Wellington School).—A fellow who has got his ‘badge’ for play in
the 2nd XV. at football.

verb. (popular).—To tease; to annoy; to confound.

    1798. O. Keefe, Wild Oats, I., i. At home, abroad, you will still
    badger me.

    1836. Dickens, Pickwick, ch. xxxiv., p. 299. Tracy Tupman, and
    Augustus Snodgrass, were severally called into the box; both
    corroborated the testimony of their unhappy friend; and each was
    driven to the verge of desperation by excessive badgering.

    1860. Dickens, Great Expectations, ch. xviii., p. 82. ‘Which I
    meantersay,’ cried Joe, ‘that if you come into my place
    bull-baiting and badgering me, come out!’

The popular French equivalent of to badger is aguigner.

To overdraw the badger, phr.  (popular).—A figurative use of ‘drawing
the badger’; to overdraw one’s banking account.

    1843–4. Hood, Miss Kilmansegg.

        His cheeks no longer drew the cash,
        Because, as his comrades explain’d in flash,
          He had overdrawn his badger.


Badger State, subs. (American).—A popular name for the State of
Wisconsin, and so called because of the badgers which once abounded
there.


Bad Give-Away.—See Give away.


Bad-Halfpenny, subs. (popular).—A ne’er-do-weel; an allusion to the
frequency with which, like bad coins, they are always ‘turning up.’
Cf., Bad-egg.

(Australian).—A failing speculation; a risky venture.


Bad Hat, subs. (popular).—The same as bad egg (q.v.).

    1883. Besant, They Were Married, p. II., ch. ix., in Captain’s
    Room, etc. There may be one or two bad hats among eldest sons; but
    there is not one, I am sure—there cannot be one—who would dare to
    take his wife’s salary and deprive her of her son.


Bad Lot.—A term derived from auctioneering slang, and now generally
used to describe a man or woman of indifferent morals.

    1849. Thackeray, Pendennis, ch. lx. ‘He’s a bad’un, Mr. Lightfoot—a
    bad lot, sir, and that you know.’

    1868. Miss Braddon, Trail of the Serpent, bk. I., ch. ii. ‘I am
    good for nothing,’ he said, ‘I am a bad lot. I wonder they don’t
    hang such men as me.’

    1872. M. E. Braddon, Dead Sea Fruit, ch. i. ‘The impracticable
    Daniel has a certain kind of influence; and though he rarely cares
    to use it on his own account—being so bad a lot that he dare not
    give himself a decent character—he will employ it to the uttermost
    for a spotless nephew.’


Bad Man, subs. (American).—A bad man, in the West, is a somewhat mixed
character. The term is generally understood to mean a professional
fighter or man-killer, but who, despite this drawback, is said by
Roosevelt, in Ranch Life in the Far West, to be sometimes, according to
his light, perfectly honest. These are the men who do most of the
killing in frontier communities; yet it is a noteworthy fact that the
men who are killed generally deserve their fate. These men are, of
course, used to brawling, and are not only sure shots, but, what is
equally important, able to ‘draw’ their weapon with marvellous
quickness. They think nothing whatever of murder, and are the dread and
terror of their associates; yet they are very chary of taking the life
of a man of good standing, and will often ‘weaken’ and ‘backdown’ at
once if confronted fearlessly. With many of them their courage arises
from confidence in their own powers and knowledge of the fear in which
they are held; and men of this type often show the white feather when
they get into a ‘tight place.’ Others, however, will face any odds
without flinching, and when mortally wounded, have been known to fight
with a cool ferocious despair that was terrible. During the last two or
three years, stockmen have united to put down these dangerous
characters, often by the most summary exercise of lynch law; and, as a
consequence, many localities once infested by bad men are now perfectly
law-abiding.


Bad Match Twist, subs. phr. (hairdressers’).—A man who has red, or
carotty hair and black whiskers is said to have a bad match twist.


Badminton, subs. (common).—1. A cooling drink; a kind of claret-cup, so
called because invented at the Duke of Beaufort’s seat of the same
name. Composed of claret, sugar, spice, soda-water, and ice.

    1845. Disraeli, Sybil, bk. I., ch. i. ‘Waiter, bring me a tumbler
    of Badminton.’

    1853. Whyte Melville, Digby Grand, ch. ix. An enormous measure of
    Badminton, that grateful compound of mingled claret, sugar, and
    soda-water.

    1868. Ouida, Under Two Flags, ch. ix. Looking up out of a great
    silver flagon of Badminton, with which he was ending his breakfast.

2. (pugilistic).—Blood; from the similarity in colour to the summer
drink of the same name. Claret (q.v.), for a like reason, is also, in
the language of the prize-ring, synonymous with blood.


Bad Record.—See Record.


Bad Shot, subs. (popular).—An abortive attempt; a woman’s guess.

    1844. Kinglake, Eothen, viii., 137. I secretly smiled at this last
    prophecy as a bad shot.

    1859. Rev. E. Bradley (‘Cuthbert Bede’) in Notes and Queries, 2 S.,
    viii., p. 492. A bad shot is one of the worst exposures of his
    ignorance that a University man when up for examination can make.

See, however, Shot.


Bad Slang, subs. (circus and showmen’s).—Faked up monstrosities;
spurious curiosities.

    1876. C. Hindley, Life and Adventures of a Cheap Jack, p. 206.
    Roderick Palsgrave was considered by all who knew him to be the
    best showman of a bad slang that ever travelled. He would get hold
    of any black girl or woman, dress her up, and then show her as one
    of the greatest novelties ever seen.


Bag, subs. (old slang).—1. A woman when enceinte was said ‘to have a
bag.’ Cf., To bag. Sense 3.

2. (Westminster School).—Milk.

To empty the bag, phr. (old).—To tell, or disclose the whole truth; to
wind up an argument or discussion.

To give the bag, phr.  (old).—1. Formerly used in varying senses. In
the following quotation it conveys, says Nares, the idea of chicanery
and cheating. This, however, is doubtful, but compare ‘to give the bag
to hold.’

    1592. Greene, Quip, in works IX., 263. You shall be ... lighte
    witted upon every small occasion to geue your maister the bagge.

2. In another respect to give the bag was used in a sense analogous to
that conveyed in to give the sack (q.v.), i.e., to dismiss a person
from one’s employment, with this important difference that primarily
the ‘bag’ or ‘sack’ was not given by the master or mistress to the
servant, but vice versâ, and, therefore, the expression meant ‘to leave
without warning.’ This was the earliest usage.

    1592. Defence of Conny Catching, in Greene’s works XI., 86. If he
    meane to giue her the bagge, he selleth whatsoever he can, and so
    leaues hir spoild both of hir wealth and honestie.

    1647. Speedy Hue and Crie, I.... He being sometime an Apprentice on
    London Bridge ... gave his master the bag. [M.]

Gradually the meaning of to give the bag changed to that which, even
to-day, is dialectically current, i.e., ‘to dismiss a person from one’s
employment,’ though in large centres of population to give or receive
the sack is, at present, the more popular equivalent. While dealing
with variations of this kind, it is noteworthy that ‘bag’ was, in the
seventeenth century, varied by ‘canvas,’ as Shirley has it——

    1652. Shirley, The Brothers, Act ii. I have promis’d him as much as
    marriage comes to, and I lose my honour, if my don receive the
    canvas.

Gifford and Dyce in a note say ‘the phrase is taken from the practice
of journeymen mechanics who travel in quest of work, with the
implements of their profession. When they are discharged by their
masters, they are said to receive the canvas, or the bag; because in
this their tools and necessaries are packed up, preparatory to their
removal.’ This suggested derivation would possibly pass muster were it
not that, treated historically, the phrase though identical in form is
shown to have had an earlier usage, and one, moreover, of an entirely
antagonistic character; unless indeed, in the first instance, it was
customary for employers to find ‘bags’ of tools and working implements
for their employees, in which case the workman or servant in leaving
his work would naturally give the master the bag. The transition in
sense which the phrase has undergone would then become perfectly clear,
as far as the why and wherefore of the change is concerned. Cf., Sack.

To give one the bag to hold, phr.  (old).—To leave in the lurch; to
engage a person’s attention in order to deceive. Cf., To give the bag,
sense 1.

    1793. T. Jefferson, Writings (1859), iv., 7. She will leave Spain
    the bag to hold. [M.]

    1823. Scott, Peveril of the Peak, vii. She gave me the bag to hold
    and was smuggling in a corner with a rich old Puritan.

In the bottom of the bag, phr.  (old).—An expression equivalent to
what, in modern slang, is termed ‘having a trump card in reserve’;
something in hand as a last resource or expedient.

    1659. Reynolds, in Burton Diary (1828), iv., 447. If this be done
    which is in the bottom of the bag, and must be done, we shall ...
    be able to buoy up our reputation, [M.]

To let the cat out of the bag, phr.  (familiar).—To disclose a trick or
secret.—See Cat.

To put one in a bag, phr. (old).—Usage and derivation explained, as far
as known, in quotation.

    1662. Fuller, Worthies, Cardigan (ii., 579). They (the Welsh) had a
    kind of play wherein the stronger who prevailed put the weaker into
    a sack; and hence we have borrowed our English by-word to express
    such, betwixt whom there is apparent odds of strength. ‘He is able
    to put him up in a bagge.’ [d.]

    1676. Earl of Rochester, Hist. of Insipids, st. 14.

        Had haughty Holms but call’d in Spragg,
        Hans had been put into a bag.

To put or get one’s head in a bag, phr.  (printers’).—A ‘bag’ here
signifies a pot of beer; hence, to drink. Also in use amongst seafaring
men.

    1887. Sat. Review, 14 May, p. 700. It is slang, and yet purely
    trade slang, when one printer says of another that he has got his
    head in the bag.

To turn to bag and wallet (old).—To become a beggar.

Verb. (popular).—1. To secure for oneself. Most probably a mere
extension of the colloquial sporting usage of to bag (properly, to put
or enclose in a bag), in the sense of to seize, capture, entrap, or
otherwise bring within one’s reach.

    1880. Mortimer Collins, Thoughts in my Garden, vol. I., p. 163. The
    word beggar itself is from bag—meaning a man who carries a bag; and
    modern commercial slang reproduces the phrase, saying of a clever
    man of business that he has bagged a good thing.

2. To steal; or to catch (a thief or man). Sometimes rendered by to
collar (q.v.).

    1818. Moore, Fudge Family in Paris, VI. Who can help to bag a few,
    When Sidmouth wants a death or two?

    1862. Farrar, St. Winifred’s, ch. xxxv. They would not call it
    stealing but bagging a thing, or, at the worst, ‘cribbing
    it’—concealing the villainy under a new name.

3. (old).—To beget; to conceive; to breed. Also to be bagged. This
usage dates from about A.D. 1400, and was colloquial until about the
middle of the seventeenth century. Warner [in Alb. Eng. VI., 148] has
the line

    Well, Venus shortly bagged, and ere long was Cupid bred.

To get baggy, phr.  (common).—Said of clothes when loosened by the
stretching which arises from wear and tear. Trousers get baggy at the
knees.


Bag and Baggage, phr.  (common).—To clear one out bag and baggage is to
get quit of one entirely. A deprecatory expression indicating complete
riddance.


Bag and Bottle, subs. phr. (old).—Food and drink. The former from being
carried in a bag as by beggars and vagrants; the latter also being of
similar derivation.

    1671. Eachard, Observations. An ill-contriving rascal that in his
    younger years should choose to lug the bag and the bottle a mile or
    two to school; and to bring home only a small bit of Greek or Latin
    most magisterially construed.


Baggage. Heavy baggage, subs. phr.  (old).—1. Women and
children.—Grose.

2. Baggage is also a familiar colloquialism for a pert, saucy, young
woman; like ‘wench,’ ‘rogue,’ ‘gypsy,’ it is often used endearingly.

    1693. Congreve, Old Batchelor, I., iii. I believe the baggage loves
    me.

    1732. Fielding, The Miser, Act i., Sc. 9. Here’s a baggage of a
    daughter, who refuses the most advantageous match that ever was
    offered.

    1863. Alex. Smith, Dreamthorpe, p. 12. And Beauty, who is something
    of a coquette ... goes off in a huff. Let the baggage go!

3. (old).—A whore or strumpet; a woman of loose morals.

4. (old).—Rubbish; ‘rot.’

    1575. Touchstone of Complexions, p. 118. For throughe cruditye and
    lacke of perfect concoction in the stomacke is engendered great
    abundance of naughty baggage and hurtful phlegme.

    1576. Gascoigne, The Steele Glas, p. 79. When brewers put no bagage
    in their beere.

Adj. (old).—Used contemptuously of individuals and things. Cf.,
Baggage—a worthless, good-for-nothing woman.

    1593. G. Harvey, Pierees Superero, in works (Gresart) II., 273.
    Bibbing Nash, baggage Nash, swaddish Nash, rogish Nash, the
    bellweather of the scribling flocke.

    1692. Hacket, Life of Williams, ii., 128. For four cellars of wine,
    syder, ale, beer, with wood, hay, corn, and the like, stored up for
    a year or two, he gave not account of sixpence, but spent it upon
    baggage, and loose franions. Ibid., p. 123. Booth himself confest,
    in the hearing of those witnesses, that Pregion had nothing to do
    with that baggage woman.


Baggage-Smasher, subs. (American).—1. A railway porter. The why and
wherefore of this nickname is abundantly apparent from the following
quotations.

    1871. De Vere, Americanisms, p. 358. The baggage-smasher, as the
    porter is commonly called, handles his burdens with appalling
    recklessness, and responsibility there is none.

    1880. New Virginians, i., 37. ‘Called baggage-smashers.’ [M.]

    1888. Texas Siftings, Nov. 3. Fashionable people who have spent the
    summer at the watering places or at the seaside, but have now
    returned to the cities, assert that the baggage-smasher has become
    more destructive than ever. The baggage-smasher is indeed a terror.
    In fact there are two of them: the one who flits from station to
    station and dumps your poor dumb trunk with force enough to drive
    piles in a government breakwater, and the one who loiters around
    the depôt watching for his chance to shatter your baggage. The
    depôt baggageman is the most culpable of the two species. In his
    long and dark career of smashing trunks, he has, evidently, knocked
    the hoops off his conscience, and there is no remorse brave,
    foolhardy and reckless enough to tackle his heart-strings and play
    on them.

2. Also a thief who hangs about ‘depôts,’ with a view to robbery of
luggage.

    1861. New York Tribune, Nov. 23. Gamblers, ticket-swindlers,
    emigrant robbers, baggage-smashers, and all the worst classes of
    the city.


Bagged, ppl. adj. (American).—A term used to signify imprisonment and
victimization—probably only an extension of the idea of capture as
derived from sport, through the slang ‘to bag,’ i.e., to steal. Cf., To
bag.


Bagging, subs. (provincial slang).—In the first instance, food taken
between regular meals; now generally applied, especially in Lancashire,
to what is known in the South of England as ‘high tea.’

    1750. J. Collier, in Lancashire Glossary (E.D.S.). Hoo’l naw cum
    agen till baggin’ time. [M.]

    1870. Chambers’ Journal, Oct., p. 661. Lancashire adopts the
    whole-board or partial-board system very extensively. The local
    term of bagging implies bread and cheese, or pies; and there are
    all the varieties of board and lodging, dinner of potatoes and
    bacon with buttermilk, bagging in the forenoon and afternoon,
    dinner and lunch, and rations allowed for women.

    1879. In Temple Bar Mag., 4 Jan. Baggin’ is not only lunch, but any
    accidental meal coming between two regular ones.


Bagging the Over.—See Jockeying the over.


Bagman, subs. (popular).—1. A commercial traveller. Formerly of
respectable usage; now only employed contemptuously.

    1765. Goldsmith, Essays, I. The bagman was telling a better story.
    [M.]

    1840. Thackeray, Paris Sketch Book, p. 20. When all the rest of
    mankind look hideous, dirty, peevish, wretched, after a forty
    hours’ coach-journey, a bagman appears as gay and spruce as when he
    started.

The term bagman took its rise in the saddle-bags in which the
commercial traveller of the past century carried his patterns and
goods. These saddle-bags being of larger dimensions than those usually
carried by travellers on horseback, would designate the commercial
traveller par excellence as the bagman.

2. In sporting slang, a ‘bag-fox.’

    1875. Stonehenge, Brit. Sports, I., II., iv., § 5. If ... wild cubs
    cannot be found, a bagman or two must be obtained. [M.]


Bagnio, subs. (old).—A brothel. [From Italian bagno, a bath, properly a
hot bath; whence an application as in the case of stew (q.v.), for a
house of prostitution.]

    1624. Massinger, Parliament of Love, II., ii. To be sold to a
    brothel or a common bagnio.

    1851. Thackeray, English Humour, V. (1858), 243. How the prodigal
    drinks and sports at the bagnio.

    1861. Wright, Domestic Manners in England during the Middle Ages,
    491. They were soon used to such an extent for illicit intrigues,
    that the name of a hothouse or bagnio became equivalent to that of
    a brothel.


Bag of Bones, subs. phr. (familiar).—A lean, attenuated person;
sometimes called a ‘walking skeleton.’ The French have un sac à os
(often contracted into sacdos)—a literal translation. The term is quite
modern, being traced by Murray no further back than 1838, when Dickens
used it [in Oliver Twist, iv., 64].


Bag o’ Moonshine, subs. phr. (common).—Nonsense.—See All moonshine.


Bag of Nails, subs. phr. (American thieves’).—A state of confusion or
topsy-turveydom. [Qy. from ‘bacchanals.’]


Bag of Tricks, phr.  (common).—Generally, the whole bag of tricks;
i.e., every expedient.


Bagpipe, subs. (common).—A windy talker; a senseless chatter-box. The
derivation is obviously from the musical instrument of the same name.

Verb. (old).—A lascivious practice; too indecent for explanation.


Bags, subs. (popular).—An ironical nickname for trousers, thought by
some to be of University origin, and borrowed from ‘the variegated
bags’ of Euripides—τους θυλάκους τους ποικίλους (Cyclops., 182).

    1853. Rev. E. Bradley (‘Cuthbert Bede’), Adventures of Verdant
    Green, p. 51. Just jump into a pair of bags and Wellingtons. Ibid.,
    p. 5. His black go-to-meeting bags.

    1870. Chambers’ Journal (Christmas Number). ‘But, holloa!’ he
    cried, as he caught sight of his legs. ‘Parsons don’t wear light
    tweed bags!’... Jack had to unpack his portmanteau and get out his
    evening inexpressibles.

    1874. M. Collins, Frances, ch. xv. His well-shapen hip and calf
    were hidden in loose-fitting bags of corduroy.

    1880. Punch, Jan. 10, p. 6. The spread of education and liberal
    ideas.—His Grace the Duke of Poplar and Bermondsey. ‘Just look at
    these bags you last built me, Snippe! J’ever see such beastly bags
    in your life? I shall always be glad to come and dine with you, old
    man; but I’ll be hanged if you shall ever measure me for another
    pair of bags!’ Mr. Snippe (of Snippe and Son, St. James’s Street).
    ‘You’ve always grumbled about your bags, as you call ’em, ever
    since you were my fag at Eton; and at Christchurch you were just as
    bad, even though my poor dear old governor used to come all the way
    down and measure you himself. It ain’t the fault of the bags, my
    dear Popsy—it’s the fault of the legs inside ’em! So, shut up, old
    Stick-in-the-mud, and let’s join the ladies—the duchess has
    promised to give us “Little Billee.”’

When made of startling material, or ‘cut’ in an exaggerated style of
fashion they become howling bags.

English Synonyms. Dittoes; kicks; kicksies; bum-bags; sit-upons;
unmentionables; continuations; hams; inexpressibles; abridgements;
drumstick-cases; and ducks (when made of white material).

French Synonyms. Dalzar; falzar.

Intj. (schoolboy).—Bags! or bags I! is frequently used to assert a
claim to some article or privilege. Analogous schoolboy slang is fains
or fain it (q.v.) for demanding a truce during the progress of a game,
and which is always granted by the opposing party. In other schools
pike I or prior pike serve to lay claim to anything, or for asserting
priority of claim. Also bar! e.g., ‘He wanted me to do so and so, but I
barred not.’ Cf., Fain, Pike, and Bar.

To have the bags, phr. (popular).—This phrase is erroneously given by
Hotten (and Barrère has followed suit), as to have the bags off. The
meaning is to be of age, and thus to possess all the rights and
privileges of adultship; also to have plenty of money. Obviously an
allusion to the transition from child’s attire to the garments of
manhood.

Bags of mystery, subs. phr. (common).—Sausages and saveloys are so
called—from the often mysterious character of their compounds.
Presumably composed of minced ‘meat,’ but so highly flavoured and
seasoned that no man can tell whereof they are made.

To take the bags (athletic).—To act as ‘hare’ in ‘Hare and Hounds,’ a
game too well known to need description in this place.

(Stock Exchange).—Buenos Ayres Great Southern Railway Bonds.—Formed
from the initial letters, thus B-A-G-S.


Baijan.—See Bejan.


Bail. Straw-bail or straw-shoes, subs. (common).—A nickname for a
person willing for a consideration, to give evidence, or act as bail.
Formerly men were much more ostentatious in plying a vocation of
perjury than is now happily possible. It was no uncommon thing for such
openly to perambulate the entrances to the law-courts ready for any
chance customer. They made known their occupation by wearing a piece of
straw just sticking out of their shoes. The Quarterly Review (xxxiii.,
344) points out that the practice is a very ancient one, Athens having
abounded in straw-shoes. The modus operandi was much the same then as
in later days. When it was ‘desirable’ to season Attic testimony with
bribery and perjury, the scene outside a Greek court of justice might
be thus described. An advocate or lawyer who wanted a convenient
witness knew by these signs [the straws in the sandals] where to find
one, and the colloquy between the parties was brief. ‘Don’t you
remember’ said the advocate—(the party looked at the fee and gave no
sign: but the fee increased and the powers of memory increased with
it). ‘To be sure I do!’ ‘Then come into the court and swear it.’ And
straw-shoes went into the court and swore it. As b.c., so A.D.
1754—before and after.

    1754. Fielding, Jonathan Wild, book I., chap. ii. Charity took to
    husband an eminent gentleman whose name I cannot learn; but who was
    famous for so friendly a disposition, that he was bail for above a
    hundred persons in one year. He had likewise the remarkable honour
    of walking in Westminster Hall with a straw in his shoe.

At present lawyers use straw-bail to designate insufficient bail.
Closely allied to this term, and used much in the same manner, is ‘a
man of straw.’ The figure is the effigy of a man, stuffed with straw;
hence, ‘a man of straw,’ the semblance of a man—a person of neither
substance nor responsibility; or one put forward to screen a real
delinquent. A curious usage, akin to the foregoing, is also sometimes
heard among sailors. For example, a strike for wages having taken place
amongst the crew of a ship, ‘blacklegs’ (q.v.), or ‘straw-yarders’ as
they were called in nautical phraseology, took the place of the
strikers. On the meaning of the expression being asked, it was
explained that a ‘straw-yarder’ was a man about the docks who had never
been to sea, and knew little or nothing of the duties of a seaman.

To give or take leg-bail, phr. (common).—To escape, either from arrest,
or from prison; literally, to be indebted to one’s legs for flight. For
exhaustive list of synonyms, see Amputate.

    1775. Adair, American Indians, 277. I had concluded to use no
    chivalry, but give them leg-bail instead of it, by ... making for a
    deep swamp. [M.]

    1815. Scott, Guy Mannering, ch. iii. ‘I e’en gae them leg-bail, for
    there’s nae ease in dealing wi’ quarrelsome fowk.’

    1848. Marryat, Poacher, xxii. Given them leg-bail, I swear.

The phrase is sometimes amplified thus:—to take leg-bail and give land
security.


Bail Up! also Bale Up! intj. (Australian).—A bushranger’s phrase for
‘stand and deliver’! ‘Shell out’!

    1880. Blackwood’s Mag., July, p. 91. [Australian loq.] ‘Bail up!
    Bail up!’ shout the two red-veiled attackers, revolvers in hand.

    1887. G. L. Apperson, All the Year Round, July 30, p. 68, col. 1.
    In times gone by, it was by no means an uncommon occurrence [in
    Australia] for a coach to be ‘stuck up’ by a band of bushrangers,
    whose shouts of bail up, an invitation equivalent to our ‘shell
    out,’ supported by revolver barrels, terrified the hearts of the
    passengers. But a coach is now seldom interfered with, and to
    ‘stick up’ is applied to less daring attempts to rob.

2. Hence, colloquially, a demand for instant payment. Equivalent to the
English fork out! stump up! etc. For synonyms, see Shell out.


Bait, subs. (common).—Anger; rage; indignation. Derived from the
figurative sense of ‘to bait,’ i.e., to worry; harass; or tease.

    1882. F. Anstey, Vice-Versâ, ch. v. ‘I went calmly on, smoking my
    cigar as if nothing was the matter. That put the Proctor in a bait,
    I can tell you!’


Baitland, subs. (nautical).—Admiral Smyth in his Sailors’ Word Book
quotes this as ‘an old word, formerly used to signify a port where
refreshments could be procured.’


Bake, verb. (Winchester College).—To rest, or lie down.


Baked, ppl. adj. (common).—Collapsed; exhausted; done up; e.g., ‘toward
the end of the course the crew were regularly baked.’ A common
colloquialism at the beginning of the present century; but the punning
idea involved is very ancient. To bake one’s bread in the sense of ‘to
do for one’ occurs as early as 1380, as will be seen from the following
quotation.

    1380. Sir Ferumb, 577. For euere my bred had be bake; myn lyf dawes
    had be tynt.

Half-baked (common) is said of a dull-witted or imbecile person, i.e.,
one who is ‘soft’ or inexperienced, in contrast to one who is baked in
the sense of ‘seasoned,’ quick-witted, etc.

    1864. Notes and Queries, 3 S., vi., 494, 2. He is only
    half-baked—put in with the bread, and taken out with the cakes.


Baker, subs. (Winchester College).—A cushion. These were of two kinds;
that used in ‘College’ was of large size, oblong in shape, and green in
colour. The other used in ‘Commoners’ was thin, narrow, much smaller,
and of red colour. The term baker is also applied to anything placed
upon a form to sit upon, e.g., a blotting book or other article; in
short, anything comfortable to sit upon.

(American).—A loafer. The word is generally attributed to Baron de
Mandat Grancey, who, in his work Cowboys and Colonels, innocently
translated the word ‘loafer’ as baker.

To spell baker (colloquial).—To attempt a difficult task. In the old
spelling books ‘baker’ was frequently the first word of two syllables
to which a child came when learning to spell.


Baker-Kneed, also Baker-legged, adj. (common).—1. Knock-kneed;
disfigured by crooked legs. This deformity, incident to bakers, arising
from the constrained position in which they knead bread, is said to be
the almost certain penalty of habitually bearing any burden of bulk in
the right hand, or of excessive force constantly exerted by the right
side of the body. The knees gradually incline inwards until they
closely resemble the right side of the letter K.

    1607. Dekker, Westward Hoe, Act ii., Sc. 2. Will women’s tongues,
    like bakers’ legs, never go straight?

    1692. L’Estrange, Life of Æsop. Æsop ... was ... flat-nos’d,
    hunch-back’d, blabber-lipp’d, a long misshapen head; his body
    crooked all over, big-belly’d, baker-legg’d, and his complexion so
    swarthy that he took his very name from ’t; for Æsop is the same
    with Æthiop.

    1754. B. Martin, Eng. Dict., 2 ed. Bakes-legg’d, straddling, with
    the legs bowing outward.

    1812. Colman, Poetical Vagaries, p. 13. His voice had broken to a
    gruffish squeak. He had grown blear-eyed, baker-kneed, and gummy.

2. Effeminate. Either an attributive usage of the foregoing, or an
allusion to the popular belief that a woman’s legs are never straight.
Compared physiologically with those of a man this is doubtless true;
but otherwise most women would resent the imputation as a libel.

    1652. Gaule, Hagastrom, 186. Baker-kneed signifies effeminate.


Baker Layer, subs. (Winchester College).—A Junior who used to take a
prefect’s green baker (q.v.) in and out of ‘Hall’ at meal times. The
term is now obsolete.


Baker’s Dozen, subs. (colloquial).—Thirteen reckoned as twelve.
Formerly, so careful were ‘the powers that be’ regarding the supply of
bread, that bakers were liable to heavy penalties for any deficiency in
the weight of loaves. So hedged in, indeed, was the sale of bread, that
the weight of loaves was fixed by law, for every price from
eighteenpence down to twopence, but penny loaves or rolls were not
specified in the statute. Bakers, therefore, when selling the latter,
in order to be on the safe side, gave, for a dozen of bread, an
additional loaf, known as ‘inbread.’ A similar custom of giving extra
quantity was formerly observed with regard to coal, and publishers
nowadays reckon thirteen copies of a book as twelve. That the term
baker’s dozen was thoroughly colloquial at the latter end of the
sixteenth century is apparent from the first of the following
quotations:

    1596. Nashe, Saffron Walden, in works III., ii. Conioyning with his
    aforesaid Doctor Brother in eightie eight browne baker’s dozen of
    Almanackes.

    1639. Will of Francis Pynner, of Bury, Gent., dated April 26
    [Camden Society’s ‘Bury Wills’]. The yerely sume of ffiue pounds
    p’cell of the said yerely rents to be bestowed in wheaten bread, to
    be made into penny loaves, and upon eu’y Lord’s day, called Sonday,
    throughout eu’y yere of the said terme [40 years or thereabouts],
    fowre and twenty loaves of the said bread, with the inbread allowed
    by the baker for those twoe dosens of bread, to be timely brought
    and sett vpon a forme towards the vpp’end of the chancell of the
    said p’ish church of St. Marie, and ... the same twoe dosens of
    bread to be giuen and distributed ... to and amongst fowre and
    twentie poore people.... And they, the said clarke, sexton, and
    bedell, shall alwaies haue the inbread of all the bread aforesaid
    ovr and besides their shares in the said twoe dosens of bread.

    1733. Fielding, Don Quixote, III., vi. I could not number them. I
    dare swear there were a good round baker’s dozen, at least.

    1825. Scott, St. Ronan’s Well, ch. xxviii. ‘As to your lawyer, you
    get just your guinea’s worth from him—not even so much as the
    baker’s bargain, thirteen to the dozen.’

Baker’s dozen is occasionally used in a somewhat more figurative sense,
and is not confined to the technicalities of trade. It is employed to
signify thirteen or fourteen. It is so quoted in Grose (1785), but the
usage is apparently much older than that, for Hudson, the navigator,
when he discovered the bay to which his name is given, designated a
cluster of thirteen or fourteen islands on the east shore of it. The
Baker’s Dozen, as may be seen on the charts; and even French atlases
exhibit these islands as La Douzaine du boulanger.

To give one a baker’s dozen is to pummell a man well; to thrash him
soundly—a humorous allusion to the good measure implied by the phrase.


Bakes, subs. (American thieves’).—A schoolboy.


Bakester, subs. (Winchester College).—One who bakes (see Bake); a
sluggard. The term is now obsolete.


Baking Leave, subs. (Winchester College).—Permission to bake (q.v.) in
a study in ‘Commoners,’ or in a ‘scob’ place in College. In this sense
the term is obsolete; but it is now used of leave to sit in any other
person’s ‘toys’ (q.v.)—a sort of bureau.


Baking Place, subs. (Winchester College).—A kind of sofa in ‘Studies’
of ‘Commoners.’


Balaam, subs. (journalistic).—A term applied to all kinds of
miscellaneous matter, generally of a trumpery and indifferent
character, used as ‘padding’ in periodical publications. Evidently from
Numbers xxii., 30, in which the ass spoke ‘with man’s voice.’ Balaam
hence denotes ‘the speech of an ass,’ and is well applied to the stupid
jokes, and silly paragraphs with which odd corners and short columns
are often lengthened out. Brewer claims an American origin, but Webster
only calls it ‘a cant term.’ In any case the term has clearly reference
to nonsense to be thrown in to fill space, or nonsense thrown out as
refuse. The curious point in the story of Balaam is that the ass talks
like a philosopher and the prophet behaves like a donkey. The term was
popularised by its frequent use in Blackwood’s Magazine.

    1826. Scott, Mal. Malagr. iii., 3. How much Balaam (speaking
    technically) I have edged out of your valuable paper.

    1839. Lochart, Scott, lxx. (1842), 622. Balaam is the cant name for
    asinine paragraphs about monstrous productions of nature and the
    like, kept standing in type to be used whenever the real news of
    the day leave an awkward space that must be filled up somehow. [M.]


Balaam-Basket or Balaam-Box, subs. (journalistic).—1. The receptacle
for Balaam (q.v.).

2. When articles or other contributions are rejected they are put in
the Balaam-basket, which may either be a pigeon-hole (to await return
to the author); the waste paper basket; or, as the readiest mode of
extinction, the flames. In any case, the destination is said to be the
Baalam-basket or box.

    1827. Blackw. Mag., xxi., 340. Several dozen letters on the same
    subject now in our Balaam-box.

    1873. Hall, Modern English, p. 17. An essay for the Edinburgh
    Review, in ‘the old unpolluted English language,’ would have been
    consigned by the editor to his Balaam-basket.

    1877. Notes and Queries, 5 S., vii., 270, 2. At the risk of getting
    into your Balaam-box, I venture to record the whole contents of my
    bundle as they lie before me.


Balaclava-Day, subs. (military).—A soldier’s pay day. Balaclava, in the
Crimean War [1854–6], was the base of supply for the English troops;
and, as pay was drawn, the men went down to make their purchases.


Balance, subs. (American).—A balance properly is that which balances or
produces equilibrium. It is the difference between two sides of an
account—the amount of which is necessary to make the one equal to the
other. It is not the rest or the remainder, yet we continually hear of
the balance of this or that thing. In the sense of ‘rest,’ ‘residue,’
or ‘remainder,’ balance is the purest slang.

    1846. Albany Journal, Jan. 7. The yawl returned to the wreck, took
    ten or eleven persons and landed them, and then went and got the
    balance from the floating cabin. [b.]

    1861. Boston Transcript, Dec. 27. ‘We listened to Wendell Phillips
    for about half an hour, and having an engagement elsewhere, we were
    forced to leave, and so lost the balance of his oration.’ [de v.]

The word is thus used very much like the Scottish lave (what is left),
employed by Burns in the line—


    ‘I’ll get a blessing with the lave,
    And never miss it.’


In some parts of Virginia the word ‘shank’ is quaintly used for the
same purpose, and one friend will say to another, ‘Suppose you come in
and spend the shank of the evening with me?’ The vulgarism is becoming
common in England, as witness the following:—

    1875. Blackwood’s Magazine, April, 443. Balance, long familiar to
    American ears, is becoming so to ours. In an account of a ship on
    fire we read ‘Those saved remained the balance of the night
    watching the burning wreck.’ [M.]

    1883. P. Fitzgerald, Recreations of a Literary Man, 170. Everyone
    is away shooting or riding; a balance of the ladies is left. [M.]


Balbus, subs. (University).—A Latin prose composition. In Arnold’s
well-known text book, Latin Prose Composition, balbus turns up at every
corner; he is here, there, and everywhere; he appears to be willing and
able to do anything, and go anywhere; in fact it is balbus this, and
balbus that, until the wonder is whether balbus was not something of a
prig or bore, or both. At all events those who used the text book in
question, cannot fail to remember that doughty old fossil of a Roman to
their dying day.

    1870. Quarterly Review. Balbus was in constant use.


Balderdash, subs. (old).—1. Adulterated wine; a mixture of liquors such
as wine and beer, milk and beer, etc.

2. (colloquial).—Frothy talk; nonsense; a jumble of words.

    1885. Murray, New English Dictionary, Art. Balderdash, vol. I., p.
    633, col. 3. From the evidence at present, the inference is that
    the current sense was transferred from 1 or 2 [i.e., Froth, frothy
    liquid, or a jumbled mixture of liquids] either with the notion of
    ‘frothy talk,’ or of ‘a senseless farrago,’ or ‘jumble of words.’
    Most etymologists have, however, assumed 3 [nonsense; frothy talk,
    etc.] to be the original sense, and sought its explanation in the
    obvious similarity of balder to dialectical balder, ‘to use coarse
    language’; Dutch, balderen, ‘to roar, thunder’; Norwegian, baldra;
    Icelandic, baldrast, ballrast, ‘to make a clatter,’ and of -dash to
    the verb dash in various senses. The Welsh baldorddus, adj., f.
    baldordd, ‘idle, noisy talk, chatter,’ has also been adduced....
    Other conjectures may be found in Wedgwood, Skeat, and E. Müller.


Bald-Face, subs. (American).—New whiskey; so villainous is the
compound, that only by courtesy can it be recognised as at all
approaching the Simon Pure. For synonyms, see Drinks.


Bald-Faced Shirt, subs. (American).—In cowboy lingo, a white shirt;
from the fact of being white on the face or front. Ordinarily bald-face
is used of animals, e.g., a bald-faced stag. Hereford cattle, too, have
white faces, and as cowboys are brought into close contact with all
kinds of cattle, the term as applied to a linen shirt is possibly a
mere transference in sense. Cf., Boiled shirt.


Bald-Faced Stag, subs. (common).—A bald-headed man; [from bald-faced,
having white on face + stag, a slang term for a man. Cf., Stag party.]
For synonyms, see Bladder of lard.


Baldheaded.—To go it baldheaded, phr. (American).—With eager
impetuosity, or great haste; to do a thing with all one’s might and
main. A suggestion of action without stopping to cover one’s head,
i.e., on the spur of the moment.

    1848–62. J. R. Lowell, Biglow Papers, p. 6.

        It ain’t by princerples nor men
          My preudunt course is steadied,—
        I scent which pays the best, an’ then
          Go into it baldheaded.

    1869. Our Young Folks. Whenever he had made up his mind to do a
    thing he went at it baldheaded. [de v.]

    1888. Pall Mall Gazette, June 22. The Chicago Republicans, to use
    an Americanism, have gone baldheaded for protection. If shouting
    could win a Presidential contest, Blaine and Protection would be
    certain.

To snatch baldheaded, phr. (American).—To defeat a person in a street
fight.

    1871. R. Grant White, Words and Their Uses.

        The crowd than gave a specimen of calumny broke loose,
        And said I’d snatched him baldheaded, and likewise cooked his
            goose.


Bald-Headed Row, subs. phr. (American).—The first row of stalls at
theatres, especially those which make a feature of ballets. The term is
a cynical allusion to the fact that these seats are generally occupied
by men of mature age; the innuendo is obvious.—See Frog-salad.


Balditude, subs. (American).—A state of baldness. Probably a nonce
word.

    1882. S. L. Clemens (‘Mark Twain’), The Adventures of Huckleberry
    Finn, p. 187. Trouble has done it, Bilgewater, trouble has done it;
    trouble has brung these gray hairs and this premature balditude.


Baldober or Baldower, subs. (thieves’).—A leader; a head man; a
spokesman. This term has been imported into the lingo of English
thieves from the German Gaunersprache, in which it has very much the
same meaning.


Balductum, subs. (old).—Nonsense; rubbish. Cf., Balderdash.


Baldy, subs. (American).—A colloquial vulgarism for a bald-headed man.
Cf., Balditude.


Balfour’s Maiden, subs. (Parliamentary).—A nickname given to a kind of
covered battering-ram used by the Royal Irish Constabulary in carrying
out evictions in Ireland in the years 1888–9. On many estates the
tenants made most desperate resistance to all attempts on the part of
the landlords to recover possession, upon which the latter appealed
for, and obtained the assistance of the authorities. This but served to
intensify the struggle, and the tenants, driven to extremities, in some
cases resisted all endeavours, even to throwing boiling water over the
soldiers and police employed against them. To protect the evictors, and
also to render easier the demolition of the cabins of the wretched
people, a kind of covered battering-ram was made, whereupon the Home
Rule Party sarcastically gave it, amongst other nick-names, that of
Balfour’s maiden. The term was first used by Sir Wm. Harcourt in a
speech at a monster Home Rule meeting, held at St. James’s Hall, on
Wednesday, April 10, 1889. An account of the incident runs as follows:—

    1889. Daily News, April 11. Resolute government has not been
    absolutely extinguished. Now at Letterkenny, Mr. Balfour has
    introduced a new invention, the latest development of resolute
    government. The Government were questioned on the subject, and they
    accepted the responsibility for the facts. It stated that in view
    of the Olphert estate evictions, there reached there an iron-headed
    spiked battering-ram to be used in carrying out the evictions. Why,
    really, gentlemen, when you read of these things they are like the
    pictures one sees of the Siege of Jerusalem—(loud laughter)—of the
    implements, which the Latins called tormenta. We are familiar with
    them in old mediæval castles. You find instruments called ‘The
    Scavenger’s Daughter,’ and ‘The Maiden,’ and other implements of
    that character. I think this last pattern of ram of Mr. Balfour’s
    might be called ‘The Unionist’s Daughter’—(loud laughter)—or it
    might be christened ‘Balfour’s Maiden.’ (Cheers and laughter.) But
    not to deprive the Liberal Unionists of their share we might call
    it ‘Chamberlain’s Tenants’ Protector.’ (Renewed merriment.)


Ball, subs. (thieves’).—1. A prison ration. 2. A drink.

To open the ball, phr.  (common).—To commence an undertaking; to start
off.

    1876. Eton Chronicle, July 20.

        ... Whatever may seem the mishaps of his team,
          Whatever their failings and sinnings,
        He who opened the ball and who saw them all fall,
          Scarce deserved that defeat in one innings.


Ballad-Basket, subs. (old).—A street singer.—See Street pitcher. A
French equivalent is un braillard.


Ballambangjang, subs. (nautical).—The Straits of Ballambangjang, though
unnoticed by geographers, are frequently mentioned in sailors’ yarns as
being so narrow, and the rocks on each side so crowded with trees
inhabited by monkeys, that the ship’s yards cannot be squared, on
account of the monkey’s tails getting jammed into, and choking up, the
brace blocks.—Hotten.


Ballast, subs. (common).—Money. For synonyms, see Actual.

Well-ballasted, adj. (common).—A rich man is said to be well-ballasted.

English Synonyms. ‘To be flush’; also ‘to have brass; brads,’ etc. See
synonyms for money generally under Actual.

Among French equivalents for the solidity arising from the possession
of wealth may be mentioned:—Être zingué (popular: literally ‘to be
covered with zinc’); avoir des monacos (popular: monaco is an ironical
term for a sou); daim huppé (popular: daim, a slang term for a swell,
is properly a ‘buck,’ and huppé also signifies high in station,
well-off); homme au sac (familiar: ‘a man with a bag,’—presumably of
money); avoir des picaillons (popular: picaillons is thought to be a
corruption of picarons, a Spanish coin); être de la fête (popular:
i.e., ‘to be in luck’s way’); être sacqué (popular: meaning obvious);
rupin (thieves’ term); avoir de ce qui sonne (popular: ‘to have that
which chinks’); tailler en plein drap (popular).

In the Spanish Germania a rich or well-ballasted man is florido, i.e.,
‘flowery’ or ‘agreeable.’


Ball Face, subs. (American).—A contemptuous epithet applied by negroes
to white persons. Salem, Mass., 1810–1820.


Ball-Keeper, subs. (Winchester College).—In ‘Commoners’ an ‘Inferior’
appointed to look after cricket and footballs. In return for this
service he was exempted from ‘kicking in’ and ‘watching out.’ ‘Junior
in College’ has to bring through balls every evening.—See Balls.


Ball of Fire, subs. phr. (popular).—A glass of fiery and pungent
brandy. For all synonyms, see Drinks.


Ballooning, subs. (Stock Exchange).—Inflating the price of stocks by
fictitious means, such as newspaper articles, bogus sales, etc.


Balloon It, verb. (American).—To indulge in rhodomontade; to draw the
long bow; to talk big. Obviously from ‘to puff or swell out’ as a
balloon.

    1878. T. Sinclair, Mount, 33. Gas-brained, ballooning wandering
    men. [M.]


Ball O’ Wax, subs. (common).—A snob, or shoe-maker.—See Snob.


Balls. To bring through balls, phr.  (Winchester College).—‘Junior in
College’ collects footballs from the lockers in school, and brings them
through at six o’clock to be blown, or repaired, if necessary.

To make balls of, verb. phr. (popular).—To go wrong; to do what ‘lands’
one in trouble; generally, to make a mistake.

All balls, adv. (popular).—All rubbish; nonsense. For synonyms, see All
my eye.


Ballum Rancum, subs. (old).—A hop or dance, where the women are all
prostitutes; a dance at a brothel. These orgies sometimes take the form
of ‘buff-balls,’ all present dancing in the nude.


Bally, adj. (popular).—A comparatively recent coinage, it is said, of
the Sporting Times, from ‘bally-hooly.’ Generally, though not always,
used as is ‘bloody,’ in the lower strata of the body politic. It also
signifies intensity, and in cases where the vocabulary at command is
limited, bally does yeoman’s service for such words as ‘fearful,’
‘dreadful,’ ‘terrible,’ ‘outrageous,’ ‘confounded.’

    1889. Sporting Times, July 6 (Answers to Correspondents). H. G.
    Steele.—Thanks. What a bally idiot you must be.

    1889. Bird o’ Freedom, Aug. 7, p. 5. Newman Noggs, bringing small
    boy to carry master’s bag, and inculcating manners at the same
    time, ‘Now, what would you say if I was to give you sixpence for
    taking it?’ ‘I should say ’twasnt half enough, and you can bally
    well take it yourself,’ was the prompt reply. Boys are boys
    nowadays, and no error, thinks Newman.


Bally-Bounder.—See Bally and Bounder.


Bally-Fellow.—See Bounder and Bally.


Bally Flat.—See Bounder and Bally.


Bally Fool.—See Bounder and Bally.


Ballyrag.—See Bullyrag.


Balm, subs. (old).—A lie.—Duncombe.


Balmy, subs. and adj. (common).—Sleep; sleepy. [From the figurative
sense of balmy, i.e., deliciously soft and soothing.]

To have a dose of the balmy; i.e., ‘to go to sleep.’

    1840. Dickens, Old Curiosity Shop, ch. viii., p. 42. ‘As it’s
    rather late, I’ll try and get a wink or two of the balmy.’

English Synonyms. To doss; to go to Bedfordshire (q.v.)—a play upon
words.

French Synonyms. La pionce or pionçage (popular: subs., see pioncer);
le somno (popular: an abbreviated form of somnolence); piquage de
romance (a military term); casser une canne, or sa canne (popular: this
also means ‘to die.’ In French as in other languages the analogy
between Sleep and Death is fully recognised. Many of the French slang
phrases for the former are also used to express the latter. Mors janua
vitæ!); casser son pif (popular: pif in French argot = ‘the nose.’
Amongst the peasants of Normandy and Berry it signifies a
‘grog-blossom’); pioncer (popular: from piausser, a provincialism for
‘to sleep’); piquer un chien (popular: piquer a canting verb of action,
‘to do’; therefore ‘to do as a dog’); piquer une romance (popular);
faire son lézard (popular: Cf., piquer un chien); faire son michaud
(thieves’: i.e., ‘to rest one’s head or knowledge box’); roupiller
(this term is in general colloquial use); se recueillir (popular: ‘to
wrap oneself in meditation’); compter des pauses (musicians’: ‘to count
the beats.’ Cf., various suggested remedies for overcoming insomnia;
e.g., counting slowly up to a hundred, etc., etc.); taper de l’œil
(popular: ‘to rub the eyes.’ Cf., English ‘to have sleepy dust in one’s
eyes’); mettre le chien au cran de repos (popular: ‘to curl oneself up
like a dog’); souffler ses clairs (popular: ‘to blow or put out one’s
light,’ i.e., ‘to shut the eyes’); fermer maillard (popular: to close
one’s shutters, i.e., eyelids. Maillard was the inventor of a
particular kind of shutter. Other analogous expressions are être
terrassé par maillard, i.e., ‘to be extremely sleepy.’ Sleep is
expressed by fermeture); faire schloff or schloffer, from the German
schlafen.

Spanish Synonym. In the Germania difunto, properly ‘defunct,’ is used
for asleep.

A Portuguese Synonym for sound sleep is a bom sornar, i.e., ‘to sleep
on both ears.’

2. Dull-witted; thick-skulled. In this sense balmy is used up and down
the whole gamut of imbecility from mere stolidity to downright
insanity. Popularly used, it signifies in most cases little more than
shallow-brained or muddle-headed; or, to use slang equivalents in their
most familiar sense, ‘to be touched,’ ‘to be wrong in the upper story,’
‘dotty.’ Among thieves, however, it is usually applied to insanity, to
put on the balmy stick being, among convicts, to feign madness.

    1851. H. Mayhew, London Lab. and Lon. Poor, vol. I., p. 231. List
    of patterers’ words. Balmy—Insane.

A large number of synonyms will be found under apartments to let, but
in addition to those there mentioned may be instanced the following in
the French slang:—Demenager (popular: ‘to remove one’s furniture.’ It
also means ‘to die’); paumer la sorbonne (i.e., ‘to punch the head,’
sorbonne being a slang term for that part of the human body. The
Sorbonne is a well-known university and seat of learning. Among
thieves, too, sorbonner is used in the sense of ‘to think’); être un
peu toc (i.e., slightly crazy; toc in slang = ridiculous); avoir une
pomme de canne felée (popular: a rather opprobrious expression, meaning
‘to have a slate off.’ Cf., ‘to have a tile loose’); avoir une fissure
(literally ‘to have a crack’); avoir un grain.


Balmy Cove, subs. (common).—A weak-minded individual; one who has ‘a
tile loose.’ [From balmy (q.v.) + cove, a man.] Among French thieves
such an individual is called un hurlubier (hurlublu is an obsolete term
used jestingly for a giddy goose or hair-brained person); also biscayen
from the Bicêtre prison which has a lunatic ward for demented convicts.
The prison itself is called La Biscaye, but this name has no connection
with the province of Biscay as might be supposed.


Balsam, subs. (thieves’ and popular).—One of the many generic names for
money. A full list of synonyms will be found under Actual. The allusion
of course is obvious, i.e., a healing soothing agent or agency; but, in
its secondary signification of impertinence, ‘brass,’ ‘cheek,’ etc.,
the reverse of the shield is given. Such reversals in the legitimate
meanings of words are not uncommon in slang.


Bam, subs. (old slang).—1. A cheat; an imposition; a story intended to
hoax the credulous; what nowadays generally goes under the name of
chaff or humbug [bam is thought to be an abbreviated form of bamboozle
(q.v.)]. Murray has traced it back to 1762, but it appears nearly
twenty years previous in Dyche’s dictionary, and also in Martin’s, the
second edition of which was published in 1754.—See verb To bam.

    1748. T. Dyche, Dictionary (5 ed.). Bam (s.), a sham or pretence, a
    lying excuse.

    1762. Foote, Orators, Act ii. Why I know that man, he is all upon
    his fun; he lecture—why ’tis all but a bam.

    1817. Scott, Rob Roy, ch. ix. ‘It’s all a bam, ma’am—all a
    bamboozle and a bite, that affair of his illness.’

Verb.—To hoax, to bamboozle; to wheedle; to cheat. [Of same formation
as substantive, which see above, and Cf., Bamboozle.] The first trace
of it appears in Cibber’s Double Gallant [1707], and is discussed by
Swift in his introduction to Polite Conversation [1738], where he
mentions among ‘the exquisite refinements’ then in vogue,—bam for
bamboozle, and bamboozle for, God knows what. Whereupon a correspondent
of Notes and Queries [2 S., Jan. 10, ’57, p. 31] alluding to the
despair of etymologists in regard to these words remarked that if from
was put in the place of for, it would describe the predicament in which
philologists are placed.

    1754. H. Martin, Eng. Dict., 2 ed. To bam, or to bamboozle, to fun,
    to fib, to sham.

    1760. Colman, Polly Honeycombe, in wks. (1777) IV., 43. Lord, how
    well he behaves! We shall certainly bam the old gentleman.

    1830. Marryat, King’s Own, ch. xlix. ‘Now, you’re bamming me—don’t
    attempt to put such stories off on your old granny.’

    1874. E. L. Linton, Patricia Kemball, ch. xxxix. For a moment the
    thought flashed across him whether ‘that tale of Gordon Frere was
    all a bam, and had the girl taken a liking for himself?’


Bamblustercate, verb. (nonce-word).—A factitious creation signifying to
embarrass; confuse; or hoax in a blustering manner. [From bam, to hoax,
or confuse + bluster, noisy assertion + cate, a termination in
imitation of ‘conglomerate’.]—See also Comflogisticate.


Bamboo, verb. (American).—A corruption of bamboozle. To cheat; to
victimize; to hoax.—See, however, Bam and Bamboozle.


Bamboozle, verb. (familiar).—To hoax; deceive; or impose upon.
Philologists are all confessedly at sea in regard to the derivation of
bamboozle and its attributive forms, but the general tendency of
evidence is to refer it to a gypsy origin. Johnson states it to be a
cant word; and Bouchier, in his glossary says, ‘it has with great
propriety long had a place in the gypsy or canting dictionaries,’ it
being in his opinion ‘the sole invention of gypsies or vagrants.’
Leland thinks it ‘possibly’ the Hindu word bambhorna, to humbug, with
the gypsy terminative āsel. Wedgwood suggests its origin in the Italian
bamboccio, a young babe, and metaphorically an old dotard or babyish
gull; imbambolare, to blear or dim one’s sight, also with flatteries
and blandishments, to inveigle and make a fool of one. If a verb were
made of bambocciolo in the same way as bambocciolare, it would have
much the sense of bamboozle. A. E. Quekett (N. and Q., 5 S., xii., 488)
throws a side-light upon this last theory by pointing out that in
Shakspeare’s Taming of the Shrew, Katharina says, ‘Belike you mean to
make a puppet of me,’ and Petruchio replies, ‘Why true; he means to
make a puppet of thee.’ Comparing this passage with the rest of the
scene it would seem that Petruchio’s answer is not a mere repetition of
Katharina’s words, but contains a double entendre of some kind. He
(Quekett) then hazards that perhaps she meant to say, ‘Perhaps you mean
to treat me as a doll without a will of its own,’ while Petruchio
appears to mean something very like, ‘He wishes to bamboozle you.’

Be all this as it may, bamboozle first came into vogue during the early
part of the last century; for in the Tatler No. 230 [1710], we read,
‘The third refinement observable in the letter I send you consists in
the choice of certain words invented by some pretty fellows, such as
banter, bamboozle, country-put, and kidney, some of which are now
struggling for the vogue, and others are in possession of it’!

So also with the derivatives; e.g., bamboozle (subs.); Bamboozled;
bamboozlement; bamboozler; bamboozling.

    1703. Cibber, She Would and She Would Not, II., i. (1736), 34. Sham
    proofs, that they propos’d to bamboozle me with. [M.]

    1709. Steele, Tatler, No. 31. But, says I, sir, I perceive this is
    to you all bamboozling.

    1712. Arbuthnot, History of John Bull, pt. III., ch. vi. There are
    a sort of fellows that they call banterers and bamboozlers, that
    play such tricks; but it seems these fellows were in earnest!

    1731. Coffey, Devil to Pay, Act i., Sc. 3. You juggler, you
    cheating, bamboozling villain!

    1754. Foote, Knights, Act ii. You are tricked, imposed on,
    bamboozled!

    1779. R. Cumberland, Wheel of Fortune, Act ii., Sc. 1. You know I
    love you, Emily, ... and therefore you baffle and bamboozle and
    make a bumpkin of me.

    1817. Scott, Rob Roy, ch. ix. ‘It’s all a bam, ma’am—all a
    bamboozle and a bite, that affair of his illness.’

    1827. Lytton, Pelham, ch. xxxvi. ‘One does not like to be
    bamboozled out of one’s right of election, by a smooth-tongued
    fellow, who sends one to the devil the moment the election is
    over.’

    1886. Sat. Review, No. 1587, p. 423. The public is a great
    bamboozable body.

(Nautical).—To decoy the enemy by hoisting false colours—merely an
extension of the popular sense.

English Synonyms. ‘To throw dust in the eyes’; ‘to use the pepper-box’;
‘to gild the pill’; ‘to throw a tub to a whale’; ‘to make believe the
moon is made of cream cheese’; ‘to jockey’; ‘to stick’; ‘to bilk’; ‘to
do’; ‘to best’; ‘to do brown’; ‘to bounce’; ‘to take in’; ‘to kid’; ‘to
gammon.’

French Synonyms. Une monteuse de coups (a woman who bamboozles her
lovers); monter des couleurs (popular: ‘to deceive by false
representations’; couleur signifies ‘pretence,’ ‘semblance’); faire la
queue à quelqu’un (popular); tirer la carotte (thieves’); faire voir le
tour (popular); canarder (popular: literally ‘to shoot at one from a
sheltered position’; i.e., to have an advantage, and thus to be able to
hoax or humbug); dindonner (popular: from dindon, a ‘goose’); faire le
coup, or monter le coup à quelqu’un (popular: coup in French slang is
‘a secret process,’ ‘a knack’ or ‘dodge’—hence ‘to deal one an
underhand blow,’ or ‘to serve one a trick’); empaler (popular: ‘to
deceive by false representations’; literally ‘to empale’); passer des
curettes (popular: ‘to make a fool of one’); monter une gaffe (popular:
gaffe in French slang = ‘a joke’; a piece of deceit); monter le job or
jobarder (popular: job is equivalent to ‘simpleton’ or ‘flat,’ and is
the same as jobelin); mener en bateau un pante pour le refaire
(thieves’: ‘to deceive a man in order to rob him’); monter un batteau
(popular); donner un pont à faucher (thieves’: ‘to lay a trap or
snare’); promener quelqu’un (popular: ‘to make a fool of one.’ Cf., ‘to
rush’); compter des mistouffles (familiar: mistouffle = ‘a scurvy
trick’; ‘a joke’); gourrer (popular: ‘to stick’; ‘to kid’; ‘to
deceive’); affluer (from à flouer, ‘to cheat’; ‘to diddle out of’);
roustir (popular and thieves’: ‘to cheat’); affûter (thieves’: ‘to make
unlawful profits’); bouler (popular); juiffer (popular: literally ‘to
Jew’ as in English); pigeonner (familiar: ‘to do,’ ‘to pluck.’ In
English slang the victims of card and other sharpers are called
‘pigeons’); flancher (popular: ‘to laugh at’ or ‘ridicule’); faire la
barbe (popular: Cf., faire la queue); hisser un gandin (thieves’:
literally ‘to hoist a dandy’ or ‘swell’); mettre dedans (popular: to
take a rise out of one; literally to ‘take in’); être l’autre (popular:
Cf., ‘to get left.’ The phrase also signifies ‘to be the lover,’ the
mistress); planter un chou (familiar).

German Synonyms.—See Jockey.

Italian Synonyms. Traversare (literally ‘to cross over’); dar la
stolfa.

Spanish Synonym. Encantar (literally ‘to enchant,’ ‘to entertain with
soft words’).


Bambosh, subs. (nonce word).—Apparently a variation of bamboozling, as
follows. [Bam + bosh.] Humbug; deceit; hoaxing.

    1865. Day of Rest, Oct., 585. I was deaf to all that bambosh. [M.]


Bambsquabbled.—This coined word, which is, however, rarely used except
in humorous writings, first saw the light in The Legend of the American
War. It signifies discomfiture and defeat, or stupefaction; sometimes
written bumsquabbled.

    1835–40. T. C. Haliburton (‘Sam Slick’), The Clockmaker, 2 S., ch.
    ii. The judge said, ‘He had got too much already, cut him off the
    other two-thirds, and make him pay all costs.’ If he didn’t look
    bumsquabbled it’s a pity.


Banaghan. He beats Banaghan, phr.  (old).—An Irish saying of one who
tells wonderful stories; Banaghan, thought Grose, was a minstrel famous
for dealing in the marvellous—a kind of prototype of Baron Munchausen.
Of this, deponent knowing nothing, says the same.


Banagher, verb. (old).—To bang.


Bananaland, Bananalander, subs. (Australian).—Queensland, and a native
of Queensland respectively. Apparently from a large portion of that
section of the fifth continent lying within the tropics, thus allowing
of the cultivation of the banana tree (Musa sapientum).

    1886. Chamb. Journal, Feb. 20, p. 124. Booted and spurred
    ‘Cornstalks’ and Banana-men (natives of New South Wales and
    Queensland respectively).

    1887. Melbourne (Victoria) Sportsman, 23 March, p. 7, col. 2. Paddy
    Slavin came from Queensland with the reputation of having beaten
    all the Bananalanders.

    1887. Sydney (N.S.W.) Bulletin, 26 Feb., p. 6. His friends rallied
    up to congratulate him, and see him through, after the custom of
    the simple Bananalander.

It may be interesting to note that a native of New South Wales is
nicknamed a ‘cornstalk’ because built somewhat tall and thin. Those
whose stature is shorter, with circumference of wider dimensions in
proportion to their height are said to be ‘nuggety.’ The gum trees of
Tasmania give the elegant nickname ‘gumsucker’ to its inhabitants. In
this practice antipodean colonists follow suit with their cousins
across the Atlantic.—See Nicknames.


Banco, subs. (Charterhouse School).—Evening preparation down at ‘house’
each day, superintended by a monitor. It answers to the Winchester
toy-time.


Banco-Steerer.—See Bunco-steerer.


Bandanna, subs. (common).—Formerly a silk handkerchief with white,
yellow, or other coloured spots on a dark ground. Now applied to
handkerchiefs of all kinds. The name is thought to come from the
Spanish bandano, a neckerchief.

    1752. J. Long, Bengal (1870), 31. Plain taffaties, ordinary
    bandannoes, and chappas.

    1855. Thackeray, Newcomes, ch. iv. The Colonel was striding about
    the room in his loose garments, puffing his cigar fiercely anon,
    and then waving his yellow bandanna.


Banded, ppl. adj. (old).—Hungry. To mitigate the pangs of hunger,
starving men tighten the belt round the ‘middle.’ Bamfylde Moore Carew,
the king of the beggars, mentions the practice. Cf., Caffre’s tightener
and bands.


Bandero, subs. (American).—Widows’ weeds; a corruption of the now
obsolete ‘bandore,’ a widow’s head-dress. Bandore was itself a
corruption of the French bandeau, given by Littré as anciennement,
coiffure des veuves. The term was current about the beginning of the
last century, but in 1785 we find it quoted as slang. It appears,
however, to have survived in America whilst dropping entirely out of
use in the Mother Country. In the English drapery trade mourning goods
are sometimes called afflictions (q.v.).


Ban-Dog, subs. (old).—A bailiff, or his assistant. Originally, says
Murray, a dog tied or chained up either to guard a house, or on account
of its ferocity; hence generally a mastiff or bloodhound. The
transition from this point to the slang sense is clear.

    1839. Harrison Ainsworth, Jack Sheppard [1889], p. 12. ‘But where
    are the lurchers?’ ‘Who?’ asked Wood. ‘The traps!’ responded a
    bystander. ‘The shoulder-clappers!’ added a lady, who, in her
    anxiety to join the party, had unintentionally substituted her
    husband’s nether habiliments for her own petticoats. ‘The
    ban-dogs!’ thundered a tall man whose stature and former avocations
    had procured him the nickname of ‘The long drover of the Borough
    market.’  ‘Where are they?’ ‘Ay. where are they?’ chorused the mob,
    flourishing their various weapons, and flashing their torches in
    the air; ‘we’ll sarve ’em out.’


Bands, subs. To wear the bands (old cant).—To be hungry.—See Banded.


B. and S. (popular).—An everyday colloquialism, in the abbreviated
form, for brandy and soda.

    1868. Whyte Melville, White Rose, ch. xiii. Before the b. and
    s.—signifying a beaker of brandy and soda-water—could make its
    appearance.

    1881. W. Black, Beautiful Wretch, ch. v. ‘Come away, and I will get
    you some tea, though what would be better for you still, would be
    some b. and s.’

    1882. Punch, vol. LXXXII., p. 69, col. 1.

        I’ll sing you a fine new song, all about a fine young spark,
        Who’s a fine young London gentleman, quite up to any lark,
        Who takes supper very early, and breakfasts in the dark;
        Who’s a real ‘dear old chappie,’ as I needn’t perhaps remark.

                            *  *  *  *  *

        He will say that port and sherry his nice palate always cloy;
        He’ll nothing drink but ‘b. and s.’ and big magnums of ‘the
        boy’;
        He’s the darling of the barmaid and the honest waiter’s joy,
        As he quaffs his Pommery, ‘Extra Sec,’ his ‘Giesler,’ or
        ‘Ivroy.’


Bandy, subs. (thieves’).—A sixpence; so called, in the first instance,
from these coins being often thin, worn, and bent. Also called a
cripple and bender, but, for synonyms, see the latter. The term appears
in Grose [1785].

    1819. T. Moore, Tom Crib’s Memorial, p. 25, n. A bandy or cripple,
    a sixpence.

    1885. Household Words, June 20, p. 155. The sixpence is a coin more
    liable to bend than most others, so it is not surprising to find
    that several of its popular names have reference to this weakness.
    It is called a bandy, a ‘bender,’ a ‘cripple.’


Bang, subs. (colloquial).—1. A blow; Old Norse, bang, a hammering.
Though a dictionary word, bang has not yet succeeded in passing from
the limbo of vulgarism in many of its uses. For example, a ‘bang of the
door’ sounds legitimate enough, and is an expression to which even the
most pronounced stickler for linguistic purity would scarcely object;
yet, a ‘bang on the nose’ or ‘jaw’ would, doubtless, be looked upon as
low and vulgar. Only to illustrate such variations, can the word find a
fitting entry into these pages. Amongst pugilists and the vulgar, bang
is, without doubt, closely identified with personal castigation; and,
in this connection.

English Synonyms are not rare. To bang one in the jaw; to spoil one’s
picture; to give a wipe on the nose; to fetch one a stinger, etc. The
blow itself is designated a whopper; wipe; clout; prop; cant; dig;
corker; shooting stars (in allusion to the dazed condition of a person
so struck, stars being seen dancing before one’s eyes).

French Synonyms. Un gnon (popular); un écopage (familiar); une dandine
(popular); un cabochon (common); un estaffion (popular: may be rendered
‘a bang on the nut’); un coup de gilquin (popular); un renfoncement
(colloquial: ‘a blow with the fist’; lit. ‘an indentation’); une beugne
(common); une beigne (popular); une dariole (familiar: properly a kind
of pastry); un coup de tampon (popular: ‘a hard shove’; tampon, ‘a
buffer’); une balle de coton (popular); une baffre (popular: ‘a blow in
the face with the fist’); un pétard (familiar: either ‘a box on the
ear’ or ‘a cant on the gills’); une paraphe (popular: paraphe is
properly the flourish added to one’s signature); dégrader le portrait à
quelqu’un (popular: ‘to fetch one a bang in the mug.’ Cf., ‘to spoil
one’s picture’); détacher un coup de pinceau sur la frimousse (popular:
‘to make pencil marks upon the face’; i.e., ‘to spoil one’s
physiognomy,’—the allusion presumably being to the face as the work of
the Divine Artist). For other synonyms, see Wipe.

2. A style adopted by women in dressing the hair upon the forehead,
generally curled and frizzed, the process being thus described. To make
the bang, one must begin by dividing the front hair at half-inch
distances from ear to ear, combing the rest back. This is repeated
until the whole front hair has been successfully banged. In England
these fringes are also called toffs (q.v.).

    1880. W. D. Howell, The Undiscovered Country, ch. viii. When one
    lifted his hat to wipe his forehead, he showed his hair cut in
    front like a young lady’s bang.

    1883. Pall Mall Gazette, Dec. 19, p. 4, col. 1. It was no doubt
    unfortunate that when the Empress Eugenie cut her hair across her
    forehead from sorrow of heart, the women of five continents should
    imitate her until the bang became universal.

Verb.—1. To deliver a blow as described under bang (subs. 1);
generally, to thump or strike violently; to thrash.

    1588. Marprelate’s Epistle, p. 4 (ed. Arber). His grace will cary
    to his grave I warrant you the blowes which M. Cartwright gave him
    in this cause: and, therefore, no marvell though he was loth to
    have any other so banged as he himselfe was to his woe.

    1592. John Day, Blind Beggar, Act ii., Sc. 2, p. 37. I am sure my
    cloak cannot go without hands; and I’ll have it again, or I’ll bang
    it out of the coxcombs of some of them.

    b. 1719. H. Carey, Sally in our Alley, st. 3.

        My master comes, like any Turk,
        And bangs me most severely.

    1731. Fielding, The Lottery, Sc. 2. Ah, think, my lord! how I
    should grieve to see your lordship bang’d.

    1851–61. H. Mayhew, London Lab. and Lon. Poor, vol. II., p. 47. ‘It
    was good stuff and good make at first, and hasn’t been abused, and
    that’s the reason why it always bangs a slop, because it was good
    to begin with.’

    1884. Cornhill Mag., April, p. 442. ‘Davis,’ said Toddy, ‘you
    haven’t had a banging this term, and you’re getting cocky.’

2. To dress the hair with a fringe on the forehead, cut squarely
across, so that it ends abruptly.

    1882. Century Mag., XXV., 192. He was bareheaded, his hair banged
    even with his eyebrows in front.

    1888. Detroit Free Press.

        Bang, Sister, bang with care;
        If your poker’s too hot you’ll lose your hair.

3. To surpass; to excel. So also banging, adj., great or thumping.

4. (Stock Exchange.)—To loudly offer stock with the intention of
lowering the price.

To be banged up to the eyes, phr.  (common).—To be drunk. For synonyms,
see Screwed.


Bang-Beggar, subs. (old).—A constable or beadle. It is not quite clear
whether this is not merely a dialecticism. In Lowland Scotch it
signifies a strong staff.


Banger, subs. (common).—A lie. Generally, that’s a banger! This elegant
phrase is sometimes varied by ‘that’s a whopper’ (q.v.); or the now
classical ‘thumper’ (q.v.), an invention of the late Lord Iddesleigh.

(Yale College).—A club-like cane or stick; a bludgeon. This word is one
of the Yale vocables.—Hall’s College Words and Customs.

    Yale Lit. Mag., vol. XX., p. 75.

        The Freshman reluctantly turned the key,
        Expecting a Sophomore gang to see,
        Who, with faces masked and bangers stout,
        Had come resolved to smoke him out.


Bang-Off, adv. (familiar).—Without stopping; right away; e.g., ‘I wrote
as promised bang-off,’ i.e., without delay. [From bang, a loud, sudden
sound + off, movement from a place or thing.]


Bang-Out. To bang-out, verbal phr. (common).—To depart hurriedly and
with noise.

Adv. phr.—Completely, entirely, combined with suddenness; e.g., ‘the
candle went bang-out.’


Bang-Pitcher, subs. (old).—A drunkard. Possibly only dialectical.


Bangster subs. (provincial).—According to Jamieson:—1. A violent and
disorderly person, who regards no law but his own will. 2. A victor. 3.
A braggart. 4. A loose woman.

    1820. Scott, The Abbot, ch. xix. If the Pope’s champions are to be
    bangsters in our very change houses, we shall soon have the
    changelings back again, [h.]

    1825. Scott, St. Ronan’s Well, ch. xxiii. If you are so certain of
    being the bangster—so very certain, I mean, of sweeping stakes,
    what harm will Miss Clara come to by your having the use of her
    siller.


Bang-Straw, subs. (old).—A nickname for a thresher of corn; a
provincialism.


Bang-Tailed, adj. (popular).—Short tailed. Usually applied to horses.

    1861. Hughes, Tom Brown at Oxford, ch. vi. ‘These bang-tailed
    little sinners any good?’ said Drysdale, throwing some
    cock-a-bondies across the table. ‘Yes, I never like to be without
    them and a governor or two.’


Bang-Up, adj. phr.  (common).—First-rate; quite up to the mark; A 1;
slap up; in the height of fashion. Also banged-up.

    1812. H. and J. Smith, Rejected Addresses, p. 188. Dance a bang-up
    theatrical cotillion.

    1842. Lever, Jack Hinton, ch. vii. His hat set jauntily on one
    side, his spotted neckcloth knotted in bang-up mode.

    1844. Quarterly Review, XXIV., 368. We could not resist giving a
    specimen of John Thorpe ... altogether the best portrait of a
    species which, though almost extinct, cannot yet be quite classed
    among the Palæotheria, the bang-up Oxonian.

    1846. Thackeray, V. Fair, vol. I., ch. xxxiv. There appeared on the
    cliff in a tax cart, drawn by a bang-up pony ... his friends, the
    Sutbury Pet and the Rottingdean Fibber.

Subs.—Also used substantively as in the following example; that which
is quite right; the ‘thing’; the ‘go.’

    1882. Punch, LXXXII., 185, 1. Modern Life in London, or Tom and
    Jerry back again. The trio turned into the Arcade, and saw a number
    of gay sparks and fair ones promenading. ’Twas a curious sight, a
    glimpse of Life in London, one of its primest features, and yet, as
    the Corinthian remarked to his Coz, these people seemed like the
    ‘ghosts of a former generation.’ ‘These then are the dandies, the
    fops, the goes and the bang-ups, these the Corinthians of to-day,’
    was also Tom’s exclamation to young Bob, who said, ‘I don’t know
    about being Corinthians, but some of these fellows are very ‘good
    form,’ and as to being bang-up, a good many poor old chappies are
    deuced hard-up.’

Verb tr.—To make smart; produce in first-rate style.

    1821. Coombe, Dr. Syntax, Tour iii., c. v.

        Pat to his neckcloth gave an air
        In style, and á la militaire;
        His pocket too a kerchief bore
        With scented water sprinkled o’er;
        Thus banged-up, sweeten’d, and clean shav’d,
        The sage the dinner-table braved.


Bangy, subs. (Winchester College).—‘Brown’ sugar. From Bangalore, a
once coarse-growing sugar country.

Adj.—Colour of brown sugar; e.g., bangy bags, brown trousers. These
were also called bangies. So universally was the term bangy used to
designate a brownish hue, that a gate of that colour at Winchester
College, formerly leading from Grass Court into Sick House Meads, was
called the Bangy Gate. The name is now often used for the gate by
Racquet Court, into Kingsgate Street.


Banian-Days or Banyan-Days, subs. (nautical).—Those days in which
sailors have no flesh meat. Probably derived from the practice of the
Banians, a caste of Hindoos, traders or merchants, who entirely
abstained from all animal food.

    1690. Ovington, in Yules’ Anglo-Indian Glossary. Of kitcheney
    (butter, rice, and dai) the European sailors feed in these parts,
    and are forced at such times to a Pagan abstinence from flesh,
    which creates in them an utter detestation to those banian-days as
    they call them.

    1748. Smollett, Rod. Random, ch. xxv. They told me that on Mondays,
    Wednesdays, and Fridays, the ship’s company had no allowance of
    meat, and that these meagre days were called banyan-days, the
    reason of which they did not know; but I have since learned they
    take their denomination from a sect of devotees in some parts of
    the East Indies, who never taste flesh.

    1820. Lamb, Elia (Christ’s Hospital). We had three banyan to four
    meat days in the week.

    1855. Thackeray, Newcomes, ch. lxiii. If he might be so bold as to
    carry on the Eastern metaphor, he would say, knowing the excellence
    of the Colonel’s claret and the splendour of his hospitality, that
    he would prefer a cocoanut day at the Colonel’s to a banyan-day
    anywhere else.

    1876. C. Hindley, Life and Adventures of a Cheap Jack. [From
    Strolling Players’ bill.] Wooldridge’s Theatre. Wanted 700 men, to
    man that splendid first-class, Frigate, ‘The Theatre,’ commanded by
    A. J. Wooldridge, now lying at her moorings, in Cheapside. Mr.
    Wooldridge, with all due respects to his brother Tars, hopes they
    will lend a hand to man his Vessel. He cannot offer them a barrel
    of Ale, but he will make them a promise of his unfeigned thanks and
    gratitude for this and past favours, with his hearty good wishes
    for the prosperity of the Town and Trade of Brighton; that his
    Shipmates, wherever bound, may set sail with fair wind and good
    passage; that they may never have short allowance—banyan days; or a
    southerly wind in the Bread Basket.


Banjo, subs. (common).—A bed-pan; also called a fiddle or slipper
(q.v.)—the latter from an improved shape which allows of its being
slipped in without disturbing the patient.


Bank, subs. (common).—A lump sum of money; one’s fortune.

Verb (thieves’).—1. To secure; to obtain (in a pilfering sense).

2. To put in a place of safety.

3. To go shares; to divide fairly with confederates.

4. (prison.)—Millbank prison.

    1889. Answers, May 25, p. 412. We approached our destination,
    Millbank—the bank in a convict’s parlance.


Bankers, subs. (old).—Clumsy boots and shoes; now called
beetle-crushers. For synonyms generally, see Trotter-cases.


Bank Shaving, subs. phr. (American).—Before banks were regulated by Act
of Congress, a practice prevailed among the least reputable of such
institutions of purchasing notes of hand and similar documents at
enormously usurious rates of discount. Many were the facilities for
sharp practice of every kind. Such banks were called shaving banks, and
the unfortunate wretch who thus ‘raised the wind’ was said to get his
paper shaved. The origin of the phrase may be looked for in maritime
nomenclature, a shaver from a sailor’s point of view being a man who is
cute and unscrupulous—possibly from the unpleasant operation of shaving
on board ship when crossing the line.


Bankside Ladies, subs. phr. (old).—Ladies of more complaisance than
virtue. Bankside, Southwark, was once the fashionable theatrical
quarter of London. There stood once the Globe, the Swan, the Rose, and
the Hope theatres. On the boards of the first-named originally appeared
most of Shakspeare’s plays. In Old London the neighbourhoods of the
principal theatres appear to have been noted for anything but vestal
virtue. Covent Garden and Drury Lane, like Bankside, have entered
largely into the vicious slang of the past.

    1638. Randolph, Muses’ Looking-Glass, O. Pl., 9., 206. Come, I will
    send for a whole coach or two of Bankside ladies, and we will be
    jovial.


Bank-Sneak, subs. (American).—A variety of the genus thief who confines
his attention to bank robberies. Smart, clever, well-dressed, they
usually work in gangs, two or three confederates being employed as
cover whilst the leader does the work. In large towns considerable
finesse is exhibited by these men in effecting their purpose; but in
the more thinly populated districts polish and ruse are abandoned in
favour of more drastic methods. The bank-sneak of the West pursues his
depredations more as a bandit; his city confrère is more adroit, and
therefore infinitely more dangerous. For synonyms, see Area-sneak.

    1888. Daily Inter-Ocean, Feb. 16. Buffalo officers to-day picked
    out from a batch of Erie convicts Watt N. Jones, the notorious
    bank-sneak and burglar so widely known professionally in every city
    of the United States and Canada.


Banner, subs. (American news-boys’).—The money paid for board and
lodging at the homes frequented by these flying mercuries. The origin
of the term is unknown.


Bant, verb (common.)—To follow the dietary prescribed by Mr.
Banting.—See Banting.


Banting, subs. (common).—A course of diet by which fat people seek to
reduce their bulk. It consists in strictly discarding as food all
articles known to favour the development of adipose tissue. It was
introduced about the year 1864 by a Mr. W. Banting—hence the name. The
dietary recommended was the use of butcher’s meat principally, and
abstinence from beer, farinaceous food, and vegetables. Also
figuratively, to reduce in any way.

    1864. Times, 12 Aug., 4. The classics seemed to have undergone a
    successful course of banting.

    1868. Miss Braddon, Only a Clod, p. 114. She was a rigid
    disciplinarian of the school formed by Mr. Banting. Ibid., p. 113.
    A parlour where all the furniture seemed to have undergone a
    prolonged course of banting.

    1883. Knowledge, 27 July, p. 49, col. 2. Bantingism excludes beer,
    butter, and sugar.


Bantling, subs. (old).—A young, or small child. This word, once slang,
is now a received dictionary word. It is stated in Bacchus and Venus
[1737], and by Grose, to be a cant term. It was formerly synonymous
with bastard. Appended are a few examples of its use when knocking for
admittance at the doors of the dictionaries.

    1593. Drayton, Eclog., vii., 102. Lovely Venus ... smiling to see
    her wanton bantlings game.

    1635. Quarles, Emblems, II., viii. (1718), 93. See how the dancing
    bells turn round ... to please my bantling.

    1748. Smollett, Rod. Random, ch. xlvii. ‘That he may at once
    deliver himself from the importunities of the mother and the
    suspense of her bantling.’

    1751. Smollett, Peregrine Pickle, ch. lxxx. ‘Let the bantlings,’
    said she, ‘be sent to the hospital ... and a small collection be
    made for the present support of the mother.’

    1758. Goldsmith, Essays, x. Who follow the camp, and keep up with
    the line of march, though loaded with bantlings and other baggage.

    1822. Scott, Fortunes of Nigel, ch. xxi. ‘Sell me to a gipsy, to
    carry pots, pans, and beggars bantlings.’


Banty, adj. (American thieves’).—Saucy; impudent.


Baptised or Christened, ppl. adj. (old).—Mixed with water; spirits and
wines are said to be baptised when diluted. The French equivalent is
chrétien; also baptisé.

    1636. Healey, Theophrastus, 46. He wil give his best friends his
    baptized wine.


Bar, verb and prep. (colloquial and racing).—1. Used as a verb bar
signifies to exclude; to prohibit; also to object to a person or
action. Its lineage is of undoubted respectability, but its usage is
now but little removed from the vulgar. As a preposition it is
synonymous with ‘except’—mainly used in racing; e.g., ‘Four to one bar
one.’

    c. 1598. Shakspeare, M. of Venice, ii., 2, 207. Nay, but I bar
    to-night: you shall not gauge me by what we do to-night.

    1672. Wycherley, Love in a Wood, wks. III. (1712), 382. That were
    as hard as to bar a young parson in the pulpit, the fifth of
    November,—railing at the Church of Rome.

    1697. Vanbrugh, Æsop, Act ii. What I have in my mind, out it comes:
    but bar that; I’se an honest lad as well as another.

    1752. Foote, Taste, Act ii. I don’t suppose now, but, barring the
    nose, Roubiliac could cut as good a head every whit.

    1818. Scott, Rob Roy, ch. iii. ‘I should like to try that
    daisy-cutter of yours upon a piece of level road (barring canter)
    for a quart of claret at the next inn.’

    1836. Dickens, Pickwick, ch. lv., p. 483. ‘I’ll bet you ten guineas
    to five, he cuts his throat,’ said Wilkins Flasher, Esquire.
    ‘Done,’ replied Mr. Simmery. ‘Stop! I bar,’ said Wilkins Flasher,
    Esquire, thoughtfully. ‘Perhaps he may hang himself.’

2. (American thieves’.)—To stop; to cease. Obviously an attributive
meaning of the legitimate word.

3. (American colloquial.)—A spurious verb, the signification of which
is derived from the drinking-bar. Thus a tippler is said to bar too
much when given to inordinate drinking.


Baragan Tailor, subs. (tailors’).—A rough-working tailor.


Barb, verb (old cant).—To barb gold was heretofore a cant term for
clipping or shaving it. The modern term is to sweat (q.v.). [Apparently
from to barber, to shave or trim.]

    1610. Ben Jonson, Alchemist, I., i. Ay, and perhaps thy neck within
    a noose, for laundring gold, and barbing it.


Barber, verb. (University).—When impositions are worked off by deputy
they are said to be barberised. Tradition relates that a learned barber
was at one time frequently employed as a scapegoat in working off this
species of punishment inflicted on peccant students—hence the
expression. A story ben trovato esd non e vero!

That’s the barber.—A street catch-phrase, says Grose, about the year
1760. There is nothing new under the sun; not even idiotic and
wearisome street cries, which so many good philologists deplore as a
sign of the depravity of the times. That’s the barber, like ‘Who’s your
hatter?’ and ‘How’s your poor feet?’ meant nothing, save a general and
indefinite comment on any action, measure, or thing. ‘All serene!’
(q.v.) is presumably its nearest modern street equivalent.


Barber’s-Cat, subs. (old).—A weak, sickly looking individual. In French
such a person is called un faiblard and un astec, the latter an
allusion to the Mexican dwarfs. According to Hotten, the term is also
‘used in connexion with an expression too coarse to print.’


Barber’s-Chair, subs. (old).—A prostitute; a drab; a strumpet. So
called from a barber’s-chair being common to all comers. It will be
remembered that Shakspeare in All’s Well [ii., 2.] likens an
all-embracing answer to a question to ‘a barber’s-chair that fits all
buttocks; the pin-buttock, the quatch-buttock, the brawn-buttock, or
any buttock.’

    1621. Burton, Anatomy of Melancholy, III. iv., i, iii. (1651), 665.
    A notorious strumpet as common as a barber’s-chair. [M.]

    1708. Motteux, Rabelais’ Pantagr., Prognost. v. Bonarobaes.
    Barber’s-chairs, hedge whores.


Barber’s-Clerk, subs. (common).—A term of reproach generally applied by
mechanics and artisans to overdressed and vaunting clerks and shopmen.
In a secondary sense it is used of anyone over-particular in his
personal appearance. The phrases ‘oh, he’s just come from the
barber’s,’ and ‘one of Truefitt’s young men’ are common enough.

    1835. Dickens, Sketches by Boz, p. 155. ‘Tailor!’ screamed a third.
    ‘Barber’s-clerk!’ shouted a fourth. ‘Throw him o-ver!’ roared a
    fifth, [d.]


Barber’s Music, subs. (old).—Harsh and roughly discordant music.
Barber’s shops were formerly places of great resort, and the old plays
are full of references to the means by which customers, while waiting
their turn, wiled away the time. Amongst other things it was usual to
provide a cittern, a musical instrument similar to a guitar, upon which
any who chose could try their skill. Many of the old proverbs refer to
this circumstance. Ben Jonson in The Silent Woman [iii., 5] makes
Morose say of his wife whom his barber had recommended, ‘I have married
his cittern that is common to all men’; and Matheo, in The Honest
Whore, speaks of a barber’s citterne for every serving man to play
upon. Therefore, it is little wonder that barber’s music should be
synonymous with discord.

    1660. Pepys, June 5. My lord called for the lieutenant’s cittern,
    and with two candlesticks with money in them for symbols (cymbals)
    we made barber’s music.


Barefooted on the Top of Ones Head, phr. (American).—Bald-headed. The
application of the simile is obvious.


Bargain. Selling a bargain, phr.  (old).—A species of low wit, much in
vogue about the latter end of the reign of Queen Anne, but which is of
much more ancient usage. It is frequently alluded to by Swift, who
remarks that ‘the maids of honor often amused themselves with it.’ If
so, it seems incredible; and one would say so much the worse for the
‘maids of honor.’ It is thus described: A person would come into a room
full of company, apparently in a fright, crying out, ‘It is white, and
follows me!’ On any of the company asking what? the bargain was sold by
the first speaker naming a certain portion of the body. In another, and
happily more decent form, this somewhat senseless ‘sell’ still has a
vogue. This slang expression and practice was apparently well known to
Shakspeare, who makes Costard use it in Love’s Labour Lost [Act iii.,
Sc. 1], ‘The boy hath sold him a bargain.’


Barge, subs. (printers’).—1. A ‘case’ in which there is an undue
proportion of some letters, and a corresponding shortness of those
which are most valuable.

2. The term is also applied among printers to a card or small box on or
in which ‘spaces’ are put while correcting formes away from ‘case.’

Verb.—To abuse; to slang. Cf., Bullyrag. The allusion is, of course, to
the rough mode of speaking peculiar to bargees or bargemen.

    1861. Albert Smith, Medical Student, p. 102. ‘Whereupon they all
    began to barge the master at once; one saying “his coffee was all
    snuff and chick-weed.”’

(Uppingham School.)—To knock against a person; to come into collision
with.


Barge-Arse, subs. (common).—A man or woman of rotund development at the
back. [From barge, a clumsy vessel, + arse, O.E., posterior or
buttock.] A low term of ridicule. Also used as an adjective,
barge-arsed.


Barge-pole, subs. (Winchester College).—A large stick or thick bough,
of which there was one in each fagot. Also generally used for any large
piece of wood.


Bark, subs. (common).—1. An Irishman or Irishwoman. Cf., Barkshire.

    1869. Notes and Queries, 4 S., iii., 406. In Lancashire an Irishman
    is vulgarly called a bark.

    1876. C. Hindley, Life and Adventures of a Cheap Jack, p. 191. Mike
    when asked by some of his countrymen why he called Fairbanks a
    ‘bark,’ i.e., an Irishman, said, ‘If I had not put the ‘bark’ on
    him he would have put it on me, so I had the first pull.’

2. The skin. This occurs also dialectically. In Alan Ramsay’s poems
[1758] it is so used.

    1843. Dickens, Martin Chuzzlewit, ch. xx., p. 209. To the great
    detriment of what is called by fancy gentlemen the bark upon his
    shins, which were most unmercifully bumped against the hard leather
    and the iron buckles.

    1876. Family Herald, 2 Dec., p. 80, col. 1. With the bark all off
    his shins from a blow with a hockey stick.

3. (colloquial.)—A cough. Cf., verb, To bark, sense 2.

Verb.—1. To scrape; or rub off the skin; to abraise.

    1856. Hughes, Tom Brown’s School-days, p. 227. So, after getting up
    [the tree] three or four feet, down they came slithering to the
    ground, barking their arms and faces.

    1859. Macmillan’s Magazine, Nov., p. 18. The knuckles of his right
    hand were barked.

    1872. Mark Twain, Roughing It, p. 16 (Routledge’s ed.). Every time
    we avalanched from one end of the stage to the other, the
    ‘Unabridged Dictionary’ would come too; and, every time it came, it
    damaged somebody. One trip it barked the Secretary’s elbow; the
    next trip it hurt me in the stomach, and the third, it tilted
    Bemis’s nose up till he could look down his nostrils—he said.

2. To cough; generally applied when it is persistent and hacking.

The word with the bark on it, phr. (American).—Without mincing the
matter; without circumlocution.

    1872. Mark Twain, Roughing It, chap. xv. If ever another man gives
    a whistle to a child of mine, and I get my hands on him, I will
    hang him nigher than Haman! That is the word with the bark on it.

To take the bark off, phr. (popular).—To reduce in value, either
deliberately, or by accident; a figurative usage of ‘to graze,’ ‘to
take the skin off.’

    1849. Dickens, David Copperfield, p. 310. I rode my gallant grey so
    close to the wheel, that I grazed his near foreleg against it and
    took the bark off, as his owner told me, to the tune of three pun’
    sivin.

    1853. Rev. Ed. Bradley (‘Cuthbert Bede’), Further Adventures of
    Verdant Green, p. 31. That’ll take the bark from your nozzle, and
    distil the Dutch pink for you, won’t it?

To bark at the moon (colloquial).—To clamour uselessly; to agitate to
no effect; to labour in vain.

    1630. Taylor’s Workes. And thus my booke and comparisons end
    together; for thus much I know, that I have but all this while
    bark’d at the moone, throwne feathers against the winde, built upon
    the sands, wash’d a blackmore, and laboured in vaine.


Barker, subs. (popular).—1. A pistol. [From barker, a noisy assailant,
i.e., one who barks like a dog.] Sometimes called barking iron (q.v.).
The latter, as far as is known, is the oldest term. An early use of
barkers bears date of 1815, whilst barking iron occurs in Parker’s
Life’s Painter, 1789.

    1815. Scott, Guy Mannering, ch. xxxiii. ‘Had he no arms?’ asked the
    Justice. ‘Ay, ay, they are never without barkers and slashers.’

    1837. Dickens, Oliver Twist, ch. xxii. ‘Barkers for me, Barney,’
    said Toby Crackit. ‘Here they are,’ replied Barney, producing a
    pair of pistols.

    1857. C. Kingsley, Two Years Ago, ch. xxiv. I’ll give you five for
    those pistols ... being rather a knowing one about the pretty
    little barkers.

English Synonyms. ‘Meat in the pot.’ (A Texan term, alluding to the
means by which meat is literally provided for the pot. Texan figures of
speech are often startling enough in originality and sententiousness.
Nor is the moral ingenuity revealed by this vernacular less striking;
e.g., when revolvers are said ‘to make all men equal.’) Other synonyms
for revolvers of similar character are ‘my unconverted friend’; ‘a
one-eyed scribe’ (an argument always persuasive and sometimes
unanswerable); ‘blue lightning’ (sometimes a tragedy in three acts: Act
i., a word; Act ii., a flash of blue lightning; and Act iii., certain
death); ‘whistler’ (from the sharp hissing sound of a bullet in its
flight); ‘peace-maker’ (a sarcastic commentary on the proverb that
‘short reckonings make long friends’); dag; pop; etc.

French Synonyms. Un aboyeur (popular: a literal translation of
‘barker’; also ‘a tout’); un pitroux (thieves’: in the old Provencal,
pitrou bore the sense of a piece of wood or stick, and it is possible
that French thieves have here merely transferred the name from one
weapon to another); un pétouze (a play upon words. In the old cant
pétouze signified the ancient coin known as a pistole); un bayafe
(thieves’: formerly baillaf, a term employed by the robbers who
infested the highways of Southern France. It is thought to be derived
from two words bailler, to give, and affe or rather affre, signifying
fear); un mandolet (thieves’); pied de cochon (military: literally ‘a
pig’s foot’; a variety of weapon of large size and calibre); un
crucifix or un crucifix à ressort (thieves’: literally ‘a crucifix,’ or
‘a crucifix with a spring’); un soufflant (thieves’: soufflet = to
whisper); les burettes (thieves’ and popular: literally ‘phials’).

2. (common.)—A man employed to stand in front of shops and shows to
attract the attention of passers-by, and if possible to entice them
inside, where he can safely leave them to the tender mercies of the
salesmen. The origin of the term is obvious; and, it is interesting to
note that barker has its exact equivalent in the French aboyeur.
Amongst touting photographers, in low neighbourhoods, this individual
is called a doorsman, and the term is likewise applied to auction-room
touts.

    1748. T. Dyche, Dictionary (5 ed.). Barker (s.), a salesman’s
    servant that walks before his door, to invite customers in to buy
    cloaths.

    1785. Grose, Dictionary of the Vulgar Tongue. Barker. The shopman
    of a dealer in second-hand clothes, particularly about Monmouth
    St., who walks before his shop and deafens every passenger with his
    cries of clothes, coats, or gowns, ‘what d’ye want gemmen, what
    d’ye buy?’

    1828. Jon. Bee, Picture of London, p. 109. Mock-auctions and
    ‘selling-off’ shops are not the only pests where barkers are kept
    at the doors to invite unwary passengers to ‘walk in, walk in, sale
    just begun.’

    1888. Texas Siftings, Oct. 13. I am a barker by profession. The
    pedestrian agility required to pace up and down before the
    ‘Half-dime Museum of Anatomy and Natural History,’ soliciting
    passers-by to enter, is of itself enormous; but where it gets in
    its base hit is when it increases the appetite. McGinty knows this.
    McGinty is my friend, but I wouldn’t serve a tenth of his unexpired
    terms for ten dollars. I have peddled clams with McGinty and have
    seen him eat three bushels of our stock. That is nothing. When the
    show isn’t paying, I have to go out and eat grass. This shows you
    what nickel-plated, back-action appetites we have.

3. A man with a troublesome cough; his complaint is otherwise known as
a ‘churchyard cough,’ or a ‘notice to quit’ (q.v.).

4. (nautical.)—Besides being used as a designation for a pistol, barker
is also employed for lower deck guns on board ship.

    1842. Cooper, Jack O’ Lanthorne, I., 151. Four more carronades with
    two barkers for’ard.

5. See quotation, as follows:—

    1879. Greenwood, Outcasts of London. But what was barking? I
    thought a great deal about the matter, and could arrive at no more
    feasible conclusion than that a barker was a boy that attended a
    drover, and helped him to drive his sheep by means of imitating the
    bark of a dog.

6. (University.)—A noisy assertive individual; and, in a complimentary
sense, a great swell.

7. (American.)—A noisy coward; a blatant bully.


Barkey (nautical).—A term of endearment in use amongst seafaring men
when speaking of a vessel to which they have got attached. ‘She’s a
barkey—she is, my lads!’


Barking-Irons, subs. (thieves’).—Pistols. Cf., Barker, sense 1.
Barking-iron is, historically, an older term than barker by about a
quarter of a century. Formerly applied, in the navy, to large duelling
pistols.

    1789. Geo. Parker, Life’s Painter, p. 173. Pistols, barking-irons.

    1834. H. Ainsworth, Rookwood, bk. II., ch. vi. ‘And look you, prick
    the touch-hole, or your barking-iron will never bite for you.’


Barking through the Fence, phr. (American).—A taking advantage of some
obstacle or shield for saying or doing something, which, but for such
protection, would not be said or done; or which if done or said might
entail unpleasant consequences upon the sayer or doer.


Barkshire, subs. (common).—Ireland.—See Bark.


Bark up the Wrong Tree, verbal phr. (American).—Of trapper and pioneer
derivation, and idiomatically used to signify that a person is at fault
as to his purpose, or the means by which he is endeavouring to attain
his object. The expression arose in this way: the Western huntsman
found that his prey gradually became more and more wily and cunning in
eluding pursuit, and frequently he and his dogs were at fault,
supposing they had ‘treed’ their game when in reality, especially in
the case of opossums and squirrels and such-like animals, it had
escaped by jumping from the boughs of one tree to another. The dogs
consequently were left barking up the wrong tree.

    1835. Richmond Enquirer, Sep. 8. ‘You didn’t really go to old
    Bullion,’ said a politician to an office-seeker, ‘Why, he has no
    influence there, I can tell you. You barked up the wrong tree
    there, my friend, and you deserve to fail.’

    1888. Detroit Free Press, Oct. Professor Rose who ‘hit’ this town
    last spring is around calling us a fugitive from justice, and
    asking why the police don’t do something. Gently, Professor. When
    we left Xenia, O., the Sheriff patted us on the back and lent us
    half-a-dollar. We are the only man in this town who doesn’t turn
    pale when the stage comes in, and the only one who doesn’t break
    for the sage brush when it is announced that the United States
    Marshal is here. We ain’t rich or pretty, but we are good, and the
    Professor is barking up the wrong tree.


Barnaby. To dance barnaby, phr.  (popular).—To move expeditiously;
irregularly.


Barnacle, subs. (old cant).—1. A pickpocket. For synonyms, see Area
sneak.

    b. 1809, d. 1870. Mark Lemon, Leyton Hall. The man that stood
    beside thee is old Crookfinger, the most notorious setter, barnacle
    and foist in the city.

2. (old.)—A good job, or snack easily got.—Lexicon Balatronicum (1811).

3. (old.)—A gratuity given to grooms by the buyers and sellers of
horses.—Lexicon Balatronicum (1811).

4. (old.)—A constant attendant; he who, or that which sticks to one
like a barnacle to a ship’s bottom.

    1607. Dekker, Northward Hoe! III., wks., 1873, III., 39. Ile
    cashiere all my yong barnicles. [M.]

    1868. Miss Braddon, Trail of the Serpent, I., i., 7. Slopper found
    him a species of barnacle rather difficult to shake off.

5. (old cant.)—A decoy swindler; from the pertinacity with which such a
one fastens on to a victim, and will not be shaken off until the
purpose in view is effected. Cf., senses 1 and 4.

    1591. Greene, Notable Discovery of Coosnage (1859), 23. Thus doth
    the Verser and the Setter feign a kind friendship to the Cony....
    As thus they sit tippling, coms the barnackle and thrusts open the
    doore ... steps back again: and very mannerly saith I cry you
    mercy, Gentlemen. I thoght a frend of mine had bin heere.

    1608. Dekker, Belman of London, wks. (1885) III., 131. He that ...
    before counterfeited the dronken Bernard is now sober and called
    the barnacle.

6. (old.)—An individual speaking with a nasal twang; one who speaks
through his nose.

    1591. Percivall, Sp. Dictionary. Gango, a barnacle, one that
    speaketh through the nose, Chenolopex. [Chenalopex in Pliny, a
    species of goose.] [M.]


Barnacles, subs. (popular).—1. Spectacles. Formerly applied only to
spectacles with side pieces of coloured glass, and used more as
protectors from wind, dust, and glaring light than as aids to the
sight. Hence used popularly for all kinds of glasses. The derivation
seems uncertain. The principal suggested origins are:—(1) a corruption
of binoculis [from Latin bini, double, + oculus, an eye]; (2) an
attributive usage of barnacles, which, with ‘horse-twitchers’ or
‘brakes,’ are tools put on the nostrils of horses when they will not
stand still to be shooed; and in support of this it has been pointed
out [N. and Q., 1 S., v., 13] the figure of the barnacle borne in
heraldry sufficiently shows why the term has been transferred to
spectacles, which were formerly only kept in position by the manner in
which they clipped the nose; (3) that barnacles are so called from the
similarity in shape to the black streak which proceeds from the upper
part of the beak in a line to the corner of, and right round the eye of
the bernicle, or barnacle goose (Anser bernicla). There is a strong
resemblance in the mark to a pair of spectacles.

    1571. Damon and Pythias (Dodsley’s Old Plays), Hazlett IV., 81.
    These spectacles put on. Grim. They be gay barnacles, yet I see
    never the better.

    1653. Sir Thomas Urquhart, Translation of Rabelais, bk. V., ch.
    xxvii. They had barnacles on the handles of their faces, or
    spectacles at most.

The difference between spectacles and barnacles seems to be indicated
in this passage. In the original French the phrase reads ‘bezicles au
nez.’ A later quotation illustrative of the usage is:

    1822. Scott, The Fortunes of Nigel, ch. i. ‘Give me the barnacles,
    my good youth, and who can say what nose they may bestride in two
    years hence?’

English Synonyms. ‘Bossers’; ‘gig-lamps’; ‘goggles.’ A man wearing
these aids to sight is sometimes called ‘four eyes’ (q.v.).

French Synonyms. Les persiennes (popular: properly ‘venetian
shutters’); une vitrine (popular: literally ‘a shop window,’ or glass
case in a museum).

2. (old cant.)—See quotation.

    1748. T. Dyche, Dictionary (5 ed.). Barnacles (s.) ... in the
    Canting Language, a pair of spectacles; also the irons or fetters
    worn by felons are so called; also the gratuity or reward that
    jockies have for buying horses for gentlemen.


Barndoor, subs.  (sporting).—1. A facetious term for a target too large
to be missed; i.e., as large as a barndoor. Hence barndoor practice as
applied to organised battues, in which game is driven within a range
from which it is impossible to escape. This can hardly be called sport;
rather let it be known as ‘slaughter.’

2. (cricket.)—A player who blocks every ball.


Barnet! intj. (Christ’s Hospital).—Nonsense! humbug! Now obsolete.


Barnet Fair, subs. (thieves’).—The hair; part of the rhyming slang
(q.v.). For synonyms see Top dressing.


Barney, subs. (popular).—1. A word which varies in sense according to
the predelictions of the person using it. Generally speaking it means a
jollification; ‘lark’; pleasurable outing; picnic. The ’Arries and
roughs of London, however, always associate it with a certain amount of
rowdyism. Its derivation is unknown, although Barrère gives a long
dissertation concerning its origin in the Yiddish. As, however, this is
founded mainly upon a misreading of a quotation from Punch, it is
somewhat beside the mark.

2. Humbug; cheating; a hoax; something pre-arranged—not genuine. In
sporting circles it signifies an unfair race of any kind.

    1865. B. Brierley, Irkdale, II., 19. I won thee i’ fair powell one
    toss an’ no barney.

    1882. Evening News, 2 Sept., p. 1, col. 6. Blackguardly barneys
    called boxing competitions. [M.]

Murray gives this last in illustration of the secondary sense which he
applies to the word, viz., a prize-fight. Barney, it is true, does
signify a prize-fight, but it means more than that. A fair contest
would not be so named; there must be an element of chicanery in the
matter. Besides which, barney is applied to unfair sporting
competitions of any kind. A comparison of the different quotations
given under this heading will clearly prove that point.

    1884. Referee, April 13, p. 7, col. 4. Who would believe that Mr.
    Gladstone shammed being ill, and that Sir Andrew Clark issued false
    bulletins, and that the whole thing was a barney from beginning to
    end.

    1885. Bell’s Life, Jan. 3, p. 3, col. 4. Few genuine matches have
    taken place this season on the Transatlantic waters, though
    exhibitions and barney contests have been plentiful.

3. (American.)—At Harvard College, about the year 1810, this word was
used to designate a bad recitation. To barney was to recite
badly.—Hall’s College Words and Customs.


Barn-Mouse. To be bitten by a barn-mouse, phr.  (old).—To be tipsy;
‘screwed.’ The Lexicon Balatronicum says ‘it is probably an allusion to
barley,’ presumably as the source of malt liquor. Cf., ‘To have on’ Or
‘wear a barley-cap,’ to be tipsy; also barley-cap = a tippler.


Barn-stormer, subs. (theatrical).—A deprecatory epithet applied to
strolling players.

    1884. Pall Mall Gazette, 6 June, p. 5, col. 1. If this be
    barn-storming, Betterton and Garrick were barn-stormers.

    1886. Graphic, 10 April, p. 399. Travelling players who acted short
    and highly tragic pieces to audiences of clodpoles in any barn or
    shed they could get, used to be known as barn-stormers, and a
    ranting, noisy style of acting and speaking is still called
    ‘barn-storming.’

    1887. Referee, 21 August, p. 3, col. 1. Mr. Edward Terry has again
    been elected at the head of the poll as trustee of the charities of
    Barnes. He is not the first clever actor who has been known as a
    Barnes-stormer.

The French term for one of such a troupe is cabotin.


Barnumese, subs. (American).—Barnum, the proprietor of ‘the greatest
show upon earth,’ has at any rate one claim to immortal fame in having,
like Boycot, Burke, and Balfour, added a new word to the English
tongue. The ‘high falutin,’ bombastic style of the great man’s
announcements are notorious; as much so, in fact, as is the diction of
the great London newspaper which claims ‘the largest circulation in the
world.’ From such circumstances we get words like barnumese and
telegraphese, to signify exaggeration of style—what in slang parlance
is known as the ‘putting on of side.’

Verb.—To Barnumize is to talk or assert oneself in the style popularly
attributed to Barnum.


Baronet, subs. (old).—A humorous variation for sirloin [of beef].

    1749. Fielding, Tom Jones, bk. IV., ch. x. The sight of the roast
    beef struck him dumb, permitting him only to say grace, and to
    declare he must pay his respects to the baronet, for so he called
    the sirloin.


Barrack-Hack, subs. (familiar).—1. In an inoffensive sense applied to
young women who attend garrison balls year after year. So used there is
no such imputation of lax morals as occurs in sense 2.

2. A soldier’s prostitute. There are but few classes of persons to whom
a greater number of slang epithets have been applied than to the poor
wretched creatures, who from choice, bad-treatment, or as a means of
subsistence abandon themselves to a life of prostitution. These names
are to be found in plenty for all grades of semi-public or public
women. They run the gauntlet from the gilded courtezan to the veriest
drab in the last stages of destitution and disease. The list of
synonyms is both long and grim; the names in many cases speaking
volumes on a subject which it would be painful as well as needless to
pursue farther in this place, inasmuch as the epithets both in French
and English, and, it must be added, those of other languages as well,
speak with a brutal cynicism to which it would be out of place to add a
comment.

English Synonyms. Ladies of accommodating morals; ladies of more
complaisance than virtue; anonyma; pretty horsebreaker; artichoke;
columbine; common Jack; convenient; cow; crack; aunt; ladies of easy
virtue; bangster; blowen; garrison-hack; bat; bawdy-basket; bed-fagot;
fireship; bit o’ muslin; laced mutton; mot; bobtail; bona roba; brevet
wife; grass widow; brimstone; black Bess; brown Bessy; bulker; bunter;
burick; buttock; cab moll; cat; chauvering donna; chauvering moll;
barber’s chair; demi-rep; tartlet; trollop; shake; poll; dolly-mop; gay
woman; unfortunate; dress-lodger; mauks; quædam (obsolete); woman;
bitch; perfect lady; public ledger; necessary; warming-pan; nun.

French Synonyms. Une persilleuse (familiar); une mal peignée (popular:
‘a dirty ill-dressed woman; drab; or draggletail’); une moellonneuse (a
prostitute who frequents builders’ yards); hirondelle de goguenot
(military: ‘a barrack-hack’; in French soldiers’ slang un goguenot is a
tin can used for making coffee or soup); un chausson (literally ‘a
sock’ or ‘stocking’); almanach de trente six mille adresses (popular:
literally ‘a directory.’ Cf., English ‘public-ledger’); une génisse
(popular: literally ‘a heifer.’ Cf., English ‘cow’); une raccrocheuse
(popular: raccrocher, ‘to hook’); une vache à lait (popular: literally
‘a milch cow’); une fleur de macadam (popular: ‘a roadside flower’; ‘a
street walker’); une roulante (popular: in old French slang un roulant
= a vehicle. Cf., English ‘cab’); une camelote (popular: a prostitute
of the lowest class; a draggletail); une morue (popular: literally ‘a
cod-fish’); une marcheuse (popular: properly ‘a walker’; in theatrical
parlance, a female super); une piqueuse de trains (popular: one who
prowls about railway stations. Piqueuse = needlewoman); un pigeon
voyageur (familiar: a girl who travels up and down a railway seeking
clients; literally ‘a carrier pigeon’); une pieuvre (familiar: a kept
woman; properly ‘an octopus’); un carcan à crinoline (popular: carcan,
applied to either sex is an opprobrious epithet; the phrase also
signifies ‘a gaunt-woman’); un omnibus (popular: i.e., ‘one who may be
ridden by all’); un cul crotté (low: properly ‘a dirty bottom’); une
trychine (popular: an allusion to trichina spiralis, the disease-germ
in bad pork); une fenêtrière (popular: an allusion to the custom of
this class to watch at windows and invite passers-by to visit them);
une traîneuse (familiar: a prostitute who plies her trade at railway
stations); un trumeau (popular: literally ‘a leg of beef’); une
crevette (popular: ‘a prawn’ or ‘shrimp’); une boulonnaise (a girl who
‘walks’ the Bois de Boulogne); un matelas ambulant (popular: properly
‘a walking mattress.’ Cf., English ‘bed-fagot’); une demoiselle du
Pont-Neuf (popular: this kind haunt the bridge of the name over the
Seine); un demi-castor (popular: a woman of the demi-monde); une
laqueuse (familiar: a prostitute frequenting the lake in the Bois de
Boulogne); une pailletée (common: properly ‘spangled’); un pelican
(familiar: a dressy courtesan); une ningle (a literary term); une
maquillée (popular: ‘one with painted face’); une gueuse (popular:
gueuse = beggarly, wretched); une fille or femme du trottoir (popular:
‘a girl’ or ‘woman of the pavement’); une vieille garde (familiar: an
old worn-out prostitute); une biche (popular: ‘a hind’ or ‘roe’); une
déhanchée (popular: ‘a waddler’); une demi-mondaine (general: a woman
of the demi-monde; a fashionable prostitute); une portion (military:
literally ‘a share’ or ‘portion’; one who is shared by many); une
limace (popular: properly ‘a slug’); une terrinière (the lowest sort of
prostitute; terrine = earthen pan); une terreuse (a woman who prowls
about lonely spots); une terrière (popular); une fille à parties
(popular); une rivette; une voirie (popular: ‘a common sewer’); une
boule rouge (familiar: a frequenter of the Quartier de la Boule Rouge,
Fanbourg Montmartre); une vessie (popular: a very low prostitute;
vessie applied to either sex is an offensive epithet); une demoiselle
de bitume (familiar); un pont d’Avignon (popular); une pontonnière
(popular: a prostitute who plies her trade under the arches of bridges;
ponton = pontoon, ‘a bridge of boats’; pontonnier = ‘a toll gatherer’);
une polisseuse de tuyaux de pipe (literally ‘a polisher of pipe
stems’); une pompe funèbre (familiar: properly ‘funeral pomp’); une
polisseuse de mâts de cocagne en chambre (popular: an extremely
degraded variety of prostitute; literally ‘a polisher of greasy poles
in a room’); une punaise (general: ‘a bug’—a public woman of the lowest
grade); une dessalée (popular: literally ‘a knowing woman’); une
mangeuse de viande crue (popular: ‘a devourer of raw meat’); une cité
d’amour (literally ‘a city of love’); autel de besoin (popular: ‘an
altar of necessity’; Cf., English ‘necessary’); une vésuvienne
(familiar: literally ‘a vesuvian,’ either in allusion to the volcano or
the well-known brand of matches; in either case the epithet comes very
close to the old English slang ‘fireship,’ an old and diseased
prostitute); peau, or peau de chien (popular: literally ‘dog’s skin’);
un grenier à coups de sabre (a soldiers’ term: grenier, a granary;
coups de sabre, thrusts with a broad sword); une rempardeuse (a woman
who frequents the ramparts); une femme de terrain (a draggletailed
woman; femme, woman, terrain, ground); une saucisse (popular: i.e., ‘a
small sausage’); une trainée (familiar); une baleine (popular: ‘a
whale’); une lésé-bombe (popular); une fille en brème (a registered
prostitute; la brème is the card given to such women by the police);
une fille en carte (a registered woman: see preceding); une boutonnière
à pantalons (familiar: a kind of semi-prostitute; a sempstress who
walks the streets at night; in their own words, they ‘work for their
living, but do the naughty for their clothes’); une fille de maison or
une fille à numéro (familiar: these names are given to girls in
brothels; Cf., English ‘dress-lodgers’); une fille de tournure
(familiar: this also is applied to the inmate of a brothel; literally
‘a girl of figure’); une poupée (popular: ‘a doll’); une mouquette
(popular); des poules (popular: the inmates of a brothel are so called;
literally ‘hens’); une galvaudeuse (popular: galvauder, ‘to scold’);
une planche à boudin (familiar: literally ‘a slice of pudding’; in
English harlotry ‘to take one’s pudding’ or ‘greens’ is to have sexual
connection); une blanchisseuse en chemise (blanchisseuse = laundress;
être dans la chemise de quelqu’un is to be constantly with one); un
lard (literally ‘bacon’ or body); une gadoue (properly ‘street refuse’
or ‘mud’); un sommier de caserne (military: sommier means
‘hair-mattress,’ and caserne = ‘barracks’; applied to girls who prowl
about barracks); une grivoise (this term is now obsolete, but was
formerly applied to a garrison town prostitute. It means, literally, ‘a
jolly canteen woman’); une paillasse à soldats (a barrack-hack;
literally ‘a straw mattress for soldiers’); un passe-lacet (properly ‘a
bodkin’—i.e., ‘something to be threaded’); un chameau (the term was
originally applied to a gaunt, ungainly woman; it now signifies a
prostitute also); un membre de la caravane (a euphemism for un chameau,
q.v.); un lolo (popular); une grue (popular: a kept woman; faire le
pied de grue, ‘to dance attendance’); une soupeuse (literally ‘one who
takes supper’; an allusion to the ‘cabinets particuliers’ of French
restaurants); une belle petite (a young and pretty prostitute of the
superior class; literally ‘a pretty darling’); une pêche à quinze sous
(a literary term); une boulevardière (a superior class of prostitute
frequenting the boulevards); un camélia (a kept woman; a reference to
the heroine of La Dame aux camélias by A. Dumas fils); une lorette (a
variety of prostitute named after the Quartier Notre Dame de Lorette,
the Paris Pimlico); une petite dame (literally ‘a little lady’); une
impure (a kept woman; properly ‘an unchaste one’); une agenouillée
(journalistic); une verticale; une horizontale de grande marque (a
fashionable courtezan); une cocotte (a generic term); une pierreuse (a
public woman of the lowest grade who plies her hideous trade in houses
in course of building, etc.); une chamègue; un bourdon (thieves’:
literally ‘a drone’); une lipète (popular); une magneuse (popular: a
woman who depraves herself with members of her own sex. The name is
said to be in allusion to a religious community who derived their
cognomen from that of their founder, Jeanne Canart, the daughter of
Nicholas Colbert, who was the Seigneur de Magneux); une vielle lanterne
(popular: an old prostitute; lanterne = ‘window’); une feuille
(literally ‘a leaf’; the term is one used at the Saumur School of
Cavalry); un blanc (literally ‘blank’ or ‘white’; the derivation is
somewhat obscure, but the term is a very ancient one for a public
woman. Mangeur de blanc is a man who lives upon the earnings of
prostitutes and ruins them. Formerly, the expression mettre à blanc was
used in the sense of ‘to ruin’); une vache (this term in its popular
signification merely means ‘a woman of indifferent character’; if a
prostitute is intended, the expression is une vache à lait, a milch
cow); un veau (literally ‘a calf’; the phrase is applied to a young
prostitute. Cf., ‘vache à lait’); une retapeuse (popular); un wagon
(popular: a dirty prostitute. Cf., wagon, ‘a railway carriage’ and un
omnibus); une taupe (familiar: literally a mole, an animal that works
in the dark; also ‘a cunning fox’); une Jeanneton (popular: a
chambermaid at an inn); une andre (an old word; see Fourbesque landra);
une roulure (popular: a public woman of the lowest description. Rouler
signifies ‘to roll,’ ‘to wander,’ ‘to stroll,’ ‘to keep going’); une
fille de barrière (popular: a prostitute plying her trade at the
barriers or gates of the city); une dossière (thieves’: literally ‘a
back’); une rouleuse (familiar: an abandoned woman; literally the name
of a species of caterpillar); une paillasse à troufion (a soldier’s
woman); une paillasse de corps de garde (military: literally ‘a
guard-room mattress’); une marneuse (popular: a variety of low class
prostitute frequenting the river-side; literally ‘clayey’); une Louis
(a bully’s mistress; the allusion is to the fancy which women in
brothels often have of powdering and dressing the hair in the fashion
of the times of Louis XV.); une ouvrière (also a ‘bully’s’ mistress.
The term signifies, literally, ‘a workwoman.’ These wretched creatures
support their companions who live and batten on what the woman earns in
the sale of her person); une fesse (popular: properly ‘a breech’); une
marmite (harlotry: ‘a flesh pot’); un torchon (a low class of woman;
torchon = ‘a dish clout’); une sauterelle (familiar: ‘a grass-hopper’);
un prat; une femme de cavoisi (thieves’: a well dressed prostitute of
the boulevards); une louille; une larque (a registered woman; a
corruption of largue); une menesse (a thieves’ term); une larguèpe; une
magnuce (see une magneuse); une casserole (thieves’: literally ‘a
saucepan’); une goipeuse (thieves’: a name given to prostitutes who
wander about the country); une ronfle; une ronfle à grippart; un
ronfleur (thieves’: ronfler is properly ‘to snore’); un grippeur
(gripper = ‘to nab’; crib; clutch); une panterne; une bourre de soie (a
kept woman; bourre = floss + soie = silk); un asticot (a bully’s or
thief’s mistress; literally ‘a maggot’; it may be stated that asticot
is also used for both the membrum virile, and for vermicelli); une
panuche (thieves’: a term applied to showily dressed women who live in
brothels); une calège (thieves’: a kept woman; cale, a kind of
head-dress); une ponante (thieves’: a low-class prostitute); une môme
or mômeresse (thieves’); une lutainpem (thieves’); une laissée
(thieves’ and roughs’); une galupe (popular: a street walking
prostitute); une ponife, poniffe, or poniffle (thieves’).

For German Synonyms, see Tart.

Italian Synonyms. Una sbriso (this term has another cant signification,
viz., ‘to be naked’; hence, probably, its attributive usage for a
prostitute); una losena (this, like other Fourbesque terms for a woman,
also means ‘a woman of the town’; indeed in most argots there seems to
be little, if any distinction drawn between women of easy virtue, and
the sex as a whole); una guagnastra (i.e., one who acts as a sheath;
the allusion is obvious. Cf., English ‘broom’ and ‘broom-handle’ for
the female pudenda and the male penis respectively); una marcona (said
to be an allusion to a certain incident in the history of the Papal
States); una landra (curiously enough this term signifying, in orthodox
Italian, a prostitute is, in the Fourbesque, synonymous also with
‘woman.’ The French andre, a woman of the town, dates back to the
sixteenth century); una brocca (literally a jug, pitcher, or stupid
person); una brocchiera (from Italian brocchiere, ‘a buckler’ or
‘shield’); una baia (i.e., a mistress); una farfoia (also a nun, in
which connection compare with English abbess); una chierlera (this term
likewise is also used in the sense of a female devotee. Both the
English and French slang have ‘nun’ as an equivalent for a prostitute);
una carniera or carnifica (cant terms for a ‘sister,’ and ‘fox’ also);
una cara (literally ‘dear.’ Cf., French belle petite, ‘little
darling.’)

The Spanish Germania has gaya to signify a prostitute. This is an exact
equivalent of the French fille de joie or ‘gay girl’; gaya in Spanish
signifies ‘gay.’ Another name is found in germana, in explanation of
which it may be briefly explained that the Spanish argot or Germania
took its name from a band or brotherhood of thieves and robbers; and it
would thus appear that germana, the name for a female member of the
band was also used generically for a prostitute! Marca, or marquida and
marquisa are also all used in the sense of a public woman. It may be
noted that in the Italian marchesata stands for a woman when under
menstruation, the physiological fact itself being called marchese;
mercenario, a street walker, also signifies a nun of the religious
order of La Merced.


Barracking, subs. (Australian).—Banter; chaff. Cf., Barrikin.


Barrel-Boarder, subs. (American).—A loafer in low drinking-saloons.


Barrel-Campaign, subs. (American).—Political contests in which bribery
and corruption go hand-in-hand with canvassing and voting. A wealthy
candidate for office is said to have originated the phrase by
remarking, ‘Let the boys know that there’s a bar’l o’ money ready for
’em,’ or words to that effect. The use of the term in this sense became
general about 1876.—See Boodle.

    1884. Boston (Mass.) Journal, 1 Nov., 1. We are accustomed to
    barrel-campaigns here. Nobody supposes this district to be
    Democratic, but the Democrats depend upon carrying it with money.

    1888. Florida Times Union, Feb. 11, p. 4. It will be remembered
    that Mr. Flower was the nominal candidate of the anti-Cleveland men
    four years ago, and with the aid of his barrel they really did
    achieve some show of success.


Barrel-Fever, subs. (popular).—An indisposition caused by excessive
drinking. ‘He died of barrel-fever’; i.e., ‘he killed himself through
drink.’ For synonyms, see Gallon distemper.


Barrel-House, subs. (American).—A low groggery.

    1888. Missouri Republican, Feb. 11. The West-Side police are still
    arresting barrel-house loafers in the hope of catching an expert
    cracksman among them.


Barrell’s Blues, subs. phr. (military).—A nickname given to the Fourth
Foot. [From its facings and Colonel’s name from 1734 to 1739.] They are
also called ‘the Lions,’ from the ancient badge of the regiment.


Barres, subs. (gaming).—Money lost at play, but not paid. The term is
an old one, and has long been obsolete. A corrupt form of ‘barrace,’ an
obsolete plural of ‘bar.’


Barrikin, subs. (common).—Gibberish; jargon; a jumble of words. For
usage, see quotation.

    1851–61. H. Mayhew, London Lab. and Lon. Poor, vol. I., p. 15. ‘The
    high words in a tragedy we call jaw-breakers, and say we can’t
    tumble to that barrikin.’ Ibid, p. 25. Can’t tumble to your
    barrikin [i.e., can’t understand you]. Ibid, p. 27. The rich has
    all that barrikin to themselves.


Barring.—See To bar.


Barring Out, subs. phr. (old).—Exclusion from a place by means of locks
and bars. More particularly applied to a half serious but oftentimes
jocular rebellion of schoolboys against the schoolmaster.

    1728. Swift, Journal of a Modern Lady.

        Not schoolboys at a barring-out,
        Raised ever such incessant rout.

    1847. Tennyson, Princess, conclusion.

        Revolts, republics, revolutions, most,
        No graver than a schoolboys’ barring-out.


Barrow-Bunter, subs. (old).—A barrow-woman; a female costermonger.

    1771. Smollett, Humphry Clinker, i., 140. I saw a dirty
    barrow-bunter in the street cleaning her dusty fruit with her own
    spittle.


Barrow-Man, subs. (old).—1. A man who hawks his wares on a barrow; a
costermonger. The term dates back to the middle of the seventeenth
century. Un marottier is the French equivalent for one species of the
fraternity, better known in England as a dudsman (q.v.).

2. Also formerly a man under sentence of transportation.


Barrow-Tram, subs. (familiar).—An ungainly person; one awkward in gait,
and coarse and rawboned in feature.


Barter, subs. (Winchester College).—A half volley. From the Warden of
that name famous for disposing of them.

    1870. Mansfield, School-Life at Winchester College, p. 133. What a
    noble game cricket must be when one loved it so much,
    notwithstanding the previous training! What genuine excitement when
    College and Commoners was played; what frantic shouting when Rapid
    got well hold of a ‘barter’ ... and sent the ball from ‘Spanish
    Poplar,’ right over Mead’s wall by ‘Log pond.’

    1878. Adams, Wykehamica, p. 327. Barter was the most popular boy of
    his day with his schoolfellows. Wonderful things are told of his
    scores at cricket at which he is supposed to have been the hardest
    hitter of his own times, or of any near him.... He was so renowned
    for the tremendous force with which he was wont to swipe the ball,
    commonly known to cricketers as a ‘half-volley,’ that it actually
    changed its name in the Wykehamical vocabulary, and for fully half
    a century afterwards—and, for all I know, to the present day—bore
    the name of a Barter.

Verb.—To hit a ball hard at cricket.

Hitting barters.—Practice catching; full pitches hit from the middle of
‘Turf’ towards Ball-Court for catching practice towards the end of
‘Long Meads.’


Bartholomew Baby, subs. (old).—A gaudily dressed doll, such as appears
to have been commonly sold at Bartholomew Fair.—See Bartholomew-pig.
Also applied to a person gaudily dressed.

    1682. Wit and Drollery, p. 343.

        Her petticoat of sattin,
          Her gown of crimson tabby,
        Lac’d up before, and spangl’d ore,
          Just like a Bartholomew baby.


Bartholomew-Pig, subs. (old).—Roasted pigs, says Nares, were formerly
among the chief attractions of Bartholomew Fair, West Smithfield,
London: they were sold piping hot, in booths and on stalls, and
ostentatiously displayed, to excite the appetite of passengers. Hence a
Bartholomew-pig became a common subject of allusion: the Puritan railed
against it.

    1614. B. Jons., Bart. Fair, i., 6. For the very calling it a
    Bartholomew-pig, and to eat it so, is a spice of idolatry.

Falstaff, in coaxing ridicule of his enormous figure, is playfully
called by his favourite,

    1598. Shakspeare, 2 Hen. IV., ii., 4. Thou whoreson little tidy
    Bartholomew-boar-pig.

Dr. Johnson thought that paste-pigs were there meant: but the true
Bartholomew-pigs were substantial, real, hot, roasted pigs; as may be
seen throughout the above play of old Ben, where Ursula, the pig-woman,
is no inconsiderable personage. Gayton also speaks of the pig-dressers.

    Like Bartholomew Fair pig-dressers, who look like the dams, as well
    as the cooks of what they roasted.

Fest. N., p. 57.

The young wife in Jonson’s play pretends a violent longing for pig,
that she may be taken to the fair; and it seems that her case was far
from uncommon. Davenant speaks of the Bartlemew-pig,


        That gaping lies on every stall,
        Till female with great belly call.


The fair in its later days got to be a place of too much mobbing and
riot for ladies in that condition. There might also be paste-pigs, but,
if so, they were very inferior objects, and meant only for children.
Mrs. Ursula also tells us the price of her pigs; namely, five
shillings, five shillings and sixpence, or even six shillings! This was
surely as dear in James I.’s time, as a guinea lately. The highest
price, of course, was to be asked of a longing woman. The fair was
abolished in 1854, having been inaugurated in 1133.—Nares.


Barts., subs. (medical students’).—An abbreviation of ‘St. Bartholomew
Hospital.’


Bash, verb (popular).—To beat; thrash; or crush out of shape. Possibly
from the Scandinavian bask, a slap; ‘box’ also seems to have the same
derivation. Chiefly appearing in the northern dialects, bash is
regarded nowadays in the light of a vulgar colloquialism. Thieves use
it synonymously with ‘to flog.’—See Bashing. In older writers the word
appears as pash, the ‘p’ in this case being simply a harder form than
‘b.’ An alternative onomatopoetic derivation has, however, been
suggested, the ‘b’ of such words as ‘beat’ and ‘bang’ being transferred
to the terminal letters of ‘dash,’ ‘gash,’ ‘smash,’ etc.

    1592. Nashe, Strange Newes, in wks. II., 272. A leane arme put out
    of the bed shall grind and pash euerie crum of thy booke into
    pin-dust.

    1622. Massinger, Virgin Martyr, II., ii. Jove’s artillery shot down
    at once, to pash your gods in pieces.

    1882. Daily Telegraph, Dec. 9, p. 2, col. 6. A man ... told witness
    that he would earn a sovereign if he cared to give a certain
    woman—the complainant—a couple of black eyes.... His instructions
    were to follow the man he met in the public-house in Bear Street,
    and to bash the woman he would point out to him in Portland Street.

    1882. F. Anstey, Vice Versâ, ch. xii. ‘If you have got bashed about
    pretty well since you came back, it’s been all your own fault, and
    you know it.’

    1883. Standard, March 2, p. 6, col. 7. Mr. Hannay reminded her that
    when the summons was applied for, the boy’s father had said that
    the boy was bashed on the floor, and received a black eye and a
    bruised head.

Amongst synonyms may be mentioned the English verb ‘bang,’ and the
French bêcher, which signifies properly to dig or break up ground.—See
Tan.


Basher, subs. (pugilistic).—A prize-fighter. For synonyms, see Bruiser.

    1882. Daily Telegraph, Dec. 16, p. 2, col. 6. According to the
    statement of the prosecuting solicitor, this was the man who
    undertook to point out to Leech, the professed basher, the woman
    whom he was to assault in Portland Street.


Bashi-Bazouk, subs. (popular).—A ruffian; and used loosely as a more or
less mild term of opprobrium; also applied to anything bizarre in
character or composition. The expression came into vogue during the
period when the Bulgarian atrocities were electrifying the world by
their barbarous cruelty. The Bashi-bazouks are properly irregular
Turkish soldiery. They are collected hastily in times of emergency; and
are, consequently, somewhat impatient of discipline, assuming that such
a commodity in its Western sense is known at all to the
Tartar-descended Turk—‘the unspeakable Turk’ as he was fitly called
during the period above alluded to. So infamous have these levies
become at times, that more than once they have been disbanded in
deference to pressure brought to bear upon the Turkish authorities by
the Western powers.


Bashing, subs. (prison).—A flogging; a taste of the cat-o’-nine-tails.
Prisoners condemned to this punishment at the commencement of their
term are said by their companions to receive a bashing in; if they also
undergo a flogging just previous to their release, it is called a
bashing out.

    1877. Five Years’ Penal Servitude, ch. iii., p. 157. There were the
    evidences of former floggings, or bashings, as the prisoners call
    them.


Basils, subs. (old cant).—Fetters on one leg only.


Basin, subs. (American).—A schooner (q.v.).


Basing.—See That’s basing.


Basketed, ppl. adj. (old).—From this cockpit expression used of persons
unable or unwilling to pay their losses, and who in consequence were
relegated for the rest of the day to a basket hung over the cockpit, is
derived the figurative usage in the sense of ‘to be left out in the
cold’; not understood; non-plussed; ‘floored.’

    b. 1788, d. 1841. Hook, Gerv. Skinner, ch. iii. Skinner was quite
    enchanted with the brilliancy of his guests, although now and then
    a little puzzled at their allusions; there jokes were chiefly local
    or professional, and very frequently my excellent friend Gervase
    was, to use a modern phrase of general acceptation, basketed.

    1818. P. Egan, Boxiana, vol. I., p. 79. The fight was soon over
    after this circumstance, and the sweaters and trainers were
    completely in the basket!

    1866. E. Yates, Land at Last.... And find you in his den, lighting
    it up like—like—like—I’m regularly basketed, by jove!

To be brought or to go to the basket, phr.  (familiar).—To be
imprisoned; to be reduced to poverty. A basket is here the symbol of
daily provision, or alms. Formerly prisoners were dependent on charity
for daily sustenance, and it was customary for them to let down a
basket by a string through the gaol windows, soliciting the alms of
passers-by.—See also Angling for farthings.

    1632. Massinger and Field, Fatal Dowry, v., 1. Pontalier [to
    Liladam, who is in custody for debt].

        Arrested! this is one of those whose base
        And abject flattery help’d to dig his grave;
        He is not worth your pity, nor my anger;
        Go to the basket, and repent.

    1700. Gentleman Instructed [1732], p. 6. God be praised! I am not
    brought to the basket, though I had rather live on charity than
    rapine. [d.]

To be left in the basket, phr.  (common).—To be rejected; abandoned;
unchosen. Cf., second quotation.

    1840. Barham, I. L. (House Warning).

        Whatever he wants, he has only to ask it,
        And all other suitors are left in the basket.

    1874. Bell’s Life, 26 Dec. The pick of the basket, a compact young
    greyhound.


Basket-Making, subs. (old).—When enceinte a woman was formerly said ‘to
have a kid in the basket.’ [Cf., Bay-window.] Hence basket-making to
signify the act of copulation.


Bass, subs. (popular).—A familiar abbreviation for Bass’ ale, brewed at
Burton-on-Trent.

    1853. Rev. E. Bradley (‘Cuthbert Bede’), Adventures of Verdant
    Green, p. 23. The young gentleman exhibited great capacity for the
    beer of Bass, and the porter of Guiness.

    1863. Oudia, Held in Bondage, I., p. 65. Those idle lads in the
    Temple, who smoke cavendish and drink Bass. Ibid, p. 126.
    Discussing Bass and a cold luncheon.

    1868. Miss Braddon, Only a Clod, I., p. 138. A lot of fellows
    drinking no end of Bass.

    18(?). Annie Thomas, A Passion in Tatters, I., p. 110. Bass that
    was not worthy of its name.


Baste, verb (colloquial).—To thrash; to beat soundly. This verb is
given a place here for the purpose of comparison, as it is somewhat
uncertain whether it can with propriety be classed as slang. Of
uncertain origin, but dating from the sixteenth century; to baste,
properly ‘to sew together loosely,’ or ‘to apply fat or gravy to a
joint,’ is, in its figurative usage, of more than passing interest when
compared with anoint (q.v.), and other words employed in the same
figurative sense. It is curious indeed to note the many synonymous
analogues for a good beating or thrashing, all of which pertain more or
less to slang. R. W. Hackwood [N. and Q., 7 S., vii., 153] mentions
several, amongst others colting (q.v.), used by Marryat in Midshipman
Easy. As bearing upon the general idea involved in this class of words,
the quotation may be placed side by side with another from the King’s
Own by the same writer.

    1830. Marryat, King’s Own, ch. vii. ‘He always carried in his
    pocket a colt (i.e., a foot and a half of rope, knotted at one end
    and whipped at the other), for the benefit of the youngsters, to
    whom he was a most inordinate tyrant.’

    1836. Marryat, Midshipman Easy, ch. xii. ‘Then he colted me for
    half-an-hour, and that’s all.’

Colting like basting is of uncertain derivation. Comparing it, however,
with analogous words, may we not take it, continues the writer referred
to, as very closely associated with, if not actually belonging to, the
series of synonyms for the operations which derive their origin from
the shoemakers, curriers, and allied trades, as we find it in ‘a
leathering,’ ‘a strapping,’ ‘a tanning,’ ‘a welting,’ etc. Indeed, it
is worth noting in this connection, from the number of epithets applied
to the operation, what a deal of chastising has apparently been
required in most trades and occupations, for nearly all—except,
perhaps, the carpenter’s, where sticks are plentiful—appear to be
represented, and even in the domestic circle one can have a choice of
‘a towelling,’ ‘a basting,’ ‘a clouting,’ ‘a rubbing down,’ ‘a
dressing,’ ‘a trimming,’ or ‘a wiping’ when occasion requires.

    1533. Bellenden, Livy, III. (1822), 223. He departit weil basit and
    defuleyeit of his clothing.

    1599. Greene, George-a-Greene, in wks. (Grosart) XIV., 174. Ile
    baste you both so well, you were neuer better basted in your liues.

    1605. Tryall of Chevalry, III., i., in Bullen’s Old Plays, iii.,
    305. But, had I knowne as much, I would have basted him till his
    bones had rattled in his skin.

    1611. Beaumont, Knight of Burning Pestle, II., iv.

        Look on my shoulders, they are black and blue;
        Whilst to and fro fair Luce and I were winding,
        He came and basted me with a hedge-binding.

    1660. Pepys, Diary, July 22. One man was basted by the keeper, for
    carrying some people over on his back, through the water.

    1754. Martin, Eng. Dict., 2 ed. To baste or bast ... to beat, or
    bang soundly.

    1874. Mrs. H. Wood, Johnny Ludlow, 1 S., xix., p. 328. ‘Hold your
    row, Davvy,’ he roared out, wrathfully: ‘you’d not like me to come
    back and give you a basting.’

Among some English Synonyms may also be mentioned:—to give a hiding; to
give a walloping; to dust one’s jacket; to quilt; to tan; to set about;
to walk into; to manhandle; to give one Jesse; to give one gas; to
dowse; to pay.

For synonyms generally, see Tan.


Baster, subs. (American thieves’).—A New York cant term for a house
thief.


Bastile, subs. (vagrants’).—A workhouse. For synonyms, see Big house.
Probably from the Bastile, a famous prison; lock-ups for a long time
being generically named Bastiles. Now corrupted into steel.

    1883. Cuthbert Bede, in Graphic, June 2, p. 558, col. 2. Mister
    Corbyn had always called the workhouse by the opprobrious epithet
    of the basteel.

(Thieves’.)—A prison.—See Cage. Bastile in this sense is mentioned by
Captain Grose [1785].


Bat, subs. (old slang).—1. A prostitute who plies her trade by night;
an allusion to the nocturnal habits of the flying mammal—indeed,
another old term for a woman of the town was literally a fly-by-night.
The equivalent French term, hirondelle de nuit, i.e., ‘a night
swallow,’ is more poetic. For full lists of synonyms, see Barrack-hack.

2. (American.)—A spree; frolic; and sometimes a drunken bout. A
contracted form of ‘batter.’

    1889. Bird o’ Freedom, Aug. 7, p. 1. Mr. Pote: ‘I see in the
    evening paper that a woman has been bitten by a bat, and afterwards
    died of lockjaw.’ Mrs. P. (tartily): ‘If she had been bitten by the
    kind of bat you went on when I was away last Saturday week, she
    would probably have died of delirium tremens.’

3. (athletic.)—Pace; speed (in walking, rowing, etc.). Partly also
dialectical, especially Scotch, Craven, and Lincolnshire.

    1887. Daily News, 18 August, p. 6, col. 3. Here they come, a mixed
    flock of birds full bat overhead.

To bat one’s eyes, phr. (American).—1. A South-western term which is
explained by quotation.

    1846. Overland Monthly, p. 79. The ox whip has both parts as long
    as they can be managed. I have seen a poor fellow from Ohio,
    totally unused to this enormous affair, swing it round his head in
    many an awkward twist, while the Texans stood by and laughed to see
    him knock off his hat and bat his eyes at every twitch, to avoid
    cutting them out.

Cf., Italian batter d’occhio, twinkling of an eye.

2. (American gaming.)—To look on but not to play. Cf., Bet.

Off or on one’s own bat, phr.  (popular).—On one’s own account; by
one’s own exertions. A figurative usage of a cricketing term; ‘off
one’s own bat,’ is said of a score made by a player individually.

    1845. Sydney Smith, Fragm. Irish Ch., wks. II., 340, 1. He had no
    revenues but what he got off his own bat. [M.]

    1855. Lord Lonsdale, in Croker Papers (1884), vol. III., p. 325.
    Derby ... would not make a Ministry from his own friends or his own
    bat.

    1880. Hawley Smart, Social Sinners, ch. xxiii. ‘You have a weakness
    for the great world? Good. Score off your own bat, and it is the
    great world comes to you.’

    1884. Sat. Review, March 8, p. 308, col. 2. He has in the most
    workmanlike manner, and off his own bat, lost for the Government an
    important seat by a crushing majority.

To carry out one’s bat, phr.  (popular).—This also is derived from a
cricketing expression. In the game it means to be not out, i.e., the
last man in. Figuratively, therefore, to carry out one’s bat is to
persevere and carry through an undertaking; to outlast all other
opponents; and thus to secure the result aimed at.

    1874. M. Collins, Frances, ch. xxviii. The General defended his
    stumps as he would have defended a fortress, and carried his bat
    out with a score of a hundred and seven.


Batchelor’s Son, subs. (old).—A bastard.


Bates’ Farm or Garden, subs. (thieves’).—Coldbath Fields prison. [From
a warder of that name + a certain appropriateness in the initials,
C.B.F., the prison initials, and used as a stamp = Charley Bates’
Farm.] When, formerly, the convicts were put to the treadmill in this
prison, they were said to be ‘feeding the chickens on Charley Bates’
Farm.’ Newgate was also called Akerman’s Hotel, from a former governor,
and a similar reason has caused the Melbourne gaol to be nicknamed
Castilan’s Hotel by Australian thieves.

    [Circa 1850, but date uncertain.]

        Bates’ Farm.

        Good evening pals, how do you do,
          I thought I’d give a call,
        And introduce myself to you,
          For I’m glad to see you all.
        I’m up to every little fake,
          But in me there’s no harm,
        For it was this blooming morning
          That I left Old Bates’ Farm.

                    CHORUS.

        Then, here’s success my knowing kids,
          I’m filled with ev’ry charm,
        I feel so gay this blessed day,
          I’ve left Old Bates’ Farm.

        Now, every morning when you rise,
          You get a starving meal,
        And if you don’t eat all they send
          You have to work the wheel.
        Then so merrily we go,
          To chapel to have prayers,
        And for a little pastime work
          The everlasting stairs.

                                        Chorus.

        The last time that I went to see
          Old Bates, he shook my hand,
        And said, ‘I’m glad to see you,
          You’re a chap I understand.’
        He said, ‘You’re here for nothing now?’
          I said ‘Yes,’ like the rest,
        It was only for knocking a bobby down,
          And jumping on his chest.

                                        Chorus.

        So now I’ve got my liberty,
          And once again I’m free,
        I mean to ‘crack a crib’ to-night.
          But pals don’t ‘crack on me.’
        So if I should touch lucre,
          For a time I will keep calm,
        If I don’t see you here some night,
          I shall at Bates’ Farm.

                                        Chorus.


Bath. Go to Bath! phr.  (familiar).—This popular saying appears to have
two distinct readings, both of which, however, are traceable to the
same source.

1. Go to Bath! i.e., an injunction to desist; to be gone; get out of my
sight, or hearing, for you are mad or cracked—a forcible expression of
incredulity, sometimes intensified by ‘and get your head shaved.’ The
saying is applied to those who either relate crack-brained stories, or
propose undertakings that raise a doubt as to sanity. The allusion is
to the fact that, in former days, persons who showed symptoms of
insanity were sent to Bath to drink the medicinal waters; the process
of shaving the head being previously resorted to.

    1840. Barham, I. L. (Grey Dolphin). ‘Go to Bath!’ said the baron. A
    defiance so contemptuous roused the ire of the adverse commanders.

    1885. Frank Leslie’s Illustrated Newspaper, Oct. 16, p. 362. You
    tell a disagreeable neighbour to go to Bath in the sense in which a
    Roman would have said abi in malam rem.

2. Hence, to become a beggar. Bath, especially in the latter part of
the last century, and at the beginning of the present one, enjoyed a
reputation for its fashion and baths: it was also, naturally enough,
for this very reason, the resort of countless numbers of beggars. To go
to Bath signified, therefore, amongst vagrants, to proceed to what was
in reality one of the first centres of beggardom; presumably to solicit
alms. Hence also an additional clue to the process of transition into
sense 1. What more natural than to bid an importunate applicant to
betake himself to Bath to join his fellows? Fuller in his Worthies has
a passage which throws some additional light upon the question.

    1662. Fuller, History of the Worthies of England. Beggars of
    Bath.—Many in that place; some natives there, others repairing
    thither from all parts of the land; the poor for alms, the pained
    for ease. Whither should flock fowl in a hard frost, but to the
    barn-door? Here, all the two seasons, being the general confluence
    of gentry. Indeed laws are daily made to restrain beggars, and
    daily broken by the connivance of those who make them; it being
    impossible when the hungry belly barks, and bowels sound, to keep
    the tongue silent. And although oil of whip be the proper plaister
    for the cramp of laziness, yet some pity is due to impotent
    persons. In a word, seeing there is the Lazar’s bath in this city,
    I doubt not but many a good Lazarus, the true object of charity,
    may beg therein.

Long previous to 1662, however, stringent vagrant laws were in force.

    1588. William Lambard, The Office of the Justices of the Peace, p.
    334. Such two Justices may ... License diseased persons (living of
    almes) to trauell to Bathe, or to Buckstone [Buxton], for remedie
    of their griefe.


Bathing Machines, subs. (nautical).—A name given to the old 10 ton
brigs.—Russell’s Sailor’s Language.


Bat-Mugger, subs. (Winchester College).—A wooden instrument used for
rubbing oil into cricket bats.


Bats, subs. (thieves’).—A pair of bad or old boots. Elworthy in West
Somerset Words gives this as a heavy laced boot with hobnails.


Bats Down? (Winchester and general).—‘How many bats down?’ i.e., how
many wickets have fallen?


Battels, subs. (University).—The weekly bills of students at Oxford.
The derivation of the term has been the subject of much discussion, and
is very uncertain. Murray says much depends on the original sense at
Oxford: if this was ‘food, provisions,’ it is natural to connect it
with ‘battle,’ to feed, or receive nourishment.—See quotation.

    1886–7. Dickens, Dictionary of Oxford and Cambridge, p. 16. Battels
    is properly a designation of the food obtained from the College
    Buttery. An account of this, and of the account due to the Kitchen,
    is sent in to every undergraduate weekly, hence these bills also
    are known as battels, and the name, further, is extended to the
    total amount of the term’s expenses furnished by the College. In
    some Colleges it is made essential to the keeping of an
    undergraduates’ term that he should battel, i.e., obtain food in
    College on a certain number of days each week.

To quote Dr. Murray again, however, it appears that the word has
apparently undergone progressive extensions of application, owing
partly to changes in the internal economy of the colleges. Some Oxford
men of a previous generation state that it was understood by them to
apply to the buttery accounts alone, or even to the provisions ordered
from the buttery, as distinct from the ‘commons’ supplied from the
kitchen: but this latter use is disavowed by others ... but whether the
battels were originally the provisions themselves, or the sums due on
account of them, must at present be left undecided.

    1853. Cuthbert Bede, Verdant Green, pt. II., ch. vii. The
    Michaelmas term was drawing to its close. Buttery and kitchen books
    were adding up their sums total; bursars were preparing for
    battels.

(Eton.)—See quotation.

    1798. H. Tooke, Purley, 390. Battel, a term used at Eton for the
    small portion of food which, in addition to the College allowance,
    the collegers receive from their dames.


Batter, subs. (common).—Wear and tear; e.g., ‘the batter is more than
any human being can stand for long.’ [From one of the ordinary meanings
of to batter, to wear or impair by beating or long service, as a
battered jade.]

Ppl. adj.—Given up to debauchery; this sense follows upon

To go on the batter, i.e., to walk the streets for purposes of
prostitution; but cf., Bat.


Battle of the Nile, subs. phr. (rhyming slang).—A ‘tile’ = a hat. For
synonyms, see Cady.


Battle Royal, subs. (colloquial).—A vehement quarrel.

    1698. Howard, All Mistaken, Act i.

    1st Nurse. Your husband is the noted’st cuckold in all our street.

    2nd Nurse. You lie, you jade; yours is a greater.

    Phil. Hist—now for a battle-royal.

    18(?). Thackeray, Shabby Genteel Story, ch. vi. A battle-royal
    speedily took place between the two worthy mothers-in-law.

    1865. Sketches from Cambridge, p. 137. Our brethren there [in
    Oxford] seem to be always indulging in battles-royal.


Battlings, subs. (public schools’).—A weekly allowance of money. At
Winchester it is 1s., while at Repton it is only 6d.

    1864. Household Words, p. 188. The business of the latter was to
    call us of a morning to distribute amongst us our battlings, or
    pocket-money.

    1870. Mansfield, School-Life at Winchester College, p. 184. The
    expense was defrayed by the boys subscribing the last three
    battlings (i.e., the weekly shilling allowed each boy). This was
    rather an illusory coin, for we seldom actually fingered it, as
    some one of the College servants generally had a kind of
    prescriptive right to a benefit; and whenever Saturday arrived,
    Præfect of Hall’s valet was sure to come round to ask the boys if
    they would give their battling to Rat Williams, or Dungy, or
    Purver, or Long John, or some other equally deserving individual.

    1883. Trollope, Autobiogr. (1883), I., 13. Every boy had a shilling
    a week pocket-money, which we called battels. [This is probably a
    misprint—the Winchester term, as that used at other schools, is
    battling. It was advanced out of the pocket of the second master.]


Battner, subs. (old).—An ox; beef being apt to batten or fatten those
that eat it. ‘The cove has hushed the battner,’ i.e., has killed the
ox.—Grose [1785].


Batty, subs. (general).—Wages; perquisites. Derived from batta, an
extra pay given to soldiers while serving in India.—Hotten. Col. Yule
says in Indian banking, agio or difference in exchange; discount on
coins not current; or of short weight.

    1824. T. Hook, Sayings and Doings, 1 S., Merton, ch. viii. Whether
    he could draw full batta in peace-time.

    1868. Brewer, Phrase and Fable, 5 S., ‘Batta.’ Batta or Batty
    (Hindustanee). Perquisites; wages. Properly, an allowance to East
    Indian troops in the field.


Baulk, subs. (Winchester College).—A false report (especially that a
master is at hand), which is sported (q.v.), not spread.

(Popular.)—A false shot; a mistake.


Baum, verb (American Univ.).—To fawn; to flatter; to curry
favour.—Hall’s College Words and Phrases.


Bawbels or Bawbles, subs. (old).—A man’s testicles. Originally, a
provincialism. For synonyms, see Cods.


Bawcock, subs. (old).—A burlesque term of endearment. [From either
French beau, fine, + French coq, cock = a fine or good ‘feller’; or
from English boy + cock = a young dandy or strut.]

    1599. Shakspeare, Henry V., iii., 2, 25. Pist. Be merciful, great
    duke, to men of mould!... Good bawcock ’bate thy rage!

    1861. H. Ainsworth, Constable of the Tower, p. 131. One of the
    gamesome little bawcock’s jests.


Bawd, subs. (old).—A female procuress. A carted bawd meant one who had
been placed in a cart and led through the town to make her person known
to the inhabitants. Cf., Abbess. See also Cart and Barrack-hack for
synonyms.


Bawde Phisicke.—See quotation.

    1560–1. Awdeley, The XXV. orders of Knaues, (ed. 1869), p. 14.
    Bawde Phisicke, is he that is a Cocke, when his Maysters meate is
    euyll dressed, and he challenging him therefore, he wyl say he wyll
    eate the rawest morsel thereof him selfe. This is a sausye knaue,
    that wyl contrary his Mayster alway.


Bawdy Banquet, subs. (old).—Whoremongering. [From bawdy, lewd, +
banquet.]

    1567. Harman, Caveat (1869), p. 63. ‘Where haue I bene?’ quoth he,
    and began to smyle. ‘Now, by the mas, thou hast bene at some baudy
    banquet.’


Bawdy Banquet, subs. (old).—A running after loose women; molrowing.


Bawdy Basket, subs. (old cant).—1. The twenty-third rank of canters
(see Harman), who carried pins, tape, ballads, and obscene books to
sell, but lived mostly by stealing,

    1567. Harman, Caveat (ed. 1869), p. 65. These bawdy baskets be also
    wemen, and go with baskets and Capeases on their armes, where in
    they haue laces, pynnes, nedles, white ynkell, and round sylke
    gyrdles of al coulours. These wyl bye conneyskins and steale linen
    clothes of on hedges. And for their trifles they will procure of
    mayden seruaunts, when [leaf 20, back] their mystres or dame is
    oute of the waye, either some good peece of béefe, baken, or
    chéese, that shalbe worth xij pens, for ii pens of their toyes. And
    as they walke by the waye, they often gaine some money wyth their
    instrument, by such as they sodaynely mete withall. The vpright men
    haue good acquayntance with these, and will helpe and relieue them
    when they want. Thus they trade their lyues in lewed lothsome
    lechery. Amongest them all is but one honest woman, and she is of
    good yeares; her name is Ione Messenger. I haue had good proofe of
    her, as I haue learned by the true report of diuers.

    1671. R. Head, English Rogue, pt. I., ch. v., p. 39 (1874). [In
    list of orders of thieves], bawdy-baskets.

2. A prostitute; an alternative and earlier form of bawd (q.v.).

    1589. Puttenham, Art of Eng. Poesie, bk. III., ch. xix.

        Many a faire lasse in London towne,
        Many a bawdie basket borne vp and downe:
        Many a broker in a thridbare gowne,
        Many a bankrowte scarce worth a crowne. In London.

    1608. Dekker, Belman of London, in wks. (Grosart) III., 86. The
    victualers to the campe are women, and to those some are Glymerers,
    some bawdy-baskets, some Autem-Morts.


Bawdy House Bottle, subs. phr. (old).—A very small one, short measure,
being among the many means used by the keepers of those houses, to gain
what they call an honest livelihood; indeed, this is one of the least
reprehensible, the less they give a man of their infernal beverages for
his money, the kinder they behave to him.—Grose.


Bayard of Ten Toes. To ride Bayard of ten toes, phr.  (old).—To go on
foot. Bayard was a horse famous in old romances.—See Marrow bone stage.

    1606. Breton, Good and Badde, p. 14. Breton says of the ‘honest
    poore man,’—his trauell is the walke of the woful, and his horse
    Bayard of ten toes.

    1662. Fuller, Worthies, Somerset (ii., 291). At last he [Coryat]
    undertook to travail into the East Indies by land, mounted on an
    horse with ten toes.


Bay Window, subs. (common).—A slang phrase applied to women when
pregnant, or men who have ‘corporations.’ The allusion is obvious.


B. C., subs. (common).—A name jokingly applied to a person who brings a
trumpery action for libel against another. Dr. Brewer in Phrase and
Fable thus, in effect, explains the allusion:—A young woman complained
to Mr. Ingham [the magistrate at Bow Street Police Court and now (1889)
Sir James Ingham] of having been abused by a woman who called her a b.
c. On being asked the meaning, the young woman said c meant ‘cat’ but
the B——, well, it was too shocking to utter, and the magistrate allowed
her to whisper the word in his ear. It was a well-known word of
sanguinary sound; but, though b.c. was hardly a pretty epithet, yet his
worship could hardly grant a summons for libel against the person of
whom complaint was made for using it.


Beach-Cadger, subs. (old).—A beggar whose ‘pitch’ is at
watering-places, and sea-ports. [From beach, the sea-shore + cadger, a
beggar.]


Beach-Comber, subs. (nautical).—1. One who hangs about the sea-shore on
the look-out for jobs. It was chiefly applied to runaway seamen,
deserters from whalers, who lived along the beach in South America, the
South Sea Islands, etc. It is a term of contempt.—Clark Russell’s
Sailors’ Language.

    1847. Blackwood’s Magazine, LXI., 757. A daring Yankee
    beech-comber. [M.]

    1880. Athenæum, 18 Dec., p. 809, col. 2. The white scamps who, as
    beech-combers, have polluted these Edens and debauched their
    inhabitants.

    1885. A. Lang, in Longm. Mag., VI., 417, note. Beach-comber is the
    local term for the European adventurers and long-shore loafers who
    infest the Pacific Archipelagoes. There is a well-known tale of an
    English castaway on one of the isles, who was worshipped as a deity
    by the ignorant people. At length he made his escape, by swimming,
    and was taken aboard a British vessel, whose captain accosted him
    roughly. The mariner turned aside and dashed away a tear: ‘I’ve
    been a god for months and you call me a (something alliterative)
    beach-comber!’ he exclaimed, and refused to be comforted.

2. A river boatman.

3. A thief who prowls about the sea-shore; a plunderer of wrecks; a
picker-up of waifs and strays. This is derived from sense 4.

4. (American.)—A long wave rolling in from the ocean. Hence applied to
those whose occupation it is to pick up, as pirates or wreckers,
whatever these waves wash in to them.


Beach-Tramper, subs. (nautical).—A coastguardsman. [From beach, the
shore of the sea + tramp, to walk along + er.]


Bead. To draw a bead [on one], phr. (American).—To attack an opponent
by speech or otherwise. The phrase has passed into colloquial use from
backwoods parlance, where it signifies the process of taking aim and
firing. The front sight of a gun is in appearance like a bead.

    1841. Catlin, North American Indians (1844), I., x., 77. I made
    several attempts to get near enough to draw a bead upon one of
    them.

    1870. Bret Harte, Society on the Stanislaus (in Poems and Prose).
    It is not a proper plan, to lay for that same member for to put a
    bead on him.

    188(?) S. Clemens (‘Mark Twain’), Adventures of Huckleberry Finn,
    p. 48. I was pretty close to the Shanty, and I thought I heard the
    old man coming all the time; but I got her hid; and then I out and
    looked around a bunch of willows, and there was the old man down
    the path apiece just drawing a bead on a bird with his gun.

    1889. Albany Journal, Aug. 6. If Jake’s not careful I’ll draw a
    bead on him. Very little more will make me go for him tooth and
    nail.

To raise a bead.—To bring to the point; to ensure success. The figure
is taken from brandy, rum, or other liquors, which will not ‘raise a
bead,’ unless of the proper strength.

    1846. N. Y. Tribune, Letter from Ohio. The result was, if the
    convention had been then held, the party wouldn’t have been able to
    raise a bead. [b.]


Beagle, subs. (old).—A spy; informer; man-hunter; policeman; also a
general term of contempt. [From beagle, a small hound, which tracks by
scent, formerly used for hunting.]

    1599. Myrr. Mag., Jack Cade, xix., 2. That restless begle sought
    and found me out. [M.]

    1607. Dekker, Westward Hoe, Act iii., Sc. 4. Mon. I beseech you,
    Mistress Tenterhook,—before God, I’ll be sick, if you will not be
    merry. Mist. Ten. You are a sweet beagle.

    1748. T. Dyche, Dictionary (5 ed.). Beagle (s.) ... also a
    contemptuous name given to a boy or man, as to say, you are a
    special beagle, is the same as, you are good for nothing.

    1837. Carlyle, French Revolution, III., vii., v., 377. Attorneys
    and Law-beagles, which hunt ravenous on this Earth.


Beak, subs. (old cant).—1. A policeman or guardian of the peace. As far
as is known, this (as ‘beck’) is the oldest cant term for a member of a
class of men, who, perhaps, above all others, have been the recipients
of nicknames and epithets, and these, be it noted, not always of a
complimentary character. In Harman’s Caveat (1573), harman beck is
explained as ‘the counstable,’ harmans being ‘the stockes.’ The
derivation of beck or beak is doubtful. Especially vague seems that
which finds its source in the Saxon beag, a gold collar worn by civic
magistrates, and an emblem of authority. This genesis appears to be
based on the later and secondary sense of beak, a magistrate, a meaning
which it still retains. But, against this must be placed the fact that,
as the name for a watchman or guardian of the peace, beak boasts a much
older usage. Sir John Fielding, half brother of the author of Tom
Jones, and an active Middlesex Justice in the last century, was
popularly known as the ‘Blind Beak’ [c. 1750]; but beyond this date no
instance of this sense has been found. If, therefore, beak originally
signified a policeman, it is difficult to discover any connection with
the Saxon beag, inasmuch as watchmen are not known to have been
decorated with gold collars. The following quotations will give other
illustrations, and also show that, meaning a policeman, the term has
not long been obsolete.

    1609. Dekker, a Gypsy song, in Lanthorne and Candlelight, etc.

        The Ruffin cly the nab of the Harman beck,
        If we mawnd Pannam, lap or Ruff-peck,

        Or poplars of yarum; he cuts, bing to the Ruffmans.
        Or else he sweares by the lightmans,
        To put our stamps in the Harmans.
        The Ruffian cly the ghost of the Harman beck.
        If we heaue a booth we cly the Jerke.
        If we niggle or mill a bousing ken.
        Or nip a bung that has but a win,
        Or dup the giger of a gentry cofes ken:
        To the quier cuffing we bing,
        And then to the quier-Ken to scowre the Cramp-ring,
        And then to the Trin’de on the chates, in the lightmans,
        The Bube and Ruffian cly the Harman beck and Harmans.

[This is thus ‘Englished’ by Dekker].

        The Diuell take the Constable’s head,
        If we beg Bacon, Butter-milke or bread.
        Or Pottage, to the hedge he bids us hie,
        Or sweares (by this light) i’th’ stocks we shall lie.
        The Deuill haunt the Constable’s ghoast,
        If we rob but a booth, we are whip’d at a poast.
        If an ale-house we rob or be tane with a whore,
        Or cut a purse that has iust a penny, and no more,
        Or come but stealing in at a gentleman’s dore:
        To the Justice straight we goe,
        And then to the Jayle to be shakled: And so
        To be hang’d on the gallows i’th’ day time: the pox
        And the Deuill take the Constable and his stocks.

    1821. W. T. Moncrieff, Tom and Jerry, Act ii., Sc. 6.

    Land. Gentlemen vagabonds; the traps are abroad, and half a
    thousand beadles and beaksmen are now about the door.

    Billy. De beak! oh curse a de beak!

    Jemmy. Gemmen!—gemmen! (Knocking on table to command attention.)

    Jack. Silence for the chair!

    Jemmy. Put out the lights, put out the lights, every one shift for
    himself. Here, Bob, carry me up the ladder, good luck to you do,
    Bob.

    1840. Thackeray, Catherine, ch. x. But Mrs. Polly, with a wonderful
    presence of mind, restored peace by exclaiming, ‘Hush, hush! the
    beaks, the beaks!’ Upon which, with one common instinct, the whole
    party made a rush for the garden gates, and disappeared into the
    fields. Mrs. Briggs knew her company: there was something in the
    very name of a constable which sent them all a-flying.

English Synonyms. ‘Blue’ (traceable to Queen Elizabeth’s days when the
colour of the uniform was the same as now); ‘men in blue’; ‘Royal
Regiment of Footguards Blue’; ‘bluebottle’ (used by Shakspeare); ‘blew
coate’ (also a Shakspearian term, and still in use); ‘Dogberry’ (an
allusion to Much Ado about Nothing); ‘charley’ (one of the old
watchmen); ‘bobby’; ‘peeler’; ‘copper’ (a thieves’ term, from ‘to cop’
to lay hold of); ‘crusher’ (thieves’); ‘slop’ (a back slang corruption
of ‘police’ = esclop, with c not sounded and shortened to ‘slop’);
‘scufter’ (a northern term, as also is the example next following);
‘bulky’ (used by Bulwer Lytton); ‘philip’ (from a thieves’ signal);
‘cossack’; ‘philistine’; ‘frog’ (from pouncing upon criminals);
‘Johnnie Darby’ (a corruption of gendarme); ‘Johnnie’; ‘pig’ (a plain
clothes man); ‘worm’; ‘nose’; ‘nark’; ‘dee’ (a detective); ‘tec’; the
C.T.A. (a circus man’s term); ‘demon’ (Australian thieves’); ‘reeler’;
‘raw lobster’ (this like ‘blue,’ etc., would appear to be a reference
to the colour of the uniform).

French Synonyms. Un rousse (popular and thieves’: roux signifies ‘red,’
and red hair has always been held in contempt as indicative of
treachery and craft; hence its application by the criminal classes to
their natural enemies); un roussin (thieves’: of same derivation as
foregoing); un bâton de réglisse (popular: ‘a stick of liquorice’); un
baladin (properly ‘a mountebank, juggler, or buffoon’); une cagne
(popular: ‘a dog,’ i.e., ‘a worthless fellow,’ ‘a slut’; cagne or
caigne in Old French signified ‘dog,’ and was derived from the Latin
canis, whence caignot, ‘a little dog.’ It may also be noted that, prior
to the establishment of the modern gendarmerie, the archers of the
watch were known as chiens-courants); un cogne (thieves’: another form
of cagne); un balai (hawkers’: properly ‘a broom, brush, or besom’); un
serin (popular: properly ‘a canary’; serin is also slang for ‘a foolish
fellow,’ ‘a greenhorn’); un pousse (thieves’: the guardians of public
order formerly known in Paris as serjents or archers de l’écuelle were
called pousse-culs); une vache (literally ‘a cow’); un arnif
(thieves’); une peste (thieves’: literally ‘a plague’ or ‘torment’);
une tronche â la manque; un flaquadard; un cabestan (thieves’: properly
‘a hand-winch’; Michel thinks this is derived either from cabe, ‘a
dog’; or from capitan, ‘a captain.’ The latter, be it noted, has also
the signification of ‘hector’ or ‘braggadocio’); un raille or railleux
(thieves’: a detective. Michel derives it from raillon, a weapon with
which the police were formerly armed. Victor Hugo thought it came from
the English word ‘rascal,’ but there seems little, if any, authority
for this); un sacre (Nicot gives this as ‘a bird of prey,’ but Henri
Estienne adds that it was used to denote ‘one who lays hands on
everything that comes in his way’; also ‘a gourmand’); un grive
(thieves’: ‘a warder’ or ‘military patrol’); un laune (thieves’); un
flique (popular: also a petty police magistrate. Thought to be a
corruption of friquet, another opprobrious term for a police man); un
bec du gaz; un estaffier (familiar: also, among thieves, ‘a cat’); une
bourrique (thieves’: also ‘an informer’); un pousse trottoir (pousse
from pousser, ‘to push’; trottoir, a footpath); un lampion rouge
(thieves’); un escargot de trottoir (popular: literally ‘a snail of the
footpath’); un cierge (thieves’: properly ‘a wax taper’); un sergo
(popular); un grippe-Jesus (a term used by thieves in the north of
France, and by seafaring men which, says Michel, might lead one to
suppose that gendarmes only arrested innocent persons); un pince sans
rire (thieves’: a sly, malicious person); un pot â tabac (popular: ‘a
tobacco jar’); un singe de la rousse (singe = monkey, de la rousse, ‘of
the police force’).

For German Synonyms, see Copper.

Italian Synonyms. Un’ zaffo (literally ‘a bung’ or ‘tipstaff’); un’
foco or un’ fuoco (literally ‘fire’).

Spanish Synonyms. Uno mastin (literally ‘a mastiff’ or ‘bulldog’; ‘a
clumsy fellow’; ‘a clown’); una harpia (un harpeo = ‘grapnel’ or
‘grappling-iron’); una fiera (properly ‘a wild beast’).

2. (popular.)—A magistrate. Cf. foregoing, much of which has reference
to this secondary meaning of beak. Sometimes Called a beak of the law.

    1837. Dickens, Oliver Twist, ch. viii. ‘My eyes, how green!’
    exclaimed the young gentleman. ‘Why a beak’s a madgst’rate.’

    18(?) Hood, Tale of a Trumpet.

        The pies and jays that utter words,
        And other Dicky gossips of birds,
        Who talk with as much good sense and decorum,
        As many beaks who belong to the quorum.

    1881. Punch, Dec. 3, 258. A pair of anti-vivisectionists. Sir
    Slangsby Jaunter. ‘See that old fellow, Miss Diana? That’s Doctor
    Katchett, who swears he’s going to find a cure for lunatics! Just
    got into trouble. Been trying the effects of extreme terror and
    bodily fatigue on a rabbit, and without chloroform, too, the old
    ruffian! And then he killed it, and dissected its brain. Going to
    be had up before the beak for it! Bow St., you know!’ Miss Diana.
    ‘Serve him right, horrid man! Don’t want to know about such people.
    But talking of rabbits, what a splendid run that second Hare gave
    us to-day! Thirty minutes gallop without a check!—Wasn’t it
    lovely!—And I was in at the death!’

    1889. Pall Mall Gaz., Oct. 12, p. 5, col. 2. Taken before some
    French beak whom he did not know, and an interpreter brought, the
    ‘cotched’ culprit was made to pay 20 f., his friend escaping
    because he was not caught red-handed.

An English Synonym is ‘queer cuffin’ (old cant).

French Synonyms. Un sapeur (thieves’: properly ‘a sapper,’ i.e., ‘one
who undermines’ [one’s chances of wrong doing]); un pante en robe
(pante in French slang is equivalent to ‘a man’ or ‘cove’; en robe =
‘in a robe’); un endormi (popular: properly ‘a sleepy-head’); un
grignon (thieves’: probably from grigner les dents, ‘to show one’s
teeth threateningly’; or from grognon, ‘grumbler,’ ‘growler’); un
gerbier; un curieux (thieves’: i.e., ‘the curious one’; from the adj.
curieux. Michel, however, adds that curieux formerly signified ‘a
courtier’); un singe à rabat (thieves’: possibly rabat is an
abbreviated form of rabat-joie, ‘a wet blanket.’ The phrase would then
mean ‘a baboon with a wet blanket,’ ‘a damper’; or it may be derived
from singe, a monkey + rabat, slang for ‘a cloak.’ Cf., singe de la
rousse); un lustre (thieves’: properly ‘renown’; ‘distinction’); un
pant’ de la magistrat’ muche (thieves’).

Italian Synonym. Un antigo (literally ‘an old one’; also ‘a master,’ ‘a
boss’).

Spanish Synonym. Sombrador (thieves’ and popular: from sombra, ‘shade’;
i.e., one who puts in the shade. Poner â la sombra is ‘to imprison’).

3. (popular.)—The nose. For synonyms, see Conk.

    1598. Florio. Naso adunco, a beake-nose. [M.]

    1854. Thackeray, Newcomes, I., 296. The well-known hooked beak of
    the old countess. [M.]

    1865. E. C. Clayton, Cruel Fort, I., 143. A large, fat, greasy
    woman, with a prominent beak.

    1876. E. C. Grenville Murray, The Member for Paris, I., p. 80. It
    was not the most agreeable thing in the world to be suddenly
    interrupted in a mantel-shelf conversation by a gentleman with a
    firm beak-nose and a red rosette in his button-hole.

4. (Eton and Marlborough Schools.)—A master.


Beaker, subs. (thieves’).—A fowl. Sometimes shortened into beak. The
derivation is obviously an illusion to the beak or horny mandibles of
poultry. Formerly called cackling-cheat (q.v.), and by French thieves
une estable, or une estaphle.


Beaker-Hunter, subs. (thieves’).—A poultry yard thief. Also
beak-hunter.

    1857. Snowden, Mag. Assistant, 3 ed., p. 445. A poultry stealer. A
    beaker-hunter.


Beak-Gander, subs. (common).—A judge of the Superior Courts. [From beak
(q.v.), a magistrate + gander, a humorous term for an old man.]


Beaksman, subs. (old).—See Beak (sense 1), of which it is an
alternative form.


Beam Ends. To be thrown on one’s beam ends, phr.  (nautical).—1. To be
in bad circumstances; to be at one’s last shift; hard-up; a metaphor
drawn from sea-faring life. A ship is said to be on her beam ends when
she is so prostrated on her side by stress of weather, or shifting of
cargo, as to submerge her lee rail.

    1843. Dickens, Martin Chuzzlewit, xl. In short, he laughed the idea
    down completely; and Tom, abandoning it, was thrown upon his beam
    ends again for some other solution. [h.]

    1851. Henry Mayhew, London Labour and London Poor, III., 121. When
    a fellow is on his beam ends, as I was then, he must keep his eyes
    about him, and have impudence enough for anything, or else he may
    stop and starve. [h.]

2. Also, less figuratively, to be thrown to the ground; to be reduced
to a sitting or lying posture.

    1830. Marryat, King’s Own, xxvi. Our first lieutenant was ... on
    his beam ends, with the rheumatiz.

    1853. Rev. E. Bradley (‘Cuthbert Bede’), Adventures of Verdant
    Green. You get on stunningly, gig-lamps, and haven’t been on your
    beam ends more than once a minute.


Bean or Bien, subs. (popular).—A sovereign. Formerly a guinea. In
America five-dollar gold pieces are now called beans. See also
Half-bean and Haddock of beans. In the old French cant, biens meant
money or property. For synonyms, see Canary.

    1811. Lexicon Balatronicum. Bean, a guinea. Half-bean.

    1834. H. Ainsworth, Rookwood, bk. III., ch. ix. Zoroaster took long
    odds that the match was off; offering a bean to half a quid (in
    other words, a guinea to a half guinea).

    1885. D. C. Murray, Rainbow Gold, bk. V., ch. vi. ‘Here’s some of
    the beans,’ he continued figuratively, as he drew five sovereigns
    from the same pocket, and surveyed them in his great brown palm.

Full of beans, phr.  (society).—In good form or condition; as full of
health, spirits, or capacity as a horse after a good feed of beans.
Among the ancients the word signified venery; possibly, therefore, a
more esoteric meaning may be attached to it than commonly supposed.—See
Beany.

    1889. Sporting Times, June 29. The tennis-ground [was] a pretty
    place, overlooking the harbour, and surrounded by trees and female
    beauty. The game began. ‘Ich dien,’ shouted Jack, as full of beans
    as the Prince of Wales’ plume, and immediately sent a ball which
    went bang through the window of an adjoining house.

To give beans, phr.  (common).—To chastise; to give a good drubbing.
For synonyms, see Tan.

Like beans, adv. phr. (common).—In good form, style, time, etc.; with
force; a general expression of approval and praise. Cf., Like blazes,
bricks, or one o’clock.

Not to care, or be worth a bean.—To hold in little esteem; to think
lightly of; to be of little value. The allusion is to the small worth,
or value of a bean, or ‘the black of a bean.’ A variant is not worth a
straw (q.v.). Both phrases are old, not worth a bean being traced back
to 1297.

To be beany, phr. (common).—To be in good humour—a metaphor also drawn
from the stable.

To know beans, phr. (American).—To be well informed. The phrase is
incorporated into many expressions in a very strange way; and is an
allusion to the fondness of New Englanders in general, and Bostonians
in particular, for baked beans and pork, combined with a sly hit at the
assumption of superior culture on which they are supposed to insist. To
know beans, therefore, is to be sharp and shrewd; to be within the
charmed circle of the ‘cultured elect’—in short to be fully equipped in
the ‘upper storey.’

    1888. Portland Transcript, March 7. The pudding was pronounced a
    success by each member of the assembled family, including a dainty
    Boston girl who, of course, knows beans.

    1888. Chicago Herald. One has to know beans to be successful in the
    latest Washington novelty for entertainment at luncheons.

An alternative derivation may, however, be found in the English form.

To know how many blue beans make five white ones, phr. (common).—This
is generally put in the form of a question, the answer to which is
‘Five, if peeled,’ and those who fail to get tripped by the ‘catch’ are
said ‘to know how many,’ etc.; in other words to be cute; knowing; wide
awake.

    1830. Galt, Laurie, T. (1849), II., i. 42. Few men who better knew
    how many blue beans it takes to make five. [M.]

    1886. Zoological Comparisons, in Broadside Ballad.

        Nature and art improves us, the girls with smiles are moving
            us,
        Which very often ruin us there’s no gammon about that;
        Then just as we begin to know ‘how many beans make five,’
        The ladies call us puppies when we at that age arrive;
        You may perchance become a deer, if in favour with some lass,
        If not you’re called a donkey, and oftentimes an ass.

    1889. Daily News, 4 Nov., p. 6, col. 5. Mr. Gladstone and The
    Saturday Review. Sir,—My master, who is a good Conservative, lends
    me The Saturday Review to improve my mind.... It says that there
    were eighty-six Parnellites, and that if Mr. Gladstone, by his
    wickedness, could make them leave off voting for the Tories, and
    vote for him, instead of being in a minority of four, he would have
    had a majority of 80. Why, Sir, the dunce of the school knows that
    if you take 80 from one side and add it on to the other, the
    difference is not 80, but 160. It is as simple as how many blue
    beans make five. I think some people are losing their wits faster
    than Mr. Gladstone.—I am, Sir, yours respectfully, A Schoolboy.

Three blue beans in a blue bladder.—Nares confesses his inability to
discover the origin of this whimsical combination of words, but points
out that it is at least of long standing. The subjoined quotations
would seem to indicate the meaning as noisy, frothy talk; clap-trap.

    1600. Dekker, Old Fortunatus, iii., p. 128.

    F. Hark, does’t rattle?

    S. Yes, like three blue beans in a blue bladder, rattle, bladder,
    rattle.

    1717. Mathew Prior, Alma (cant), I., v., 25.

            They say——
        That putting all his words together,
        ’Tis three blue beans in one blue bladder.


Bean Belly, subs. (old).—A nickname for a Leicestershire man; from a
real or supposed fondness of the inhabitants of this county for beans.


Bean-Feast, subs. (common).—An annual feast given by employers to their
work-people. The derivation is uncertain, and, at present, their is
little evidence to go upon. Some have suggested its origin in the
prominence of the bean goose, or even beans at these spreads; others
refer it to the French bien, good, i.e., a good feast (by-the-bye,
tailors call all good feeds bean-feasts); whilst others favour its
derivation from the modern English bene, a request or solicitation,
from the custom of collecting subscriptions to defray the cost. All
three suggestions are, at the best, unsatisfactory, and numerous
objections crop up at every turn to each of them. An annual outing of
this kind is also called a wayzgoose (q.v.).

    1882. Printing Times, 15 Feb., 26, 2. A bean-feast dinner served up
    at a country inn. [M.]

    1884. Bath. Jour., 26 July, 6, 1. The annual grant of £20 for their
    bean-feast. [M.]


Bean-Feaster, subs. (common).—One who takes part in a bean-feast
(q.v.).

    1884. Cornh. Mag., Jan., 621. For the delectation of the bold
    bean-feasters. [M.]


Beano, subs. (printers’).—The same as bean-feast (q.v.).


Bean Traps, subs. (American thieves’).—A swell mobsman, or stylish
sharper. Beans (q.v.) are five-dollar gold pieces, and the insinuation
is obvious. In old English cant a bean meant a guinea, probably from
the French biens, property.


Beany, adj. (common).—Full of vigour; fresh, like a bean-fed horse. Or,
it may be an allusion to the meaning of venery, which Aristotle says
was attached to the word beans.

    1852. Kingsley, in Life (1876), I., 278. The very incongruity keeps
    one beany and jolly.

    1870. Daily News, 27 July, 5. The horses ... looked fresh and
    beany. [M.]


Bear, subs. (Stock Exchange).—1. Applied, in the first instance, to
stock sold by jobbers for delivery by a certain date on the chance of
prices falling in the meantime, thus allowing the seller to re-purchase
at a profit. The phrase was probably at first ‘to sell the bear-skin,’
the buyers of such bargains being called bear-skin jobbers (see quot.),
in allusion to the proverb, ‘To sell the bear’s skin before one has
caught the bear.’ So far, the origin of the phrase seems pretty clear;
of the date of its introduction, however, nothing is known. It was a
common term in Stock Exchange circles, at the time of the bursting of
the South Sea Bubble in 1720, but it does not seem to have become
colloquial until much later. In these transactions no stock was passed,
the ‘difference’ being settled according to the quotation of the day,
as is the practice now in securities dealt with for ‘the account.’ At
present the term for such an arrangement is time-bargain.

    1709. Steele, Tatler, No. 38, p. 3. Being at that General Mart of
    stock-jobbers called Jonathans ... he bought the bear of another
    officer. [M.]

    1719. Anatomy of Change Alley (N. and Q., 5 S., vi., 118). Those
    who buy Exchange Alley bargains are styled ‘buyers of bear-skins.’
    [M.]

    1778. Bailey, Dictionary (24 ed.). To sell a bear, to sell what one
    hath not.

2. Hence a dealer who speculates for a fall. The earliest instance
noted of this transferred usage is in

    1744. London Magazine, 86. These noisy devotees were false ones,
    and in fact were only bulls and bears. [M.]

    1768. Foote, Devil upon Two Sticks, Act i. A mere bull and bear
    booby; the patron of lame ducks, brokers, and fraudulent bankrupts.

    1774. Colman, Man of Business, iv., i., in wks. (1777) II., 179. My
    young master is the bull, and Sir Charles is the bear. He agreed
    for stock expecting it to be up at three hundred by this time; but,
    lack-a-day, sir, it has been falling ever since.

    1817. Scott, Rob Roy, ch. iv. The hum and bustle which his approach
    was wont to produce among the bulls, bears, and brokers of
    Stock-alley.

    1860. Peacock, Gryll Grange, ch. xviii. In Stock Exchange slang,
    bulls are speculators for a rise, bears for a fall.

    1889. Ally Sloper’s H. H., Aug. 3, p. 242, col. 3. Mrs. Spingles
    says she doesn’t wonder that the Stock Exchange at times resembles
    a menagerie let loose, seeing what a lot of bulls, bears and stags
    they have at Capel Court.

The French Bourse equivalent is un baissier. See the analogous terms
bull; stag; and lame duck.

3. (old.)—The pupil of a private tutor, the latter being called a
bear-leader (q.v.). From the general roughness and uncouthness of boys;
a reference to the heavy build and ungainliness of the plantigrade in
question. Even now the youth of the rising generation are sometimes
called ‘unlicked cubs.’ Also called formerly bridled-bear.

    1832. Legends of London, II., 247. When I was the youthful bear—as
    the disciple of a private tutor is called at Oxford. [M.]

Verb.—To act as a bear (q.v.).

    1861. New York Tribune, Nov. 29. There is no truth in the startling
    developments, implicating British officials, in the Herald’s
    despatch.... His Lordship is wholly guiltless of the charge which
    the Herald, in its anxiety to bear the market, has brought against
    him.

Are you there with your bears? phr. (colloquial).—A greeting of
surprise at the reappearance of anybody or anything; are you there
again; or, in the words of its most recent slang equivalent, ‘What,
again! so soon?’ The phrase is explained by Joe Miller, as the
exclamation of a man who, not liking a sermon he had heard on Elisha
and the bears, went next Sunday to another church, only to find the
same preacher and the same discourse.

    1642. James Howell, Instructions for Forreine Travell, sec. 3.
    Another when at the racket court he had a ball struck into his
    hazard, he would ever and anon cry out, estes vous là avec vos
    ours? Are you there with your bears? which is ridiculous in any
    other language but English.

    1740. Richardson, Pamela, III., 335. O no, nephew! Are you
    thereabouts with your bears?

    1820. Scott, Abbot, xv. Marry, come up. ‘Are you there with your
    bears?’ muttered the dragon.

To play the bear, phr. (common).—To behave in a rough and rude manner.

    1579. Tomson, Calvin’s Serm. Tim., p. 473, col. 1. When we haue so
    turned all order vpsidowne ... there is nothing but ... playing the
    beare amongst vs.

Bear a bob, verbal phr. (nautical).—1. To lend a hand; look sharp! look
alive!

2. (popular.)—To aid, to assist, to take part in anything.


Bearded Cad, subs. (Winchester College).—A porter, employed by the
College to convey luggage from the railway station to the school. The
term originated in an extremely hirsute individual, who, at one time,
acted in the capacity.


Beard-Splitter, subs. (old).—A man much given to the company of
prostitutes; nowadays called a hot member, or molrower, which see for
synonyms. [From beard, a tuft of hair + splitter, one who divides. The
allusion is obvious.]


Bearer-Up.—See Bear up and Bonnet.


Bear-Garden Jaw, subs. (old).—Rough, unmannerly speech; talk akin to
that used in bear gardens and other places of low resort. Quoted by
Grose, 1785. [From bear-garden, a place set apart for bear baiting and
other rough sports + jaw, talk or speech.]

    1848. John Forster, Life of Oliver Goldsmith, bk. IV., chap. xi. He
    called Burke a bear-garden railer.

    1871. Archibald Forbes, My Experience of the War between France and
    Germany, p. 301. The bear-garden-like Babel was rather more noisy
    than usual.


Be-Argered, adj. (familiar).—Drunk.


Bearing, ppl. adj. (Stock Exchange).—Acting as a bear (q.v.); or using
artifices to lower the price of stock to suit a ‘bear’ account.


Bearings. To bring one to one’s bearings, verbal phr. (colloquial).—To
bring one to reason; to act as a check. A nautical term.


Bear-Leader, subs. (old).—A travelling tutor. In the days when it was
customary to send ‘young hopefuls’ on the Grand Tour, the expression
was much more common and significant than is nowadays the case. The
simile is taken from a person who leads about a tame bear for
exhibition.

    1749. Walpole, Lett. to Mann, 4 June (1883), vol. II., p. 392. I
    shall not wonder if she takes me for his bear-leader, his
    travelling governor!

    1756. Foote, Englishman Returned from Paris, Act i.

    Serv. My young master’s travelling tutor, sir, just arrived.

    Crab. ... Shew him in. This bear-leader, I reckon now, is either
    the clumsy curate of the knight’s own parish church, or some needy
    highlander.

    1812. Combe, Dr. Syntax, Tour I ch. xxiii.

        And as I almost wanted bread,
        I undertook a bear to lead,
        To see the brute perform his dance
        Through Holland, Italy, and France;
        But it was such a very Bruin,

        .   .   .   .   .   .   .   .   .

        I took my leave, and left the cub
        Some humbler Swiss to pay and drub.

    1848. Thackeray, Book of Snobs, ch. vii. They pounced upon the
    stray nobility, and seized young lords travelling with their
    bear-leaders.


Bearskin-Jobber, subs. (Stock Exchange).—See Bear, subs., sense 1.


Bear Up, verb (common).—To cheat; to swindle in any way; more
particularly applied to the action of ‘decoys’ and confederates.—See
Bonnet. The derivation is obviously from that sense of to bear up,
signifying support or backing up.

    1828. G. Smeeton, Doings in London, p. 40. The billiard-marker
    refused to make any division of the spoil, or even to return the
    £10 which had been lost to him in bearing up the cull.

    1883. Referee, Dec. 2, p. 2, col. 4. This looks as if the bearing
    up and ‘bonneting’ which has been done by friendly writers in
    response to my remarks is all thrown away.


Beast, subs. (common).—1. Applied to anything unpleasant; or, to that
which displeases; e.g., ‘It’s a perfect beast of a day,’ for ‘it’s an
unpleasant day.’—See Beastly.

2. (American cadet.)—A name given to new cadets at the U.S. Military
Academy at West Point.—See Snooker.

3. (Cambridge University.)—Anyone who has left school and come up to
Cambridge for study, before entering the University, is called a beast,
because ‘he is neither man nor boy.’


Beastly, adv. (popular).—In modern colloquial usage applied to whatever
may offend the taste. Akin also to ‘awful,’ ‘everlasting,’ etc.—when
used as mere intensitives, i.e., ‘very,’ ‘exceedingly.’ [Originally
from beastly, of, or pertaining to the nature of a beast; hence,
figuratively, brutish, irrational, unmanly; whence, through a series of
transitions, its slang significations.]

    1611. Dekker, Roaring Girle, wks., 1873, III., 159. I thought
    ’twould bee a beastly iourney.

    1778. Johnson, in D’Arblay Diary, etc. (1876), vol. I., p. 37. ‘It
    moves my indignation to see a gentleman take pains to appear a
    tradesman. Mr. Braughton would have written his name with just such
    beastly flourishes!’

    1865. Daily Telegraph, 24 Oct., p. 5, col. 3. He was in good health
    ... looked almost ‘beastly well,’ as I once heard it described.
    [M.]

    1882. F. Anstey, Vice Versâ, ch. i. He had a troublesome dryness in
    his throat, and a general sensation of dull heaviness, which he
    himself would have described—expressively enough, if not with
    academical elegance—as ‘feeling beastly.’


Beast with Two Backs, subs. phr. (old).—Explained in second quotation.

    1602. Shakspeare, Othello, Act i., Sc. 1. Brabantio: What profane
    wretch art thou? Iago: I am one, Sir, that comes to tell you, your
    daughter and the Moor are now making the beast with the two backs.

    1785. Grose, Classical Dictionary of Vulgar Tongue. Beast with two
    backs, a man and woman in the act of copulation.


Beat, subs. (American).—1. This word is used in many ways, its precise
meaning often depending on its qualifying adjective. It is said of both
men and things; for example, a live beat is anybody or anything that
surpasses another, and the sense is not derogatory in the least. A dead
beat, on the other hand, is the name given to a man who sponges on his
fellows. [Probably from that sense of beat signifying to overcome; to
show oneself superior to, either in a good or bad sense].

    1888. New York Tribune, May 16. As we pay big money for our special
    news, we can’t afford to throw it away on account of a little
    mistake in the name. So we shove her in with the single remark that
    it is better to have a Carrot for a President than a dead beat for
    a son-in-law. In this way, we again score a live beat on the galoot
    ‘The Rip-snorter.’ Whoopee! Now is the time to subscribe.

    1888. New York Mercury, Aug. 7. But not only steamboats and
    locomotives were used by reporters for beats, but one newspaper man
    named Monroe F. Gale made a trip across the Atlantic in a
    pilot-boat, to get some peculiar news in his own fashion. All
    things taken into consideration, there never was a bolder voyage
    over the Atlantic than this made by the ‘Romer,’ all for the sake
    of a few ‘points’ in news.

2. (popular.)—The round of a policeman or watchman when on duty; one’s
daily round of duty, work, etc.; and, figuratively, one’s sphere of
influence.

    1788. G. A. Stevens, Adv. of a Speculist, i., 211. The first
    evening I took my stand in Fleet Street, to look out for a fare, I
    was drove from street to street by women of my own profession, who
    swore I should not come in their beats until I had paid my
    ‘footing.’

    1835. Dickens, Sketches by Boz, p. 31. The costermongers repaired
    to their ordinary beats in the suburbs.

    1862. Saturday Review, 15 March, 295. Ask him why anything is
    so-and-so, and you have got out of his beat. [M.]

Faire sa nouveauté is said of a French prostitute when seeking fresh
fields and pastures new.

Ppl. adj. (popular).—1. Overcome; exhausted; ‘done up.’ Generally
dead-beat (q.v.). [A shortened form of beaten.]—See Beaten out.

    1832. Moore, Jerome, etc., wks. II. (1862), 558. Till fairly beat,
    the saint gave o’er, [M.]

    1859. H. Kingsley, Geoffery Hamlyn, ch. xxxvii. ‘The lad was
    getting beat, and couldn’t a’gone much further.’

2. Hence also, figuratively, to be baffled; defeated.

Verb (American).—To swindle; to deceive; to cheat.

    1888. Daily Inter-Ocean, Ap. 12. Later he heard of her marriage to
    some lawyer or artist named Diss Debar. Previous to this she had
    been in Montreal and telegraphed that she was dying. She beat the
    hotel out of a hundred dollars.

Daisy beat (American thieves’).—A swindle of the first water; a robbery
of magnitude.

To beat hollow—to sticks—to ribands—to fits—all creation—to shivers,
etc. (popular).—To excel; to surpass.

    1759. Townley, High Life Below Stairs, I., ii. Crab was beat
    hollow, Careless threw his rider, and Miss Slammerkin had the
    distemper.

    1847. Barham, Ingoldsby Legends (1877), p. 55. Many ladies ... were
    beat all to sticks by the lovely Odille. [M.]

    1854. Whyte Melville, General Bounce, ch. i. Talk of climate! a
    real fine day in England, like a really handsome Englishwoman,
    beats creation.

    1856. Whyte Melville, Kate Coventry, ch. i. I rode a race against
    Bob Dashwood the other morning, ... and beat him all to ribands.

    1879. Lowell, Poetical Works, 418. And there’s where I shall beat
    them hollow.

    1889. Modern Society, 19 Oct., p. 1302. (How the Nobility live in
    Germany.) Germans beat the English hollow at drinking beer; the
    ladies drink it, and the children also, like milk; and it seems to
    agree with them, for they are very robust. They are not ceremonious
    at any meal, and eat as if in a hurry for a train, cutting up all
    on their plate first, then forking it in with the aid of bread or
    their fingers.

The French say arriver bon premier, ‘to arrive’ or ‘be a good first.’
Cf., synonyms in A1.

To get a beat on is to get the advantage of. The same idea is expressed
in the phrase to beat one’s way through the world; in other words, to
push one’s interests with vigour and pertinacity. As used by thieves
and their associates, to get a beat on one, besides conveying the idea
of obtaining an advantage, also implies that the point has been scored
by underhand, secret, or unlawful means.

To beat the booby or goose, phr. (nautical).—To strike the hands across
the chest and under the armpits to warm them. Formerly to beat Jonas.

    1883. Times, 15 March, p. 9, col. 6. The common labourers at
    outdoor work were beating goose to drive the blood from their
    fingers. [M.]

To beat the road, phr. (American).—To travel by rail without
paying.—See Dead-heads and To beat, sense 1.

That beat’s the Dutch!—See Dutch.


Beat Daddy Mammy (old military).—To tattoo; to practice the elements of
drum beating.


Beaten Down to Bed-Rock, adv. phr. (American).—See Bedrock.


Beaten Out, ppl. adj. with adv. (common).—Impoverished; in one’s last
straits; hard up.

    1851. Mayhew, London Labour and London Poor, I., p. 351. The beaten
    out mechanics and artisans, who, from want of employment in their
    own trade, take to making small things. Ibid, p. 400. The last
    class of street sellers is the beaten out mechanic or workman.


Beater-Cases, subs. (old).—Boots or shoes. Nearly obsolete.
Trotter-cases (q.v.) is the usual term nowadays.—See Beaters.


Beaters, subs. (American).—The feet. [A transferred sense of beater,
originally signifying one who ‘beat’ or walked the streets. Barclay, in
Shyp of Folys (1509), speaks of ‘night watchers and beters of the
stretes.’] For synonyms, see Creepers.


Beat the Hoof, verbal phr. (popular).—To walk; to plod; to prowl. [From
beat, in the sense of to strike the ground in walking, etc., + hoof, a
humorous term for the foot.] To beat the hoof is an older form of the
modern pad the hoof (q.v.).

    1596. Shakspeare, Merry Wives of Windsor, Act i., Sc. 3.

        Falstaff: Hold, sirrah, [to Robin] bear you these letters
            tightly;
        Sail like my pinnace to these golden shores.—
        Rogues, hence, avaunt! vanish like hailstones, go;
        Trudge, plod away, o’ the hoof; seek shelter, pack!

    1691. Wood, Ath. Oxon., II., 412. They all beated it on the hoof to
    London, [M.]


Beat the Rib.—See Rib.


Beau Trap, subs. (old).—1. A loose stone in a pavement, under which
water lodges, and which, on being trodden upon, squirts it up, to the
great damage of clean clothes.

2. (old.)—Also a well-dressed sharper, on the look out for raw country
visitors and such like.

3. (old.)—A fop, well-dressed outwardly indeed, but whose linen,
person, and habits generally, are unclean.


Beauty, subs. (American cadet).—A term applied, on the rule of
contrary, to the plainest or ugliest cadet in the class at the United
States Military Academy at West Point. Cf., Snooker and Babe.


Beauty-Sleep, subs. (familiar).—Sleep before midnight, the idea being
that early hours conduce to health and beauty.

    1850. Smedley, Frank Fairleigh, II., p. 120. The fair pupils have
    talked themselves to sleep, which, if report does not belie them,
    is not until they have forfeited all chance of adding to their
    attractions by getting a little beauty-sleep before twelve o’clock.

    1857. Kingsley, Two Years Ago, ch. xv. ‘Are you going? it is not
    late; not ten o’clock yet.’ ‘A medical man, who may be called up at
    any moment, must make sure of his beauty-sleep.’

    1869. Blackmore, Lorna Doone, ch. lxiv. Would I please to remember
    that I had roused him up at night, and the quality always made a
    point of paying four times over for a man’s loss of his
    beauty-sleep. I replied that his loss of beauty-sleep was rather
    improving to a man of so high a complexion.

    1880. Jas. Payn, Confid. Agent, ch. iii. ‘You must get your
    beauty-sleep,’ cried he to his wife when Barlow had departed, ‘or
    you will have no colour in your cheeks to-morrow.’


Beaver, subs. (common).—1. An old term for a hat; goss or cady,
however, is more frequently heard nowadays. At one time hats were made
of beaver’s fur—hence the name; the term is still occasionally applied
to tall ‘chimney-pot hats,’ in spite of the fact that for many years
silk has replaced the skin of the rodent in their manufacture.

    1528. Roy, Sat. To exalte the thre folde crowne Of anti-christ hys
    bever. [M.]

    1661. Pepys, Diary, 27 June. Mr. Holden sent me a bever, which cost
    me £4 5s.

    1712. Gay, Trivia, bk. II., l., 277.

        The broker here his spacious beaver wears,
        Upon his brow sit jealousies and cares.

    1855. Thackeray, Newcomes, ch. ix. ‘Had you not better take off
    your hat?’ asks the Duchess, pointing ... to ‘the foring cove’s’
    beaver, which he had neglected to remove.

    1857. O. W. Holmes, Autocrat of the Breakfast Table, ch. x. We know
    this of our hats, and are always reminded of it when we happen to
    put them on wrong side foremost. We soon find that the beaver is a
    hollow cast of the skull, with all its irregular bumps and
    depressions.

In beaver, phr. (University).—In a tall hat and non-academical garb, as
distinguished from cap and gown.

    1840. New Monthly Magazine, lix., 271. He ... went out of College
    in what the members of the United Service called mufti, but members
    of the University beaver, which means not in his academics—his cap
    and gown. [M.]

See also Bever.


Beck, subs. (old cant).—1. A constable.—See Beak and Copper.

2. A parish beadle. Apparently the term was applied to all kinds of
watchmen.—See Harman-beck.

Verb (thieves’).—To imprison. Amongst Dutch thieves bekaan has the same
signification, imprisoned.

    1861. Reade, Cloister and Hearth ch. lv. The circle with the two
    dots was writ by another of our brotherhood, and it signifies as
    how the writer ... was becked, was asking here, and lay two months
    in Starabin.


Bed. To put to bed with a pickaxe and shovel (common).—To bury. For
analogous expressions, see Ladder.

    c. 1881. Broadside Ballad, ‘Hands off’—

        Kitty Crea, some fine day, when I’m laid in the clay,
        Put to bed with a spade in the usual way,
        And yourself on the shelf a neglected old maid,
        Troth, your conscience will sting you, I’m greatly afraid.


Bedder, subs. (Cambridge University).—A charwoman; one who makes the
beds and performs other necessary domestic duties for residents in
college.


Bed-Fagot, subs. (familiar).—1. Applied contemptuously to a woman; Cf.,
‘hussy,’ ‘witch,’ etc.

2. Synonymous with prostitute. For full list of analogous terms, see
Barrack-hack.


Bedfordshire, subs. (familiar).—A humorous term for bed. There are
several other phrases of a kindred character; as, for example, Sheet
Alley (q.v.); Blanket Fair (q.v.); The Land of Nod (q.v.), etc.

    1665. Cotton, Poet. Wks. (1765), 76.

        Each one departs to Bedfordshire.
        And pillows all securely snort on. [M.]

    1738. Swift, Polite Conversation (conv. iii.).

    Lady Ans. I’m sure ’tis time for all honest folks to go to bed.

    Miss. Indeed my eyes draw straws (she’s almost asleep)....

    Col. I’m going to the Land of Nod.

    Ner. Faith, I’m for Bedfordshire.

    1845. Hood, Miss Kilmansegg.

        The time for sleep had come at last,
        And there was the bed, so soft, so vast,
          Quite a field of Bedfordshire clover.


Bed-House, subs. (common).—A place of assignation where beds can be
hired for a longer or shorter period as required—hence the name. For
synonyms generally, see Nanny shop.


Bedoozle, verb (American).—To confuse; to bewilder. Probably a corrupt
form of the old English verb ‘bedazzle,’ used by Shakspeare in Taming
of the Shrew, iv., 5, 46. [1593.]


Bedpost. In the twinkling of a bedpost, phr.
(familiar).—Instantaneously; with great rapidity. Originally in the
twinkling of a bedstaff. This phrase has given rise to not a little
speculation; first, as to what use the bedstaff was put; and, secondly,
as to its possible connection with rapidity of motion. The generally
received explanation is that the staff referred to was, as Johnson puts
it, ‘a wooden pin stuck anciently on sides of the bedstead to hold the
cloaths from slipping on either side.’ Dr. Murray, however, points out
that the great lexicographer gave no authority, and also that ‘no
corroborative evidence has been found.’ Still it seems certain that
bedstaffs were used and kept near beds for some purpose by our
ancestors. Bobadil, in Every Man in his Humour [1596], uses one to
display his skill with the rapier, and the following explanation has
been suggested by Mr. Thomas Boys [Notes and Queries, 2 S., vi., 437].
The bedstaff was an upright peg, fixed into the side of the bedstead
after the manner of a pin, and projecting upwards to keep the bed
clothes in their place. Consequently, as offering the means of
exhibiting the use of the rapier, the wooden bedstaff may have afforded
a very available as well as harmless implement. Suppose then the
bedstaff to have been an upright peg or pin fitting into a hole or
socket in the side of the bedstead, and, in length, about equal to the
rapier. The socket is a few inches deep; and the bedstaff has (to
steady it) a projecting rim which overlays the socket like a lid. The
part of the bedstaff which enters the socket will then be the hilt of
the rapier; the projecting rim will be the guard; and the rest of the
staff will do duty as the blade. In the bedstaff we have then the form
of a rapier; and, with this implement of wood, Captain Bobadil would
have no difficulty in exhibiting his passado and stoccado. The rapier
of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, moreover, was by no means
the light and foil-like weapon now known as the small sword. It was of
great length and heavy, and a bedstaff such as that suggested above,
with a species of guard, and most likely about the weight of a heavy
single-stick, would have been no bad instrument wherewith to
indoctrinate a tyro in the noble art of self defence.

Hence, probably, if this be so, the derivation of the expression, in
the twinkling of a bedstaff; more especially if, as would occasionally
be the case, it were used as a weapon of defence against intruders,
when possibly even life itself might hang upon a dexterous use of the
implement.

    1660. Charac. Italy, 78. In the twinkling of a Bedstaff he disrobed
    himself ... and was just skipping into bed. [M.]

    1676. T. Shadwell, Virtuoso, I., i. ’Gad, I’ll do it instantly, in
    the twinkling of a bedstaff.

    1698. Ward, London Spy, pt. XI., 259. Shake ’em off and leap into
    bed, in the twinkling of a bedstaff.

    1854. F. E. Smedley, Harry Coverdale, ch. i. ‘I’ll adown and be
    with you in ... the twinkling of a bedpost.’

Among English Synonyms may be included:—In a jiffy; in two two’s; in a
brace of shakes; before you can say Jack Robinson; in a crack; in the
squeezing of a lemon.

Between you and me and the bedpost, phr. (familiar).—A humorous tag to
an assertion; i.e., ‘between ourselves’;—‘I know what you say, but,
between you and me, etc. ... the thing is absurd.’ Sometimes the last
word is varied by ‘post,’ ‘door post,’ or ‘gate post’—any prop seems to
serve.

    1831. Bulwer Lytton, Eugene Aram, p. 234. Ah, sir, all very well to
    say so; but, between you and me and the bedpost, young master’s
    quarrelled with old master.

    1838. Dickens, Nicholas Nickleby, p. 127. And between you and me
    and the post, sir, it will be a very nice portrait too.

    1879. Punch, March 8, p. 108. Discussing an absent friend. ‘Yes,
    Robinson’s a clever feller, and he’s a modest feller, and he’s a
    honest feller; but betwixt you and i and the post, Mr. Jones,’ said
    Brown, confidentially, picking his wisdom tooth with his little
    finger nail, ‘Robinson ain’t got neither the Looks, nor yet the
    Language, nor yet the Manners of a Gentleman.’

‘Right you are, sir!’ said Jones, shovelling the melted remains of his
Ice Pudding into his Mouth with a Steel Knife (which he afterwards
wiped on the Table Cloth). ‘You’ve ’it ’im orf t’ a T!’


Bedrock. To get down to bedrock [in anything; whether in an enquiry, or
in one’s circumstances, etc.].—To the bottom; to the lowest level. A
miner’s term, alluding to the solid rock underlying superficial and
other formations. Therefore, metaphorically, ‘to reach bedrock’ is to
attain a solid basis or foundation; bedrock facts are the ‘chiels that
winna ding’—the incontestible and uncontrovertible truth.

    1870. Bret Harte, Poems and Prose, p. 113. ‘No! no!’ continued T.
    hastily. ‘I play this yer hand alone. To come down to the bedrock
    it’s just this,’ etc.

    1875. Scribner’s Magazine, p. 277. Getting to the real character of
    a man is coming to the bedrock.

    1888. Louisiana Press, March 31. Thomas J. Whiteman, of Carrol
    county, is a Republican candidate for Governor of Missouri. You can
    bet your bedrock dollar that the next governor of Missouri will be
    a white man, although his first name isn’t apt to be Thomas.


Bee. To have a bee in the head or bonnet, phr. (familiar).—To be
possessed of queer ideas; ‘half-cracked’; flighty. This phrase is of
considerable antiquity, being traced back to a Scotch writer, Gawin
Douglas by name [1474–1521], Bishop of Dunkeld, who used it in a
translation of Virgil’s Æneid.

    1512–3 (translated: published in 1553). Gawin Douglas, Æneis,
    VIII., Prol. 120. Quhat bern be thou in bed with heid full of beis.

    1657. Samuel Colvil, Whigg’s Supplication, or Scotch Hudibras
    [1710]. Which comes from brains which have a bee.

    1825. Scott, St. Ronan’s, ch. xvii. ‘Maybe ye think the puir lassie
    has a bee in her bonnet; but ye ken yoursell if naebody but wise
    folk were to marry, the warld wad be ill peopled.’

    1853. Bulwer Lytton, My Novel, III., 307. It is not an uncommon
    crochet amongst benevolent men to maintain that wickedness in
    necessarily a sort of insanity, and that nobody would make a
    violent start out of a straight path unless stung to such disorder
    by a bee in his bonnet.

For synonyms, see Apartments to let.

    1868. Dr. Brewer, Dictionary of Phrase and Fable, p. 77, col. 2.
    You have a bee in your bonnet or your head is full of bees; [i.e.]
    full of devices, crotchets, fancies, inventions, and dreamy
    theories. The connection between bees and the soul was once
    generally maintained ... the moon was called a bee by the
    priestesses of Cerës, and the word lunatic or moon-struck still
    means one with ‘bees in his head.’


Beef, subs. (common).—1. Human flesh (a transferred sense); i.e.,
obese; stolid; or fleshy like an ox.

    1862. Cork Examiner, March 28. Chelmsford stood higher in the leg,
    and showed less beef about him. [M.]

2. (nautical.)—By a further transition beef has also come to signify
men; strength; or ‘hands’; ‘More beef!’ a bo’sun’s exhortation to extra
exertion.

    1863. Cornhill Magazine. Feb., ‘Life on Board a Man of War.’ Useful
    at the heavy hauling of braces, etc., where plenty of beef is
    required. [M.]

3. (common.)—The penis. For synonyms, see Creamstick.

To be in beef, phr. (old)—Said only of women. It means to have carnal
knowledge.

To be in a man’s beef, phr. (old).—To wound with a sword.—Grose.

To cry or give beef, or hot beef, phr. (thieves’).—To give an alarm; to
pursue; to set up a hue and cry. It has been suggested that beef in
this case is a rhyming synonym to ‘thief.’ For synonyms, see To guy.

To be dressed like Christmas beef, phr. (common).—To be decked out in
one’s best raiment; in allusion to the ‘dressing’ of Christmas beef by
butchers.

To make beef, phr. (thieves’).—To run away; to decamp. For synonyms,
see Amputate.

Beef! intj. (Australian).—‘Stop thief.’ Cf., To cry or give beef.

Beef up! phr. (common).—‘Put on your strength!’ ‘Give a long pull and a
strong pull!’


Beef-Brained, adj. (common).—Doltish; obtuse; thickheaded; a reference
to the heavy, dullness of appearance of oxen.


Beef-Head, subs. (common).—A dolt; a stupid, thickheaded person. Cf.,
Beef-brained.


Beef It, verb (common).—Considered originally a provincialism, but now
common. The lower classes in the East End of London frequently speak of
beefing it, either in reality or anticipation (mostly latter), when
referring to a meat meal, more particularly when it happens to be beef.


Beefment. On the beefment, adv. phr. (thieves’).—On the alert; on the
look out.


Beef-Stick, subs. (military).—The bone in a joint of beef. At mess it
is ‘first come, best served’; and those who come last sometimes get
little more than the beef-stick.


Beef Straight.—See Straight.


Beef to the Heels, like a Mullingar Heifer, phr. (Irish).—A stalwart
man, or a fine woman; i.e., one whose superiority is manifest from the
crown of the head to the sole of the foot; literally, all beef down to
the heels.

    c. 1880. Rhoda Broughton, Cometh up as a Flower, p. 193. Dolly was
    not a fine woman as they say, at all; not beef to the heels, by any
    means; in a grazier’s eye she would have had no charm whatsoever.


Beef-Witted, adj. (common).—See Beef-brained.

    1594. Nashe, Terrors of the Night, in wks. (Grosart) III., 257.
    Liues there anie such slowe yce-braind beefe-witted gull.

    1863. Reader, 22 Aug. This British bull-neckedness, this British
    beef-wittedness. [M.]


Beefy, adj. (common).—Fleshy; unduly thick, or obese. [From beef + y: a
transferred sense.] Also beefiness, subs., fleshy development. The
ankles of women are sometimes ungallantly spoken of as beefy, with
which compare beef to the heels. A run of luck and good fortune,
generally, is likewise referred to as beefy.

    1859. Sala, Gaslight and Daylight, ch. xi. To see him in his huge
    shirt-sleeves, with his awkward beefy hands hanging inanely by his
    side, and his great foolish mouth open.


Bee-Line. To take or make a bee-line [for a place or object], phr.
(originally American; now common).—To go direct; ‘as the crow flies’;
without circumlocution. Bees, when fully laden with pollen, make for
the hive in a straight, or bee-line. One of the American railways is
called the Bee-Line Road from the direct route it takes between its
termini. Cf., Straight shoot.

    1848. J. R. Lowell, Biglow Papers.

        The field of Lexin’ton where England tried
        The fastest colors thet she ever dyed.
        An’ Concord Bridge, thet Davis, when he came,
        Found was the bee-line track to heaven an’ fame,
        Ez all roads be by natur’, ef your soul
        Don’t sneak thur shun-pikes so’s to save the toll.

    1874. M. Collins, Frances, ch. v. How they could follow an enemy’s
    trail, or strike a bee-line through unpathed woods to the point
    they sought!

    1875. Miss Bird, Six Mos. in Sandwich Islands, Lett. xxix., p. 275
    (1886). Horses cross the sand and hummocks as nearly as possible on
    a bee-line.

    1884. Aldridge, Ranch Notes, p. 78. The cattle are in great dread
    of this pest [the heel-fly], and the instant an animal feels one,
    it hoists its tail in the air, and takes a bee-line for the nearest
    water.


Beelzebub’s Paradise, subs. (popular).—Hell; the infernal regions.
Beelzebub is a frequent mis-reading for Beelzebul, the name given by
the Jews to the prince of demons. The usage occurs in the New Testament
at Matthew x., 25, and xii., 24–27, where Beelzebub should read
Beelzebul. The former is properly the god of the Philistines,
worshipped as the destroyer of flies [from Hebrew baal, lord + zebub, a
fly]; whilst the latter is an opprobrious change on the former [from
Hebrew baal, lord + zebul, dung].


Been in the Sun, adv. phr. (common).—A synonym for ‘drunk,’ in
connection with which see Screwed. An allusion to a flushed, heated
appearance.


Been Measured for a New Umbrella, phr. (American).—Said sportively of
anyone appearing in new, ill-fitting clothes, or who has struck out a
new line of action, the wisdom of which is doubtful. The joke is an old
one and refers to a man of whom it was said that nothing fitted him but
his umbrella.


Been There. Oh, yes, I’ve been there, phr. (American), i.e., ‘I know
what I am about.’ A popular exclamation. When it is said of a man that
he has been there, shrewdness, pertinacity, and experience are implied.
A variant may be found in the equally slang expression, ‘he got there
all the same.’—See Got there.

    1888. Atlanta Constitution, May 4. The Japanese say: ‘A man takes a
    drink; then the drink takes a drink, and next the drink takes the
    man.’ Evidently the Japanese ‘have been there.’

2. Another and more invidious meaning, however, is attached to the
phrase. Women suspected of clandestine meetings with men are said to
have been there.


Beer, subs. (familiar).—To do a beer, i.e., to take a drink of beer.

    1880. Punch’s Almanac, p. 3.

        Quarter-day, too, no more chance of tick,
        Fancy I shall ’ave to cut my stick.
        Got the doldrums dreadful, that is clear,
        Two d. left!—must go and do a beer!

    1889. Sporting Times, July 6. It was the old tale of stony,
    pebble-beached, block granite Wednesday, and money on the staff
    there was none. ‘Pitcher,’ said Shifter, brushing the dust off his
    tongue, ‘got enough for a beer?’ ‘Enough for a beer?’ repeated
    Pitcher. ‘Good heavens, I wish I had. If Bass’s ale was a ha’penny
    a barrel I couldn’t buy enough to soak a fly-paper!’

Verb.—To drink beer; also, to get drunk.

    1780–6. Wolcot (‘P. Pindar’) Odes R. Acad., wks., 1794, I., 105. He
    surely had been brandying it or beering, that is, in plainer
    English, he was drunk. [d.]

To think no small beer [of oneself], phr. (common).—Small beer is weak
beer; hence, figuratively equivalent to a trifle. The expression, to
think no small beer of oneself, indicates, therefore, a good measure of
self-esteem.

    1840. De Quincey, Style, wks. XI., 174. [I] should express her
    self-esteem by the popular phrase, that she did not think small
    beer of herself.


Beer and Bible, phr. (political).—An epithet applied sarcastically to a
political party which first came into prominence during the last
Beaconsfield Administration. It was called into being by a measure
introduced by the moderate Liberals in 1873, with a view to placing
certain restrictions upon the sale of intoxicating drinks. The Licensed
Victuallers, an extremely powerful association, whose influence
extended all over the kingdom, took alarm, and turned to the
Conservatives for help in opposing the bill. In the ranks of the latter
were numbered the chief brewers; the leaders of the association,
moreover, had mostly strong high church tendencies, while one of them
was president of the Exeter Hall organization. The Liberals, noting
these facts, sarcastically nicknamed this alliance the Beer and Bible
Association; the Morning Advertiser, the organ of the Licensed
Victuallers, was dubbed the Beer and Bible Gazette; and lastly,
electioneering tactics ascribed to them the war cry of beer and bible!
This so-called beer and bible interest made rapid strides: in 1870 the
Conservatives were at their low water mark among the London
constituencies; but, in 1880, they had carried seats in the City,
Westminster, Marylebone, Tower Hamlets, Greenwich, and Southwark. A
notable exception to this strange fellowship was Mr. Bass [afterwards
Lord Bass], of pale-ale fame, who held aloof from opposition to the
measure in question. Anent the nickname Beer and Bible Gazette given to
the Morning Advertiser, it may be mentioned that it had already earned
for itself a somewhat similar sobriquet. For a long time this paper
devoted one-half of its front page to notices of publicans and
tavern-keepers; while the other half was filled up with announcements
of religious books, and lists of preachers at the London churches and
chapels. This gained for the paper the equally singular sobriquet of
the ‘Gin and Gospel Gazette.’


Beer and Skittles. Generally, Not all beer and skittles, phr.
(familiar), i.e., not altogether pleasant, or couleur de rose. A tap
room simile, the allusion being to drinking beer and playing at
skittles at one and the same time.

    1870. Mansfield, School-Life at Winchester College, p. 138. But
    football wasn’t all beer and skittles to the Fags. There was an
    institution called ‘Kicking in,’ which, while it lasted, was much
    worse than ‘watching out’ at cricket, although it had the very
    great merit of not continuing so long; for, even on a whole
    holiday, we seldom had more than two hours of it.

    1889. Pall Mall Gaz., Aug. 13, p. 6. Prince George of Wales is
    ‘learning his profession,’ and finds it is not all beer and
    skittles. That run across the Channel into Queenstown harbour
    showed our young naval officer the difference between an ironclad
    and a torpedo boat. The latter is an uncommonly lively craft, and
    in a choppy sea under a fresh breeze was surprisingly nimble. The
    commander of No. 79 arrived in the harbour, having shown that at
    least in one respect he has already something in common with the
    late admiral, Lord Nelson. The officers of the Revenge had the
    honour to request the pleasure of the company of the Prince and his
    brother officers to breakfast. The brother officers went, His Royal
    Highness spent the day in his hammock, and towards evening wrote to
    his Royal Father a description of the perils of the deep.


Beer-Barrel, subs. (common).—The human body. Cf., Bacon.


Beeriness, subs., Beery, adj. (common).—Pertaining to a state of, or
approaching to drunkenness; intoxicated; fuddled with beer. For
synonyms, see Screwed.

    1857. Dickens, Dorrit, bk. I., ch. viii., p. 56. The stranger was
    left to the ... beery atmosphere, sawdust, pipe-lights, spittoons,
    and repose.

    1877. D. C. Murray, in Belgravia, July, p. 73. There was a beery
    and bloated captain, resident in the inn, who had left the army, as
    the rumour ran, under disreputable auspices.

    1889. Modern Society, July 13, p. 838. It is a fact that does not
    seem to have struck anyone, that Shakspeare’s first appearance as a
    sporting tipster was in the words, ‘Lay on Macduff.’ We believe,
    however, that they could at that time have got five to one against
    him. So sure was the bard of his tip, that he added, in his own
    classical language, ‘Damn’d be he that first cries, Hold, enough,’
    which is vulgarly translated by the beery oracle of the kerbstone,
    ‘Put yer shirt on ’im, cuffs an’ all.’


Beer-Jerker, subs. (American).—A tippler.—See Jerker and Slinger.


Beerocracy, subs. (common).—The brewing and beer-selling interest. [A
humorous appellation in imitation of aristocracy. From beer + [o]
cracy, from Greek κρατέω, to rule, to hold.]

    1881. World, 19 Jan., p. 10, col. 2. The startling mixture of
    peerage and beerocracy ... was absent this time. [M.]


Beer-Slinger.—See Slinger; also Jerker.


Beeswax, subs. (old).—1. Poor, soft cheese. Sometimes called sweaty-toe
cheese (q.v.).

    1821. W. T. Moncrieff, Tom and Jerry, Act ii., Sc. 3. Bob: Now,
    landlord, ’arter that ’ere drap of max, suppose we haves a drain o’
    heavy wet, just by way of cooling our chaffers—mine’s as dry as a
    chip—and, I say, do you hear, let’s have a twopenny burster, half a
    quartern of beesvax, a ha’p’orth o’ ingens, and a dollop o’ salt
    along vith it, vill you? Mace: Bellay! a burster and beesvax—ingens
    and salt here. (Calling as he fetches the porter from the side
    wing, l.). Now, then, here you are, Master Grimmuzzle.

    1849. Bell’s Life. [From Baumann.] A burster with a slice of
    beeswax.

2. A bore; one who ‘buttonholes’ another. Generally, Old beeswax.


Beeswaxers, subs. (Winchester College).—Thick boots used for football.
Probably from being smeared with beeswax or other substitute for
rendering footgear supple. Pronounced Bĕswaxers.

    1870. Mansfield, School-Life at Winchester College, p. 137. Our
    costume consisted of a jersey, flannel trousers, beeswaxers
    (lace-up boots), or ‘High-lows’ (low shoes), with two or three
    pairs of ‘Worsteders’ (thick worsted stockings), the feet of all
    but one pair being cut off.


Beeswing, subs. (common).—A gauzy film or ‘crust,’ in port wines, the
result of age. [From bees + wing; so called from its appearance when
broken up in the process of decanting.] Hence also beeswinged.

    1846. Thackeray, Vanity Fair, III., p. 26. Scott from under bushy
    eyebrows winked at the apparition of a beeswing.

    1850. D. Jerrold, The Catspaw, Act i. Whereupon, the animal spirits
    are held in suspense, like—like the beeswing in port.

    1873. Fitzedward Hall, Modern English, p. 32. This port is not
    presentable unless beeswinged.

Old beeswing, subs. (common).—A nickname for anyone, but especially for
one who ‘takes to his liquor kindly’ as the saying goes.

    18(?). Mark Lemon, Golden Fetters, II., p. 74. Mr. Clendon did not
    call Mr. Barnard ‘old cock,’ ‘old fellow,’ or old beeswing.


Beetle-Crusher or Beetle Squasher, subs. (popular).—1. A large foot.
The term was popularised by Leech in the pages of Punch. For synonyms,
see Hoof.

2. In a transferred and now more common sense to that originally
obtaining, a large boot or shoe. Also Beetle-cases. For synonyms, see
Trotter-cases.

    1869. W. Bradwood, The O.V.H., ch. xxi. Writhing yet striving to
    look pleasant on the infliction which the beetle-crusher of a
    recent arrival had just inflicted on his pet corn.

    c. 1880. Rhoda Broughton, Cometh up as a Flower, II., p. 200. Yes,
    but what horrible boots! Whoever could have had the atwocity to
    fwame such beetle-crushers.

3. (military.)—An infantry soldier; the term is applied to them by the
cavalry. A variant is Mud-crusher, which see for synonyms.


Beetle-Crushing, adj. (popular).—With solid tread, such as comes from
large heavy feet encased in boots or shoes to match; e.g., the marching
of infantry. Cf., Beetle-crusher, sense 3.

    1876. Anteros, I., p. 188. The possibility floated before him, now,
    of sending all his live and dead stock into the market,—of exchange
    into a sedate beetle-crushing corps.


Beetles, subs. (Stock Exchange).—Colorado mine shares.

    1887. Atkins, House Scraps.

        Oh supposing our creamjugs were broken,
        Or beetles were sowing the babies.


Beetle-Sticker, subs. (common).—An entomologist.


Before the Wind, phr. (colloquial).—In prosperous circumstances; out of
debt or difficulty. From the nautical expression.


Begad! intj. (common).—A corruption of ‘By God!’ and, as such a
euphemistic oath.—See Oaths.

    1742. Fielding, J. Andrews. Begad! madam ... ’tis the very same I
    met.

    1848. Thackeray, Vanity Fair, II., iv., 39. Only one, begad! in the
    world.


Beggared. I’ll be beggared if, etc., phr. (common).—An emphatic form of
asseveration; i.e., ‘I’ll give up everything, even to being reduced to
beggary, if,’ etc.


Beggar-Maker, subs. (old).—A publican.


Beggars, subs. (cards’).—The small cards from the deuce to the ten are
so called.


Beggar’s Bolts.—See Beggar’s bullets.


Beggar’s Bullets or Bolts (old).—Stones.

    1584. Hudson, Judith, in Sylvester’s Du Bartas (1608), 698. A pack
    of country clowns ... that them to battail bownes, with begger’s
    bolts and levers. [M.]

    1785. Grose, Dictionary of the Vulgar Tongue. ‘The beggar’s bullets
    began to fly’; i.e., they began to throw stones.


Beggar’s Bush. To go home by beggar’s bush, phr. (old).—To go to ruin;
otherwise explained as follows.

    1686. Twelve Ingenious Characters. He throws away his wealth as
    heartily as young heirs, or old philosophers, and is so eager of a
    goal, or a mumper’s wallet, that he will not wait fortune’s leisure
    to undo him, but rides post to beggar’s bush, and then takes more
    pains to spend money than day-labourers to get it. [N.]

    1868. Brewer, Dictionary of Phrase and Fable, p. 78. Beggar’s Bush.
    To go by beggar’s bush (or) go home by beggar’s bush, i.e., to go
    to ruin. Beggar’s bush is the name of a tree which once stood on
    the left hand of the London road from Huntingdon to Caxton, so
    called because it was a noted rendezvous for beggars. These punning
    phrases and proverbs are very common.

Russell Hill, near Croydon, where the Warehousemen’s and Clerks’
Schools are, is locally known as Beggar’s Bush.


Beggar’s Plush, subs. (old)?—Corduroy.—See quotation.

    1688. London Gazette, No. 2379, page 4. A person ... in a dark grey
    Cloth Coat.... Breeches of Beggar’s Plush. [M.]


Beggar’s Velvet, subs. (common).—Downy particles which accumulate under
furniture from the negligence of housemaids. Otherwise called
sluts’-wool (q.v.).


Beggar the Thing! intj. (common).—Equivalent to ‘confound’ or ‘hang the
thing’—used to give additional emphasis to a word or action.


Begin Upon [a Person], verb (common).—To attack; to assault.


Begosh! B’gosh! intj. (American).—An expletive, probably of negro
origin; a half veiled oath; a corruption of ‘By God!’—See Oaths.

    1888. The Epoch, May 5. Art dealer (descanting on the virtues of
    the picture). ‘You will observe, sir, that the drawing is free,
    that—’ Agriculturist. ‘Well, if the drawin’s free an’ you don’t tax
    me too much for the frame b’gosh I’ll take it.’


Behind, subs. (common).—1. The posterior; the rump.

    c. 1830. George IV., in Saturday Review (1862), 8 Feb. Go and do my
    bidding—tell him he lies, and kick his behind in my name. [M.]

2. (Eton and Winchester Colleges.)—A back at football. At Eton called
short behind and long behind, usually abbreviated to ‘short’ and
‘long.’ At Winchester, second behind and last behind. These answer to
the half-back and back of Association football. At Winchester, in the
Fifteens, there is also a third behind.


Behind One’s Side, adv. phr. (Winchester College).—Said of a man when
nearer the opponent’s goal than the player of his team who last touched
the ball.


Beilby’s Ball, subs. (old).—An Old Bailey execution.

    1785. Grose, Dictionary of the Vulgar Tongue. Beilby’s Ball,—‘he
    will dance at Beilby’s Ball, where the sheriff pays [for] the
    musick: he will be hanged. Who Mr. Beilby was, or why that ceremony
    was so called remains with the quadrature of the circle, the
    discovery of the philosopher’s stone, and diverse other desiderata
    yet undiscovered.’


Bejan, Baijan, etc., subs. (Scotch University).—A freshman; a student
of the first year at the Universities of St Andrew’s and Aberdeen: it
is now obsolete at Edinburgh. [From the French bec jaune, yellow beak,
in allusion to the color of the mandibles of young birds.] The term was
adopted from the University of Paris; but, signifying ‘a novice’ it has
been in more or less general use for nearly three hundred years. At
Aberdeen, the second-class students are ‘semi-bejans’; in the third
‘tertians’; while those in the highest rank are ‘magistrands.’ In the
University of Vienna the freshman is called beanus, and in France
‘footing money’ is bejaunia. For synonymous terms for freshmen and raw
recruits, see Snooker.

    1611. Cotgrave. Bejaune, a novice ... or young beginner, in a trade
    or art.

    1865. G. Macdonald, Alec Forbes, ch. xxxiv. The benches were
    occupied by about two hundred students, most of the freshmen or
    bejans in their red gowns.

    1887. Standard, Feb. 10, p. 5, col. 2. The term baijan, used in one
    of the Scottish universities to designate a freshman, is from the
    French bec jaune, yellow beak—young birds having usually bills of
    this hue.


Belch, subs. (common).—Beer, especially poor beer. So called because of
its liability to cause eructation. The term is probably much older than
indicated by quotations. One of Shakspeare’s characters in Twelfth
Night is Sir Toby Belch, a reckless, roystering, jolly knight of the
Elizabethan period. For synonyms, see Swipes.

    1698. Ward, London Spy, pt. XV., p. 347. Those Poor Sots who are
    gussling belch at his own Ale-house.

    1705. Ward, Hudibras Redivivus, vol. I., pt. VII., p. 18.

        I sneak’d into a little house,
        Where porters do their belch carouse.

    1748. T. Dyche, Dictionary (5 ed.). Belch (s.), common beer or ale
    sold in publick houses is so called.

    1785. Grose, Dictionary of the Vulgar Tongue. Belch, all sorts of
    beer, that liquor being apt to cause eructation.

    1858. A. Mayhew, Paved with Gold, bk. III., ch. iii., p. 265.
    ‘Let’s have a pot of that fourpenny English Burgundy of yours, and,
    whilst my mates are drinking the belch, I want to talk business
    with you.’


Belcher, subs. (pugilistic).—A neckerchief named after Jim Belcher, a
noted pugilist. The ground is blue, with white spots. Also,
attributatively, to any handkerchief of a similar pattern. For
synonyms, see Fogle.

    1812. Examiner, 21 Sept., 607, 1. The traverser ... tied a belcher
    handkerchief round his neck.

    18(?). Dickens, The Ghost of Art, in Reprinted Pieces, p. 215. I
    saw that the lower part of his face was tied up, in what is
    commonly called a belcher handkerchief.

    1874. Macmillan’s Magazine, April, p. 506. The spotted blue and
    white neckerchief, still called a belcher, bears the name of a
    famous prize fighter.

2. (thieves’.)—A ring. Described in quotation.

    1851. Mayhew, London Labour and London Poor, I., p. 399. The best
    sort of rings for fawney dropping is the belchers. They are a good
    thick looking ring, and have the crown and V.R. stamped upon them.

3. (circus and showmen.)—A drinker of beer; generally a hard drinker.
Cf., Belch.

    1876. Hindley, Life and Adventures of a Cheap Jack, p. 99. Now it
    is well known that travelling mummers are all rare belchers ... I
    kept them in conversation ... until the drink took the desired
    effect, and one by one the princes and kings dropped on the grass
    floor, and were sound drunk and asleep.


Belial, subs. (Oxford University).—A nickname of Balliol College.


Believe. I believe you, phr. (common).—This phrase is frequently
employed to signify general assent; ‘yes.’ Sometimes colloquially ‘I
believe you my boy’; once a favourite catch-phrase of a well-known
actor.

    1835. Dickens, Sketches by Boz, p. 286. ‘Now confess: were you not
    a little surprised?’—‘I believe you,’ replied that illustrious
    person.

    1849–50. Thackeray, Pendennis, I., p. 140. ‘Miss Rouney, I gather,
    was the confidante of the other.’ ‘Confidant? I believe you.’

    1860. George Eliot, The Mill on the Floss, p. 199. ‘Is she a cross
    woman?’—‘I believe you.’

    1879. Dudley Costello, The Millionaire of Mincing Lane, p. 204.
    ‘And she hates that fellow?’—‘Hates him? I believe you.’


Bell, subs. (vagrants’).—A song. Tramps’ term. Simply diminutive of
bellow.—Hotten.

Verb (schoolboy).—To bell a marble is to run away with it, but the
action scarcely amounts to actual theft.

To ring one’s own bell, phr. (American).—A variation of ‘to blow one’s
trumpet’; to sound one’s praises personally.


Bell-Bastard, subs. (provincial slang).—In the West of England the
illegitimate child of a woman who is herself illegitimate; why and
wherefore is obscure, though possibly a corruption of ‘double bastard.’


Bellmare, subs. (American).—A political leader, mostly used
contemptuously. The term is a slang appropriation from the terminology
of Western life, where it seems to be used in regard to mules much in
the same way as bell-wether is employed in England in reference to
sheep. Why the grey mare, says the author of A Ride with Kit Carson,
should be the better horse in the estimation of mules I cannot say, but
such is certainly the fact. Though very cautious animals when relying
solely on their own judgment, they would appear to have a consciousness
of their own inferiority, which induces them to entertain a great
regard for the sagacity of the horse, and especially for that of a
white mare. The wily Californians, taking advantage of this amiable
weakness, employ a steady, old, white mare of known gentleness and good
character, to act as a kind of mother and guide to each drove of unruly
mules.


Bellows, subs. (popular).—The lungs. This, etymologically, is the same
as ‘belly,’ both words having passed through a most complicated
history. Properly speaking a bellows is an instrument constructed to
produce a strong current of air, and the word itself can be traced back
to about A.D. 800. Its figurative and slang signification is recorded
as follows:—

    1615. Latham, Falconry (1633), 115. The lungs doe draw a breath....
    When these bellowes doe decay, then health from both doth fade
    away, [M.]

    1730. Jas. Miller, Humours of Oxford, Act v., Sc. 2., p. 75 (2
    ed.). Heark you, madam, don’t abuse my wife—slut quotha! i’gad let
    me tell you, she has done a cleaner thing than you’ll ever do while
    your bellows blow, old lady.

    1821. W. T. Moncrieff, Tom and Jerry, Act ii., Sc. 3.

        A plague on those malty cove fellows,
          Who’d have us in spirits relax;
        Drink, they say, and you’ll ne’er burn the bellows,
          Half water instead of all max;
        A glass of good max, had they twigg’d it,
          Would have made them, like us, lads of wax;
        For Sal swigg’d, and Dick swigg’d,
          And Bob swigg’d, and Nick swigg’d,
        And I’ve swigged, and we’ve all of us swigg’d it,
          And, by Jingo, there’s nothing like max.
                        All Max!
            By Jingo, there’s nothing like max!

    1843. Haliburton (‘Sam Slick’), Sam Slick in England, ch. xxii. He
    [the servant] is so fat and lazy ... walkin’ put him out o’
    breath.... How I would like to lick him ... round the park ... to
    improve his wind, and teach him how to mend his pace. I’d repair
    his old bellowses for him, I know.

Though regarded as slang in England, the word is colloquially used in
many parts of America, in the duplicated plural form—bellowses.

    1848. J. R. Lowell, in Biglow Papers, I., p. 23. His bellowses is
    sound enough.


Bellowsed, ppl. adj. (old).—Transported; lagged. Cf., Bellowser, sense
2.


Bellowser, subs. (pugilistic).—1. A blow in the pit of the stomach, or
wind—one that takes the breath away.

2. (old.)—A sentence of transportation for life.

    1856. Novels and Tales (from Household Words), Tauch. ed. vi., p.
    187. A sigh of the kind which is called by the lower classes a
    bellowser.


Bellows to Mend, phr. (common).—It is said of a broken-winded horse
that it has bellows to mend; likewise of a man whose lungs are
affected, or one who from any cause is ‘out of health.’

    1856. Cuthbert Bede, Verdant Green, pt. II., ch. iv. To one
    gentleman he would pleasantly observe, as he tapped him on the
    chest, ‘Bellows to mend for you, my buck!’


Bell-Rope, subs. (common).—The same as aggerawators (q.v.).

    1868. Brewer, Phrase and Fable, s.v., ‘Love lock.’ When men indulge
    in a curl in front of their ears, the love-lock is called a
    bell-rope—i.e., a rope to pull the belles after them.


Bells Down! intj. (Winchester College).—See quotation and Bells go
single!

    1870. Mansfield, School-Life at Winchester College, p. 62. The
    junior in chamber had a hard time of it; ... while endeavouring to
    get through his multifarious duties, he had to keep a sharp ear on
    the performance of the chapel bell, and to call out accordingly,
    ‘first peal!’ ‘second peal!’ and bells down!


Bells go Single! intj. (Winchester College).—A single bell is rung for
five minutes before the hour at which chapel commences. For College
evening chapel three three’s are rung, and then follows a ‘bell,’ one
for every man in College—70.

    1878. Adams, Wykehamica, p. 256. At a quarter to six the peal again
    rang out, and the cry of bells go was sounded in shrill tones
    through every chamber of College and Commoners.... After ten
    minutes the peal changed, and only a single bell continued to ring.
    This was notified by the cry bells go single, and five minutes
    afterwards, by that of ‘bells down.’... Presently the head-master
    ... would descend from his library: or the second master ... would
    appear at the archway near Sixth Chamber, and the warning voice
    would be heard ‘Gabell’ or ‘Williams through,’ ‘Williams,’ or
    ‘Ridding in.’ Straightway there would be a general rush, the
    college-boys darting across the quadrangle in the rear of the
    Præfect of Chapel; while the Commoners hurried in, keeping up a
    continuous stream from their more distant quarters.


Bellswagger.—See Belswagger.


Bell-Topped, Bell-Knobbed, ppl. adj. (harlotry).—Said of a man whose
penis is considerably thicker at the top end than at the root or
middle.


Bell-Topper, subs. (popular).—A silk hat. [From bell, alluding to the
shape, + top, from its position when worn, in relation to the rest of
the body + er.] For synonyms, see Golgotha.

    1885. G. A. Sala, in Daily Telegraph, Aug. 5, p. 5, col. 4. His
    very bell-topper hat had been garlanded with flowers.


Belly-Ache, subs. (vulgar).—A pain in the bowels; a colic.

    1881. New York Times, Dec. 18, quoted in N. and Q., 6 S., v., 65.
    Bellyache. To grumble without good cause. Employés bellyache at
    being overworked, or when they fancy themselves underfed, etc.


Belly-Bender, subs. (American).—A boy’s term for weak and unsafe ice.


Belly-Bound, adj. (vulgar).—Constipated; costive.


Belly-Bumper or Belly-Buster. To take a belly-buster, phr.
(American).—To ride down a hill in a sled lying on one’s stomach, an
amusement confined, it hardly needs saying, to young America. The idea
of toboganning was derived from this boyish pastime, and the oaken
board has been succeeded by the fleet-winged toboggan, made of seasoned
maple with handsomely upholstered seats. With the advent of improved
ice vehicles the interest in these sports has increased, and instead of
being confined to the vulgar boys who used to ride down hill
belly-buster fashion, men and even the most fashionable women now
partake of this pleasant and invigorating pastime. Also belly-bumbo,
belly-guts, or gutter, belly-flounders, belly-flumps, and
belly-plumper.

    1888. Chicago Inter-Ocean. Barney has a sled, on which he hauls the
    fish in snowy weather. Barney had his sled out yesterday,
    belly-bumping on a little patch of ice and snow.


Belly-Button, subs. (American).—The navel.


Belly-Can (political).—Explained by quotation.

    1889. Pall Mall Gazette, Mar. 28. Whatever ultimately comes of the
    Sunday Closing movement, it will at any rate leave behind it a
    curious addition to the English language. This is the word
    ‘belly-can,’ which is (according to the opponents of Sunday
    Closing) the plebeian counterpart of the more genteel ‘small
    cask’—both things being, of course, contrivances for getting round
    the legal prohibition of Sunday drinking. Lexicographers may
    perhaps be glad to have the definitions of the two phrases as given
    yesterday afternoon by Mr. Cavendish Bentinck:—The ‘belly-can’ was
    a tin vessel not unlike a saddle in shape, which men and women,
    generally the latter—let hon. members note that—got filled with
    beer and secreted about their clothes, an averaged-sized can
    holding about four quarts. A more aristocratic method of private
    Sunday drinking was by means of the ‘small cask.’ The small cask
    industry was said to be an exceedingly prosperous one in certain
    districts. Grocers advertised for casks as a speciality, and one
    grocer advertised on a Saturday fifty and sixty and sometimes even
    100 empty casks.


Belly-Cheat or Belly-Chete, subs. (old).—An apron; also food. [From
belly + slang cheat, a thing; from Anglo-Saxon ceat, a thing.]

    1609. Dekker, Lanthorne and Candlelight, wks. (1885) III., 196. A
    belly-chete, an apron.

    1622. Fletcher, Beggar’s Bush, II., i. Each man shall eat his own
    stol’n eggs and shall possess what he can purchase—back or
    belly-cheats.

    1811. Lexicon Balatronicum. Belly-cheat, an apron.


Belly-Cheer or Belly-Chere, subs. (old).—Food. This term is of
considerable antiquity, as also is belly-cheering for eating and
drinking. For synonyms, see Grub.

    1559. Eliotes Dictionarie. Abdomini indulgere, to geve hym selfe to
    bealy-chere.

    1612. Rowlands, Knaves of Spades, etc. Gluttonie mounted on a
    greedie beare, To belly-cheere and banquets lends his care.

    1699. Coles, English Dictionary. Belly-cheer, Cibaria.


Belly-chere.—See Belly-cheer.


Belly-Chete.—See Belly-cheat.


Belly-Full, subs. (old).—1. A sound drubbing; a thrashing.

    1599. Nashe, Lenten Stuffe, in wks. V., 265. The churlish frampild
    waues gaue him his belly-full of fish broath.

    1605. Chapman, All Fooles, Act ii., p. 58 (Plays, 1874). Walk not
    too boldly; if the serjeants meet you, you may have swaggering work
    your belly-full.

    1666. Pepys, Diary, Oct. 28. He says that in the July fight, both
    the Prince and Holmes had their belly-fulls, and were fain to go
    aside.

    1835. Haliburton, Clockmaker, 3 S., ch. xvi. Bunker’s Hill, where,
    Mr. Slick observed, ‘the British first got a taste of what they
    afterwards got, a belly-full.’

2. A woman with child was also formerly said to have her
belly-full.—See Belly-up.


Belly-Furniture, subs. (old).—Food; something wherewith to furnish the
belly. Cf., Belly-timber, Back-timber, etc.

    1653. Urquhart, Rabelais, bk. I., ch. v. (Bohn’s), i., 110. Then
    did they fall upon the victuals, and some belly-furniture to be
    snatched at in the very same place.


Belly-go-Firster, subs. (pugilistic).—An initial blow, generally given,
say some authorities, in the stomach—whence its classic name!


Belly-Gut, subs. (old).—A lazy, greedy fellow.

    1540. Morysine, transl., Vives’ Introd. Wisd., viij. Such as be
    skoffers, swell feastes ... bely guts. [M.]

    1733. Bailey, Erasmus, p. 346. Since then thou would’st not have a
    belly-gut for thy servant, but rather one brisk and agile, why then
    dost thou provide for thyself a minister fat and unwieldy?


Belly-Guts, subs. (American schoolboys’).—1. In Pennsylvania, molasses
candy.

2. (American.)—Equivalent to belly-bumper (q.v.).


Belly-Hedges, subs. (Shrewsbury School).—In school steeple-chases,
obstructions of such a height that they can easily be cleared—i.e.,
about ‘belly-high.’


Belly-Piece, subs. (old).—1. An apron. Cf., Belly-cheat.

    1689. Shadwell, Bury Fair. If thou shoulds cry, it would make
    streaks down thy face; as the tears of the tankard do upon my fat
    host’s belly-pieces.

2. A mistress; a concubine; a whore.

    1630. Randolph, Jealous Lovers. Asot: Come, blush not, bashfull
    belly-piece—I will meet thee: I ever keep my word with a fair lady.
    I will requite that jewell with a richer.


Belly Plea, subs. (old).—A plea of pregnancy, generally adduced by
female felons capitally convicted. This they took care to provide for,
previous to trial; every gaol had, as the Beggars’ Opera informs us,
one or more child-getters, who qualified the ladies for that expedient.
The plea still holds good, execution of female convicts in ‘an
interesting condition’ being deferred until after accouchement. In
practice, it really means a commutation of the death penalty for life
imprisonment. All chances, however, of becoming enceinte after arrest
are sedulously guarded against by the rules of modern prison life.


Belly-Plumper, subs. (American).—See Belly-bumper.


Belly-Timber, subs. (old).—Food; provisions of all kinds. [From belly +
timber.] This, like many other words of its class (e.g., back-timber,
q.v.), was once in serious use, but for a long period it has been going
down hill, and it is now a thorough-going vulgarism, only surviving
dialectically, and as slang. Massinger and the older dramatists
employed it seriously; toward the end of the seventeenth century it
began to be used in a ludicrous and vulgar sense. Butler employs it
thus, and in Charles Cotton’s Scarronides (1678), the hero we are told—


    Lay thinking now his guts grew limber,
    How they might get more belly-timber.


For synonyms generally, see Grub.

    1614. Terence in English, Annona cara est. Corne is at a high
    price; victuals are deare; belly-timber is hard to come by.

    1637. Massinger, Guardian, III., iii.

    Ador. Haste you unto my villa, and take all provisions along with
    you....

    Car. Trust me for belly-timber.

    1663–78. S. Butler, Hudibras.

                 Through deserts vast,
        And regions desolate they pass’d,
        Where belly-timber, above ground
        Or under, was not to be found.

    1719. Poor Robin’s Almanack, Feb. On the 10th day of this month,
    being Shrove-Tuesday, is like to be a great innundation of
    belly-timber.

    1748. T. Dyche, Dictionary (5 ed.). Belly-timber (s.), all sorts of
    food.

    1820. Scott, Monastery, ch. xv. ‘Yonder comes the monkish retinue
    ... I hope a’gad, they have not forgotten my trunk-mails of apparel
    amid the ample provision they have made for their own
    belly-timber.’


Belly-Up, adv. phr. (old).—Applied to women when enceinte. From the
protrusion of the abdomen which takes place under such
circumstances.—See Belly-full.


Belly-Vengeance, subs. (common).—Sour beer, apt to cause gastralgia.
The French call this pissin de cheval, i.e., ‘horse urine.’ For
synonyms, see Swipes.


Belongings, subs. (colloquial).—1. Qualities; endowments; faculties.

2. Relations; one’s kindred.

3. One’s effects; or possessions. In sense 1 belongings has long been
an accepted word; senses 2 and 3 are given by Annandale as ‘colloquial
and vulgar.’

    1852. Dickens, Bleak House. I have been trouble enough to my
    belongings in my day.

    1866. Saturday Review, 24 Feb., p. 244, col. 2. The rich uncle
    whose mission is to bring prosperity to his belongings. [M.]

4. (American.)—Used by the prudishly inclined for trousers.—See Bags.


Below the Belt, adv. phr. (popular).—To strike a man below the belt is
to hit him unfairly, a term derived from the pugilistic arena. Hence,
underhand dealing, and the taking of mean advantage generally. It is
akin with ‘To stab a man in the back.’


Belswagger, subs. (old).—1. A lewd man; a whoremaster; a pimp. [Thought
to be a contracted form of belly + swagger, i.e., a man given up to
bodily pleasure. Ash has both forms.]

    1775. Ash, Dictionary. Belswagger, a whoremaster.

2. A bully; a hectoring fellow. This is the older, but least important
usage.

    1592. Greene, Defence of Coney-Catching. ... the belswaggers of the
    country.

    1785. Grose, Dictionary of the Vulgar Tongue. Bellswagger, a noisy,
    bullying fellow.


Beltinker, subs. and verb (common).—A beating; a drubbing. To thrash;
to beat soundly.—For synonyms, see Tan.


Bemused, ppl. adj. (common).—Fuddled; as in the stupid stage of
drunkenness. [From be + muse + ed, originally to be sunk in reverie, or
contemplation.] The expression as generally used now is bemused with
beer. This phrase, originally used by Pope, was given a new impetus by
G. A. Sala (in Gaslight and Daylight). In America, especially, it
caught the popular fancy and ran a brief but riotous course throughout
the Union to signify one who addicted himself to ‘soaking’ with beer.
The transatlantic usage naturally reacted upon the Mother Country, and
from being occasionally employed it became much more popular, and was
heard on all sides—a striking instance of ‘fashion in words.’

    1735. Pope, Prol. Sat., 15. A parson much be-mus’d in beer.

    1854. Whyte Melville, General Bounce, ch. viii. A fat little man,
    primed with port, but who, when not thus bemused, is an influential
    member of his committee.

    1883. R. L. Stevenson, The Treasure of Franchard, ch. iv., in
    Longman’s Mag., April, p. 694. So while the Doctor made himself
    drunk with words, the adopted stable-boy bemused himself with
    silence.

For synonyms generally, see Screwed.


Ben, subs. (theatrical).—1. A benefit; a performance of which the
receipts, after paying expenses, are devoted to one person’s special
use or benefit.

    1872. Miss Braddon, Dead Sea Fruit, I., 190. ‘I have played clown
    for my ben,’ murmured the great Dr. Mortemas.

    1880. G. R. Sims, Ballads of Babylon (Forgotten). You saw me as
    Hamlet, Charley, the night that I had my ben.

2. (old cant.)—A fool.—Grose.—See Benish.

3. (common.)—A shortened form of Benjamin (q.v.), a coat; also of benjy
(q.v.), a waistcoat.

    1876. C. Hindley, Life and Adventures of a Cheap Jack, p. 252.
    Being at Hailsham, a small market town in Sussex, about the year
    1846, I attended the club feast, which was held on the common. At
    that time we used to buy men’s waistcoats of Michael Riley, of
    Manchester, at £5 per gross, and sell them at 1s. 6d., 1s. 3d., and
    the lowest price at a shilling each. I had a bale containing twelve
    dozen arrive that morning, they were red ones; and in offering
    these bens, the plan was to put them on to show how well they
    fitted.

To stand ben (popular).—To stand treat.


Benar.—See Bene.


Benbouse, subs. (old cant).—Good beer. [From the Latin bene = good +
bouse or booze.]

    1567. Harman, Caveat (1869), p. 85. The vpright cofe canteth to the
    Roge: ‘I saye by the Salomon I will lage it of with a gage of
    benebouse; then cut to my nose watch.’ [‘I sweare by the masse, I
    wull washe it of with a quart of good drynke; then saye to me what
    thou wylt.’]

    1622. John Fletcher, Beggar’s Bush.

        I crown thy nab with a gag of benbouse,
        And stall thee by the salmon into clowes,
        To maund on the pad and strike all the cheats,
        To mill from the Ruffmans, and commission and slates.
        Twang dell’s, i’ the stiromel, and let the quire cuffin
        And Herman Beck strine and trine to the Ruffin!

    i.e.,

        I poure on thy pate a pot of good ale,
        And by the Rogue’s oath, a Rogue the install,
        To beg on the way and rob all thou meets,
        To steal from the hedge both the shirt and the sheets,
        And lie with thy wench in the straw till she twang,
        Let the Constable, Justice, and Devil go hang!


Bencher, subs. (old).—A frequenter of taverns; one who hulks about
public houses; perhaps with an allusion to the Benchers of the Inns of
Court.


Ben Cull or Cove, subs. (thieves’).—A friend; a ‘pall’; a companion.
[From old cant bene or ben, good + cull, a man.] For synonyms, see
Cove.


Bend, verb (Scotch).—To tipple; to drink hard. Jamieson, the first
lexicographer to draw attention to the word in its slang sense,
illustrates his example by quotations from Alan Ramsay. Murray suggests
that it is derived from that sense of to bend, signifying ‘to pull,’
‘to strain,’ ‘to apply oneself.’

    1758. A. Ramsay, Poems (1800), I., 215. Brawtippony ... which we
    with greed bended, as fast as she could brew. Ibid, ii., 73. To
    bend wi’ ye, and spend wi’ ye, an evening, and gaffaw. [1860.
    Ramsay, Remin., Ser. 1 (ed. 7), 47. Bend weel to the Madeira at
    dinner, for here ye’ll get little o’t after.]

Above one’s bend, phr. (common).—Above one’s ability, power or
capacity; or out of one’s reach. Probably a corruption of ‘above one’s
bent.’ Shakspeare puts the expression in the mouth of Hamlet, ‘to the
top of my bent’ (iii., 2). In the Southern States [U.S.A.], its place
is generally taken by above my huckleberry (q.v.). An English
equivalent is ‘above one’s hook.’

    1848. J. F. Cooper, The Oak Openings. It would be above my bend to
    attempt telling you all we saw among the red skins.

Grecian bend (popular).—A craze amongst women which had a vogue from
about 1872 to 1880. It consisted in walking with the body bent forward.

    1876. Chambers’ Journal, No. 629. Your own advocacy for the Grecian
    bend and the Alexandra limp—both positive and practical imitations
    of physical affliction.

On the bend, phr. (common).—In an underhand, oblique, or crooked
way—not ‘on the square.’

    1863. J. C. Jeaffreson, Live It Down, II., 152. I never have paid
    anything yet on the square, and I never will. When I die, I’ll
    order my executor to buy my coffin off the square. He shall get it
    on the bend somehow or other.


Bender, subs. (popular).—1. A sixpence. Thought to be an allusion to
the ease with which these coins were liable to be bent in use. At one
time the currency was not of such good quality as now.

    1789. Geo. Parker, Life’s Painter, p. 178. Sixpence. A bender.

    1836. Dickens, Pickwick, ch. xlii., p. 367. ‘Will you take three
    bob?’ ‘And a bender,’ suggested the clerical gentleman.... ‘What do
    you say, now? We’ll pay you out for three-and-sixpence a week.
    Come!’

    1869. Whyte Melville, M. or N., p. 66. A ragged boy established, at
    the crossing, who had indeed rendered himself conspicuous by his
    endeavours to ferry Puckers over dry-shod, was accosted by a
    shabby-genteel and remarkably good-looking man, in the following
    vernacular—‘On this minnit, off at six, Buster; two bob an’ a
    bender, and a three of eye-water, in?’ ‘Done for another joey,’
    replied Buster, with the premature acuteness of youth foraging for
    itself in the streets of London.

Among synonymous terms for this coin may be mentioned cripple; bandy;
crookback; downer; fyebuck; lord of the manor; tanner; sprat; kick;
half a borde; tizzy.

2. (Scotch.)—A hard and persistent drinker; a tippler. This should be
compared with bend.

    1728. Ramsay, Poems (1848), III., 162. Now lend your lugs, ye
    benders fine, wha ken the benefit of wine.

    1810. Tannahill, Poems (1846), 53. Or benders, blest your wizzens
    weetin’.

3. (public schools’.)—In public school phraseology a bender is a stroke
of the cane administered by the master while the culprit bends down his
back.

4. (common.)—The arm. In connection with this see the following, and
for synonyms, see Chalk Farm.

5. (American.)—A drinking bout or spree, in the course of which, to use
another slang expression, ‘the town is painted red,’ and the
participants decidedly unbent. This is possibly derived from any one of
the three following sources:—(1) from the Scotch usage; (2) from the
facetious name given to the arm, which becomes a bender from being so
frequently bent or ‘crooked’ to lift the glass to the mouth; (3) from
the Dutch bende, an assembly, party, or band.

    1854. Putnam’s Monthly, Aug.

        I met her at the Chinese room;
          She wore a wreath of roses,
        She walked in beauty like the night,
          Her breath was like sweet posies.
        I led her through the festal hall,
          Her glance was soft and tender;
        She whispered gently in my ear,
          ‘Say, Mose, ain’t this a bender?’

    1864. Richmond Dispatch, 3 Jan. ‘Most of the owners of these names
    had been tempted by the festivities of the day to go on a regular
    bender, and had to pay the penalty for their New Year’s frolic by
    appearing this morning in the police-court.’

    1888. Detroit Free Press, 4 Aug. He was a character noted for going
    on frequent benders until he came very near having the jimjams and
    then sobering up.

6. (American.)—A euphemism employed by the squeamishly inclined for the
leg. A similar piece of prudishness is displayed in an analogous use of
‘limb.’ With a notorious mock-modesty American women decline to call a
leg a leg; they call it a limb instead. This tendency is the more
remarkable when the great freedom extended to American girls and women
is borne in mind; unless, indeed, it arises from guilty knowledge.
White, who, perhaps, was rather given to excessive incisiveness of
speech, remarked that perhaps such persons think that it is indelicate
for women to have legs, and that therefore they are concealed by
garments, and should be concealed in speech. Professor Geikie, during
one of his Canadian tours, also found out that both sexes had limbs of
some sort; the difficulty was to discover whether they were used to
stand on or to hold by. Sensible people everywhere, however, have
little part in such prudery.

    1849. Longfellow, Kavanagh. Young ladies are not allowed to cross
    their benders in school.

7. (schoolboys’.)—The bow-shaped segment of a paper kite.

    1873. Dr. Blackley, Hay Fever, p. 145. The first kite was six feet
    in length by three feet in width, and was made of the usual form,
    namely, with a central shaft or ‘standard,’ and a semi-circular top
    or bender.

Over the bender, phr. (common).—A variant of ‘over the left shoulder’;
the connection between bender, a slang term for the arm, and the
shoulder is sufficiently apparent. There are many analogous
expressions, which see under Over the left.

Intj.—An exclamation of incredulity; also used as a kind of saving
clause to a promise which the speaker does not intend to carry into
effect. Probably an abbreviated form of over the bender.


Bendigo, subs. (common).—A rough fur cap named after a notorious
pugilist.


Bend Over, intj. (Winchester College).—A direction to put oneself into
position to receive a ‘spanking.’ This is done by bending over so that
the tips of the fingers extend towards the toes, thus presenting a
surface as tight as a drum on the part to be castigated.


Bene, Ben, adj. (old cant).—Good. This belongs to the most ancient
English cant, and is probably a corruption from the Latin. Benar and
benat appear to have been used as comparatives of bene.—(See quots.)

    1567. Harman, Caveat (1869), p, 86. What, stowe your bene, cofe,
    and sut benat whydds, and byng we to rome vyle to nyp a bong. [i.e.
    What, hold your peace good fellow and speak better words, and let
    us go to London to cut, or steal a purse.]

    1610. Rowlands, Martin Mark-all, p. 37 (H. Club’s Repr., 1874).
    Ben, good.

    1611. Thomas Middleton and Thomas Dekker, The Roaring Girl or Moll
    Cut Purse.

        A gage of ben Rom-bouse,
        In a bousing ken of Rom-vile

        Is benar than a Caster, Peck, pennam, lay
        Or popler.

    i.e.,

        A quart pot of good wine
        In a drinking house of London
        Is better than a cloak, meat, bread, butter milk (?) or
        porridge.

    1714. Memoirs of John Hall (4 ed.), p. 11, list of cant words in.
    Bien, good.

    1858. A. Mayhew, Paved with Gold, bk. III., ch. iii., p. 265. ‘I’ve
    brought a couple of bene coves, with lots of the Queen’s pictures
    in their sacks’ [pockets].

Subs. (old cant).—‘Stowe your bene,’ i.e., ‘hold your tongue.’ See
quotation above from Harman’s Caveat.


Bene-Bouze.—See Benbouse.


Bene-Cove.—See Ben-cull.


Bene Darkmans! intj. (old cant).—Good night! French thieves say
sorgabon, an inversion of bonne sorgue.


Benedick, subs. (familiar).—1. A sportive name for a newly-married man;
especially one who has long been a bachelor. Apparently, however, there
is some confusion in the usage (see sense 2). The name was derived from
Shakspeare’s character in Much Ado About Nothing.

    1599. Shakspeare, Much Ado About Nothing, v., 4, 100. Don Pedro.
    How dost thou, benedick, the married man?

    1805. Rev. J. Marriott, in C. K. Sharpe’s Correspondence (1888),
    I., 239. From what I have seen of his lordship, both as a bachelor
    and as a benedick.

2. A bachelor. Cf., foregoing.

    1843. Life in the West. He is no longer a benedic, but a quiet
    married man.

    1856. C. Bronté, Professor, ch. xxiv. ‘Are you married, Mr.
    Hunsden?’ asked Frances, suddenly.

    ‘No. I should have thought you might have guessed I was a benedick
    by my look.’


Bene Feakers, subs. (cant).—Counterfeiters of bills.—Grose.


Bene Feakers of Gybes, subs. phr. (cant).—Counterfeiters of
passes.—Grose.


Bene or Bien Mort, subs. (old cant).—A fine woman; a pretty girl; a
hostess. [From bene, old cant for ‘good,’ + mort, a canting term for a
woman.]

    1567. Harman, Caveat, p. 85 (ed. 1869). A bene mort hereby at the
    sign of the prauncer. [i.e., The Horse.]

    1671. Richard Head, The English Rogue.

        Bing out, bien morts, and ture and ture,
          Bing out, bien morts, and toure;
        For all your duds are bing’d awast,
          The bien cove hath the loure.

    i.e.,

        Go forth, brave girls: look out, look out,
          Look out, I say, good maids,
        For all your clothes are stole, I doubt,
          And shar’d among the blades.

    1822. Scott, Fortunes of Nigel, ch. xvii. ‘Tour out,’ said the one
    ruffian to the other; ‘tour the bien mort twiring at the gentry
    cove.’

    1823. Scott, Peveril of the Peak, ch. xxxvi. Why the bien morts
    will think you a chimney-sweeper on May-day.

    1881. New York Slang Dictionary. [See first stanza of canting song
    on page 80 ante.]


Beneship.—See Benship.

    1567. Harman, Caveat (1869), p. 86. The vpright man canteth to the
    Roge. Man! ‘That is beneshyp to our watche.’ [That is very good for
    vs.]


Beneshiply, adv. (old cant).—Worshipfully.—Grose.


Ben-Flake, subs. (thieves’).—A steak.


Bengal Tigers, subs. (military).—The Seventeenth Foot; so nicknamed
from its badge of a royal tiger granted for services in India from
1804–1823. Also called ‘The Lily-Whites’ from its facings.

    1874. Chambers’ Journal, p. 801. The 17th ... the Bengal Tigers,
    from their badge—a tiger.


Bengi, subs. (military).—An onion.


Bengy.—See Benjy.


Benish, adj. (old cant.)—Foolish.—See Ben, sense 2.


Benjamin, subs. (Winchester College).—1. A small ruler.

2. (thieves’.)—A coat. It is said to have been derived from a
well-known London advertising tailor of the same name. Formerly this
garment was called a Joseph, but for synonyms, see Capella. An upper
Benjamin = a great coat.

    1815. T. Peacock, Nightmare Abbey, p. 159. His heart is seen to
    beat through his upper Benjamin. [M.]

    1836. M. Scott, Tom Cringle’s Log, ch. ii. Benjamins, and
    great-coats, and cloaks of all sorts and sizes.

    1851. G. Borrow, Lavengro, ch. lix., p. 181 (1888). The coachman
    ... with narrow-rimmed hat and fashionable Benjamin.

    1865. Pall Mall Gazette, 7 March, p. 3, col. 2. [Quoting East-end
    slang.]


Ben Joltram, subs. (provincial).—Brown bread and skimmed milk; a
Norfolk term for a ploughboy’s breakfast.—Hotten.


Benjy, subs. (nautical).—1. A low crowned straw hat having a very broad
brim.

    1883. W. Clark Russell, Sailors’ Language, p. 14. Benjie, the name
    of a straw hat worn by sailors.

2. (common.)—A waistcoat. Also ben (q.v.). For synonyms, see Fan.

    1821. D. Haggart, Life, Glossary, p. 171. Benjy, a vest.


Bens, subs. (American).—A workman’s slang term for his tools. In
England called alls.


Benship or Beenship, subs. (old cant).—Worship; goodness. This word,
evidently from beneship (q.v.), is given by Bailey in his Dictionary
[1728], and by Coles in 1724.

Adv. (old cant).—Very good.

    1567. Harman, Caveat (1814), p. 65. Benship, very good.

    1610. Rowlands, Martin Mark-all, p. 37 (H. Club’s Repr.). Benship,
    very good.

    1665. R. Head, English Rogue, pt. I., ch. v., p. 47 (1874).
    Benshiply, very well.


Beong, subs. (thieves’ and costermongers’).—A shilling. [From Italian
bianco, white; also the name of a silver coin.] For full list of
synonyms, see Deaner.


Beray, verb (old cant).—To defile; to befoul; to abuse.


Berkeleys, subs. (common).—A woman’s breasts. [It may be noted that in
the gypsy, berk, or burk = breast; plural, berkia.] For synonyms, see
Dairies.


Bermudas, subs. (old).—A district in London, similar to Alsatia in
Whitefriars (q.v.), and the Mint in Southwark, privileged against
arrests. The Bermudas are thought to have been certain narrow and
obscure alleys and passages north of the Strand, near Covent Garden,
and contiguous to Drury Lane; see, however, the second quotation where
the Mint would seem to be indicated.

    1616. Jonson, Devil’s an Ass, II., 1. Meercraft. Engine, when did
    you see my cousin Everhill? keeps he still your quarter in the
    Bermudas? Eng. Yes, sir, he was writing this morning very hard.

    1839. Harrison Ainsworth, Jack Sheppard, p. 12. In short, every
    contrivance that ingenuity could devise was resorted to by this
    horde of reprobates to secure themselves from danger or
    molestation. Whitefriars had lost its privileges; Salisbury Court
    and the Savoy no longer offered places of refuge to the debtor; and
    it was, therefore, doubly requisite that the Island of the Bermuda
    (as the Mint was termed by its occupants) should uphold its rights,
    as long as it was able to do so.

As regards the derivation of the name, Nares suggests it in the actual
practice, which obtained of debtors fleeing to the Bermuda Islands,
when first discovered, to elude their creditors. This fact is alluded
to in the following. Cf., second quotation already given.

    1616. Jonson, Devil’s an Ass, III., 3. There’s an old debt of
    forty, I ga’ my word. For one is run away to the Bermudas.


Berthas, subs. (Stock Exchange).—The nickname in the ‘House’ and among
brokers for the ordinary stock of the London, Brighton and South Coast
Railway Company.

    1889. The Rialto, Mar. 23. The week opened very badly on the Stock
    Exchange, and two or three days of utter stagnation followed, but
    yesterday afternoon a revival took place, which was quite dramatic
    in its suddenness and vigour. Between two o’clock and the closing
    of the doors at four o’clock, advances were made ranging from 2½ in
    Berthas to an average of 1 in Americans. Tintos climbed to 12¼, and
    even Kaffirs raised their sickly heads. All the little bulls went
    home happier than they have been for three weeks.


Berwicks, subs. (Stock Exchange).—The ordinary stock of the North
Eastern Railway.


Bespeak-Night, subs. (theatrical).—A benefit.—See Ben.


Bess.—See Betty.


Bess-o’-Bedlam, subs. (old).—A lunatic vagrant.

    1821. Scott, Kenilworth, ch. xxvi. ‘Why, what Bess of Bedlam is
    this, would ask to see my lord on such a day as the present?’


Best. To best one, verb (common).—1. To obtain an advantage; to secure
a superior position in a contest or bargain. The meaning of to best,
therefore, is really ‘to worst.’ In this sense, not necessarily to
cheat.—See sense 2.

    1863. Trafford, World in Ch., II., 77. As I am a staunch Churchman
    I cannot stand quiet and see the Dissenters best the Establishment.
    [M.]

    1876. C. Hindley, Life and Adventures of a Cheap Jack, p. 69. Bob
    was a good salesman, but of bad temper, who if he could not get rid
    of any unruly fellow by his chaffing him, would invariably turn to
    Perdue and say, ‘Look at this man; I shan’t bother with him, why
    don’t you get him away? He’s interrupting me and the business. I
    can’t jolly him down, so you must settle and do away with him, or I
    must “dry up,” for the fellow’s bested me.’

    c. 1879. Hawley Smart, From Post to Finish, p. 92. His intimates
    were wont to say there was no trusting Cuddie Elliston, while, as
    for Sam Pearson, it was a current saying that ‘No one had ever
    bested him.’ Still, Yorkshire has a certain respect for this
    faculty; and though Pearson was regarded as a man who carried it
    rather far, and would have skinned his own brother upon occasion,
    yet public opinion did not get much further regarding him than that
    ‘Lawyer Pearson knew his away about; and you’d to get up main early
    in the morning to get a point the best of him.’

    1883. Graphic, Feb. 24, p. 191, col. 1. So there are people who
    will not scruple to best a railway company, who would be loth to
    wrong a private person.

2. Sometimes, however, passing the ill-defined border line between
sharp practice and down-right roguery, to best is an equivalent of to
cheat; to swindle.

    1876. C. Hindley, Life and Adventures of a Cheap Jack, p. 234. His
    game was besting everybody, whether it was for pounds, shillings,
    or pence. At one time he cheated a poor farming man out of his
    milch cow in exchange for another. The man was in liquor at the
    time, and when he came to his senses he went right away to another
    part of the country, and his poor wife took it so to heart that she
    died shortly afterwards.

    1879. Horsley, in Macmillan’s Magazine, Oct. When I went to the
    fence he bested (cheated) me because I was drunk, and only gave me
    £8 10s. for the lot. So the next day I went to him and asked him if
    he was not going to grease my duke (put money into my hand). So he
    said, ‘No.’ Then he said, ‘I will give you another half-a-quid’;
    and said, ‘Do anybody, but mind they don’t do you.’ So I thought to
    myself, ‘All right, my lad; you will find me as good as my master,’
    and left him.

    1885. May, in Fortnightly Review, Oct., p. 578. The quack broker
    who piles up money by besting his clients. [M.]


To give one best (thieves’).—To leave one; to sever companionship.

    1879. Horsley, in Macmillan’s Mag., Oct. While using one of those
    places [concerts], I first met a sparring bloke (pugilist), who
    taught me how to spar, and showed me the way to put my dukes up.
    But after a time I gave him best (left him) because he used to want
    to bite my ear (borrow) too often.


Bester, subs. (common).—A cheat; a swindler.—See Best, sense 2.
Generally applied to a turf or gaming blackleg.

    1851. H. Mayhew, Lon. Lab. and Lon. Poor, IV., 24. Those who cheat
    the Public ... ‘Bouncers and Besters’ defrauding, by laying wagers,
    swaggering, or using threats.

    1885. Evening News, 21 September, 4, 1. The complainant called her
    father a liar, ‘a bester and a crawler.’


Besting the Pistol, phr. (pedestrian).—To get away before the signal
for starting is actually given. [From besting, gaining an advantage, +
pistol, the firing of which is the signal to ‘Go!’]

    1889. Polytechnic Magazine, July 7, p. 330. The third man from
    scratch was evidently in too great a hurry; twice he tried to best
    the pistol, and as often the whole start had to be made afresh.


Bet. You bet! intj. (American).—You may depend on it; you may be sure;
certainly! be assured! Originally a Californian phrase tacked on to an
assertion to give it additional emphasis. So popular is the expression
that it has been given as a name in the form of Ubet to a town in the
Canadian Northwest. Oftentimes it is amplified into ‘you bet your
boots,’ ‘life,’ ‘bottom dollar,’ and so on. The two former were used in
New York and Boston as far back as 1840.

    c. 1882. Stavely Hill, From Home to Home. We reached the settlement
    of Ubet. The name had been selected from the slang phrase so
    laconically expressive of ‘You may be sure I will’.... A night
    marauder took advantage of a good moon to place a ladder against a
    window, hoping to secure the property of a gentleman asleep within
    the chamber. As he lifted the window, and put his head in, the
    gentleman woke up, and with great promptness presented his
    six-shooter, shouting out ‘You get!’ With equal promptness the
    detected thief exclaimed you bet! and slid down the ladder,—et
    procul in tenuem ex oculis evanuit auram.

    1870. Bret Harte, Poems, etc., The Tale of a Pony: Ah, here comes
    Rosey’s new turn-out! Smart! You bet your life ’twas that!

    1872. S. Clemens (‘Mark Twain’), Roughing It, ch. ii. ‘The
    mosquitoes are pretty bad about here, madam!’ ‘You bet!’ ‘What did
    I understand you to say, madam?’ ‘You bet!’

    1888. Daily Inter-Ocean, Mar. 7. Congressional Report. Mr.
    Boutelle—That is the bravery to which you refer? (Applause on the
    Republican side.) Mr. O’Ferrall—Well, sir, it is the right kind of
    bravery: you may bet your bottom dollar on that.

(American.)—To bet one’s eyes is a gambler’s term for an onlooker who
neither takes part in, nor bets upon the game.


Bethel, verb.—See quotation.

    1740. North, Examen, p. 93. In the year 1680 Bethel and Cornish
    were chosen sheriffs. The former used to walk about more like a
    corn-cutter than Sheriff of London. He kept no house, but lived
    upon chops, whence it is proverbial for not feasting to bethel the
    city.


Be There, verbal phr. (common).—To be there is to be on the qui vive;
alive; knowing; in one’s element.


Better, adv. (vulgar).—More; without any idea of superiority. A
depraved word; once in good usage, but now regarded as a vulgarism.

    1587. Fleming, Cont. Holinshed, III., p. 1382, col. 2. Woorth one
    hundred and twentie pounds and better. [M.]

    1679. Plot, Staffordshire (1686), p. 239. The bodies ... being
    better than an inch long. [M.]

    1769. Gray, in N. Nichols’ Corr. (1843), p. 87. It is better than
    three weeks since I wrote to you. [M.]

    1851. G. Borrow, Lavengro, ch. lxx., p. 217 (1888). Following its
    windings for somewhat better than a furlong.

    1854. Ainsworth, Flitch of Bacon, pt. I., ch. v. ‘Pastor of Little
    Dunmow Church for fifty years and better.’

    1857. Dickens, Dorrit, bk. I., ch. x., 75. ‘Yes. Rather better than
    twelve years ago.’

    1860. Dickens, Xmas Stories (Mess. from Sea), p. 89 (H. ed.). ‘He
    shipped for his last voyage better than three years ago.’


Better Half, subs. (colloquial).—humorous term for a wife. The history
of the phrase is thus given by Murray, ‘originally my better half,
i.e., the more than half of my being; said of a very close and intimate
friend’; (Cf., ‘the better part of me’ Shaks.; ‘meæ partem animæ,’
‘animæ dimidium meæ,’ Horace; ‘animæ partem ... nostra majorem’
Statius); especially (after Sidney) used for ‘my husband’ or ‘wife’;
now, jocularly appropriated to the latter. Formerly also applied to the
soul, as the better part of man.

    1580. Sidney, Arcadia, III., 280. [Argalus to Parthenia, his wife.]
    My deare, my better halfe (sayd hee), I find I must now leaue thee.
    [M.]

    Circa 1600. Shakspeare, Sonnets, xxxix., 2.

        O how thy worth with manners may I sing,
          When thou art all the better part of me?
        What can mine own praise to mine own self bring?
          And what is’t but mine own when I praise thee.

    1720. Sheffield (Duke of Buckingham), wks. (1753) I., 274. My dear
    and better half is out of danger. [M.]

    1842. Theodore Martin, in Fraser’s Magazine, Dec., p. 241, col. 2.
    I ... shall look out for a better half. [M.]


Betting Round, ppl. adj. (racing).—Laying fairly and equally against
nearly all the horses in a race, so that no great risk can be run.
Commonly called getting round.—Hotten.


Bettor Round, subs. (racing).—One who is addicted to betting round
(q.v.).

    1882. ‘Thormanby,’ Famous Racing Men, p. 75. He [John Gully] worked
    on gradually as a layer of odds—a ‘bettor round,’ or ‘leg,’ as he
    was called in those days. [c. 1820.]


Betty or Bess, subs. (old).—A small instrument used formerly by
burglars to force open doors and pick locks. Now called a jenny; also
jemmy; tivvil; twist; or screw. For synonyms, see Thieves, etc.

    1671. R. Head, English Rogue, pt. I., ch. v., p. 47 (1874). Betty,
    an instrument to break a door.

    1705. Ward, Hudibras Redivivus. vol. II., pt. IX., p. 7.

        So Ruffains, who, with Crows and Betties,
        Break Houses, when it dark and late is.

    1785. Grose, Dictionary of the Vulgar Tongue. Bring bess and glym;
    i.e., bring the instrument to force the door, and the dark
    lanthorn.

    1851. H. Mayhew, Lon. Lab. and Lon. Poor, IV., 339. Expert burglars
    are generally equipped with good tools. They have a jemmy, a
    cutter, a dozen of betties, better known as picklocks.

Verb (colloquial).—To potter about; to fuss about. Usually said of a
man assuming the domestic functions of a woman.

All betty! intj. (thieves’).—cry of warning; ‘it’s all up; the game is
lost!’


Betty Martin.—See All my eye.


Betwattled, ppl. adj. (old).—Surprised; confounded; out of one’s
senses; also bewrayed.—Grose.


Between You and Me and the Bedpost.—See Bedpost.


Bever, Bevir, Bœver, subs. (Eton, Winchester, and Westminster
Colleges).—An afternoon meal served in hall. An old time term for a
repast or snack between meals, especially in the afternoon; it is still
dialectical in some parts of England. Murray gives examples of its use
dating back to 1500.

    1870. Mansfield, School-Life at Winchester College, p. 83. In
    summer time we were let out of afternoon school for a short time
    about four p.m., when there was a slight refection of bread and
    cheese laid out in Hall. It was called beever-time, and the pieces
    of bread beevers.

    1884. M. Morris, in English Illustrated Magazine, Nov., p. 73. [At
    Eton, we] came up from cricket in the summer afternoons for beaver.


Beverage or Bevy, subs. (old).—A tip; a vail; equivalent to the French
pourboire; money for drink, demanded, says Grose [1785], of any one
having a new suit of clothes. For synonyms, see Tip.


Beware, subs. (theatrical).—Explained by quotation.

    1851–61. H. Mayhew, London Labour and London Poor, vol. III., p.
    149. ‘We [strolling actors] call breakfast, dinner, tea, supper,
    all of them “numyare”; and all beer, brandy, water, or soup, are
    beware.’


B Flats, subs. (common).—Bugs. Cf., F sharps, and for synonyms, see
Norfolk Howards.

    1866. Dickens, Household Words, xx., 326. Mrs. B. beheld one night
    a stout negro of the flat-back tribe—known among comic writers as b
    flats—stealing up towards the head of the bed.

    1868. Brewer, Phrase and Fable, s.v. B flats.—Bugs. The pun is ‘B’
    (the initial letter), and ‘flat,’ from the flatness of the
    obnoxious insect.


Bib. To nap a bib, or one’s bib, phr. (popular).—To weep; to ‘blubber’;
to ‘snivel.’

French Synonyms. Lâcher les écluses (popular: ‘to let loose the
floodgates’; the phrase also means ‘to void urine’); pisser des yeux
(common: ‘to urinate with the eyes’); pleuvoir des châsses (thieves’:
pleuvoir = ‘to rain’; in military slang to void urine; châsse = eye);
verver (thieves’: a corrupted form of verser, ‘to pour out,’ to shed);
viauper (popular: this argotic verb also means ‘to go molrowing’ or ‘to
lead a dissolute life’); chasser des reluits (popular: chasser = ‘to
expel,’ ‘to drive out’; reluits = ‘the eyes,’ or ‘ogles’); chier des
châsses (popular: a coarse term); chigner (popular); baver des clignots
(popular: literally ‘to drivel, slaver’ or ‘slobber the eyes’—cligner
signifying ‘to wink’ or ‘blink’; hence clignots, ‘the blinkers’ or
‘winkers’); beugler (popular: properly ‘to bellow’ [like a bull]).

German Synonyms. Echen eichen (from the Hebrew echa, the first word in
the Lamentations of Jeremiah); flonen, phlonen, flannen, flaussen, or
flennen (to pull one’s mouth awry, either for laughing or crying, but
among German thieves mainly in the former sense); jalen jaulen, or
jolen machen (from the Hebrew jolal, whining; ‘to howl,’ to whine).

Italian Synonyms. Trignare (this also signifies to ‘rain’: Cf., the
French, pleuvoir des châsses); slenzare or slenzire (also ‘to urinate’:
Cf., French, lâcher les écluses); ventare (the primary slang sense of
ventare is ‘to moisten,’ hence ‘to shed tears’: properly ‘to blow,’ ‘to
be windy’); lenzare or lenzire (primarily, in a slang sense, ‘to soak,’
‘to wet’; from this the meaning is transferred to signify ‘to make
water,’ i.e., ‘to urinate,’ and also ‘to shed tears’: the word is
properly written l’ance; the derivation will be found under the French
synonyms for Adam’s ale, q.v.).

In Spanish there is one expression for ‘to cry’ which is full of
poetry—fabricar las perlas, i.e., ‘to make pearls.’ Arabs likewise
speak of tears as ‘pearls on the face.’


Bibables or Bibibles, subs. (American).—Drink, as distinguished from
food. [A coinage on the model of ‘edibles,’ ‘eatables,’ ‘drinkables,’
etc.; from Latin bib-ĕre, to drink, + able, i.e., able to be drunk.]

    1860. William Howard Russell (Special Correspondent of the Times),
    My Diary in India in the years 1858–9, I., p. 8. Could all the
    pale-ale, soda-water, sherry, porter, and vin ordinaire, and the
    feebler bibables be turned into nectar, etc.

    1860. Pittsburg Despatch, Aug. The table was loaded and spread with
    edibles and bibibles of every possible kind. [de v.]


Bib-All-Night, subs. (old).—A toper; a confirmed drunkard. [From
bib-ĕre, to drink, + all-night.]

    1612. Sylvester, Lacrymæ Lacrymaram, p. 101. Bats, Harpies, Syrens,
    Centaurs, Bib-all-nights.


Bible, subs. (nautical).—See quotations.

    1867. Admiral Smyth, Sailors’ Word Book. Bible, a hand-axe; a small
    holy-stone [a kind of sand-stone used in cleaning decks], so called
    from seamen using them kneeling.

    1883. W. Clark Russell, Sailors’ Language, p. 14. Bibles. Small
    holy-stones, no doubt originally so called because they oblige
    those who use them to kneel. They are also termed ‘prayer books’
    for the same reason.

That’s bible, phr. (common).—That’s the truth; that’s A 1.


Bible-Carrier, subs. (vagrants’).—A person who sell songs without
singing them. Often heard in the neighbourhood of Seven Dials.


Bible-Clerk, subs. (Winchester College).—A College prefect in full
power, appointed for one week. He keeps order in school, reads the
lessons in chapel, takes round rolls (q.v.), and assists at floggings.
He is absolved from going up to books (q.v.) during his term of office.
The prefect of Hall need not act as Bible-clerk unless he likes, and
the prefect of School may choose any week he pleases; the rest take
weeks in rotation, in the order of their Chambers in College.—See
Bibler and Bibling.

    1864. Blackwood’s Magazine, vol. XCV., p. 73. [At dinner] portions
    of beef were served out to the boys ... the Bible-clerk meanwhile
    reading a chapter from the Old Testament. Ibid, p. 87. An hour ...
    is expected to be employed in working under the superintendence of
    the Bible-Clerk, as the præfect in daily ‘course’ is termed, who is
    responsible for a decent amount of order and silence at these
    hours.

    1870. Mansfield, School-Life at Winchester College, p. 103. Order
    was kept during school hours by the Bible-clerk and Ostiarus, two
    of the Præfects, who held these offices in rotation—the former
    lasting for a week, the latter for one day only. They paraded
    School armed with sticks, and brought up to the Head and Second
    Masters (who alone had the power of flogging) the names of the
    delinquents which had been ‘ordered’ for punishment; the names of
    the more heinous offenders being confided to the Bible-clerk, the
    others to the Ostiarus.

    1878. Adams, Wykehamica, p. 59. There appears to have been no
    regular Bible-clerk.... From this it has been inferred that the
    institution of these offices must have been subsequent, and (some
    think) long subsequent to the Founder’s time.


Bible-Pounder, subs. (common).—A clergyman. [From bible + pounder, from
the practice indulged in by some excitable exponents, of pounding or
beating their hands upon the book or desk while preaching.] For
synonyms, see Devil-dodger.


Bibler, subs. (Winchester College).—Now called bibling (q.v.).

    1870. Mansfield, School-Life at Winchester College, p. 109. The
    first time a boy’s name was ordered, the punishment was remitted on
    his pleading ‘Primum tempus.’ For a more serious breach of duty, a
    flogging of six cuts (a bibler) was administered, in which case the
    culprit had to ‘order his name to the Bible-clerk,’ and that
    individual, with the help of Ostiarius, performed the office of
    Jack Ketch.


Bibler Under Nail, subs. phr. (Winchester College).—See Bibling under
nail.

    1870. Mansfield, School-Life at Winchester College, p. 109. If a
    boy was detected in a lie, or any very disgraceful proceeding—a
    rare occurrence, I am happy to say—he had to stand up in the centre
    of Junior row during the whole of the School time, immediately
    preceding the infliction of the flogging; this pillory process was
    called a bibler under the nail.


Bibling, subs. (Winchester College).—Formerly called a bibler (q.v.). A
flogging of six cuts on the small of the back, administered by the head
or second master. So called because the person to be operated upon
ordered (q.v.) his name to the Bible-clerk (q.v.).

    1864. Blackwood’s Magazine, vol. XCV., p. 79. Underneath is the
    place of execution, where delinquents are bibled. Ibid, p. 72. It
    need hardly be said that it [the rod] is applied in the ordinary
    fashion: six cuts forming what is technically called a bibling—on
    which occasions the Bible-Clerk introduces the victim; four being
    the sum of a less terrible operation called a ‘scrubbing.’


Bibling-Rod, subs. (Winchester College).—The instrument with which a
bibling (q.v.) was administered. It consisted of a handle with four
apple twigs in the end, twisted together. It is represented on ‘Aut
Disce.’ It was invented and first used by Warden Baker in 1454. It is
not used now.


Bibling Under Nail, subs. phr. (Winchester College).—A bibling (q.v.)
administered for very heinous offences after an offender had stood
under nail (q.v.).—See quot. in Bibler under nail.


Biddy, subs. (old).—1. A chicken; sometimes chick-a-biddy. Hence,
figuratively.

2. (familiar.)—A young woman, not necessarily Irish. In both these
senses the word appears in Grose [1785]. Since that time it would seem
to have changed somewhat in meaning as follows.

3. (familiar.)—A woman, whether young or old.

    1868. O. W. Holmes, Guardian Angel, ch. xxviii., p. 233 (Rose
    Lib.). ‘Don’t trouble yourself about Kitty Fagan, for pity’s sake,
    Mr. Bradshaw. The biddies are all alike, and they’re all as stupid
    as owls, except when you tell ’em just what to do, and how to do
    it. A pack of priest-ridden fools!’

    1887. Cornhill Mag., May, p. 510. How he gave to one old biddy
    ‘five guineas to buy a jack,’ and to another substantial help
    towards her boy’s schooling.

4. (Winchester College.)—See Bidet.

5. (American.)—A servant girl—generally Irish.


Bidet, or Biddy, subs. (Winchester College).—A bath. Juniors fill these
for Præfect. The Winchester term is the French word bidet, the name
given to the low narrow bedroom bathing stools, used principally by
women, but more frequently on the Continent than in England. They are
of such a shape that they can be bestridden. In this connection it may
be mentioned, that in French bidet also signifies ‘a small horse’ or
‘pony.’

    1785. Grose, Dictionary of the Vulgar Tongue. Bidet, commonly
    pronounced biddy, a kind of tub, contrived for ladies to wash
    themselves, for which purpose they bestride it like a little French
    pony or post horse, called in France bidets.


Bien.—See Bene.


Biff, subs. (American).—A blow. ‘To give [one] a biff in the jaw’;
Anglicé, ‘to wipe one in the chops.’ Cf., Bang, and for synonyms, see
Dig.


Biffin, subs. (familiar).—‘My biffin!’ i.e., ‘my pal!’ A biffin is
properly a dried apple: Norfolk biffins especially are considered great
delicacies.


Big. To talk or look big, phr. (familiar).—To assume a pompous style or
manner with a view to impressing others with a sense of one’s
importance; to talk boastingly. A French equivalent is se hancher.

    1579. Spenser, Shep. Cal., Sept., 50.

        The shepheards swayne you cannot wel ken,
        But it be by his pryde, from other men:
        They looken bigge as Bulls.

    1604. Shakspeare, Winter’s Tale, Act iv., Sc. 3. Not a more
    cowardly rogue, in all Bohemia: if you had but looked big, and spit
    at him, he’d have run.

    1771. Smollett, Humphry Clinker, l. 26. The squire, in all
    probability, cursed his punctuality in his heart, but he affected
    to talk big.

    1822. Scott, Fortunes of Nigel, ch. xv. ‘You will gain nought by
    speaking big with me.’

    1838. Haliburton, Clockmaker, 2 S., ch. viii. ‘He looked big, and
    talked big, and altogether was a considerable big man in his own
    consait.’

    1855. Anthony Trollope, The Warden, p. 207. The Archdeacon waxed
    wrath, talked big, and looked bigger.


Big as All Outdoors, phr. (American).—An expression intended to convey
an idea of indefinite size; hugeness; enormous capacity.

    1838. Haliburton (‘Sam Slick’), The Clockmaker, 2 S., ch. ii. The
    infarnal villain! Tell me who he is, and if he was big as all
    outdoors, I’d walk into him. Ibid, ch. iv. He is looking as big as
    all outdoors gist now, and is waitin’ for us to come to him.


Big-Bellied, adj. (colloquial).—Advanced in pregnancy.

    1711. Addison [Referred to by].

    1848. John Forster, Life and Times of Oliver Goldsmith, bk. II.,
    ch. iv. My desires are as capricious as the big-bellied woman’s.


Big Ben, subs. (popular).—A nickname for the clock in the tower of the
Houses of Parliament at Westminster. Named after Sir Benjamin Hall, the
Commissioner of Works, under whose supervision it was constructed. It
was commenced in 1856, and finished in 1857.

    1869. The Register or Mag. of Biography, p. 213. With Sir Charles
    Barry’s sanction he designed the ornament cast on the Westminster
    Bell, familiarly known as big Ben.

    1880. Punch, No. 2039, p. 51. Big Ben struck two, and the house
    adjourned.


Big Bird. To get or give the big bird, phr. (theatrical).—To be hissed
on the stage; or, conversely, to hiss. When an actor or actress gets
the big bird, it may be from two causes: either it is a compliment for
successful pourtrayal of villainy, in which case the gods (q.v.) simply
express their abhorence of the character and not of the actor; or, the
hissing may be directed against the actor, personally, for some reason
or other. The big bird is the goose. For synonyms, see Goosed.

    1886. Graphic, 10 April, p. 399. To be goosed, or, as it is
    sometimes phrased, to get the big bird, is occasionally a
    compliment to the actor’s power of representing villainy, but more
    often is disagreeably suggestive of a failure to please.


Big Bug, subs. (popular).—A person of standing or consequence, either
self-estimated or in reality. A disrespectful but common mode of
allusion to persons of wealth or with other claims to distinction.
Variants are Big-dog, Big-toad, Big-wig, and Great gun (which see for
general synonyms).

    1854. Widow Bedott Papers, p. 301. Miss Samson Savage is one of the
    big bugs,—that is, she’s got more money than a’most anybody else in
    town.

    1857. N. Y. Times, February. The free-and-easy manner in which the
    hair-brained Sir Robert Peel described some of the big bugs at
    Moscow has got him into difficulty.

    1872. Schele de Vere, Americanisms, p. 392. Persons of great wealth
    and distinction are irreverently called big bugs, and I-street, in
    Washington, is thus said to be inhabited by the foreign ambassadors
    and other big bugs. J. C. Neal makes a nice distinction when he
    says of a rich man without social importance: ‘He is one of your
    big bugs, with more money than sense.’

    1888. Texas Siftings, Sep. 15. Don’t appear unduly surprised or
    flustrated if, on answering the front door bell, you find Mr.
    Gladstone wiping his feet on the door mat. Invite him to walk in in
    a cool, collected tone of voice.... Show him you have entertained
    big bugs before.


Big Country, subs. (hunting).—The open country.


Big Dog of the Tanyard, phr. (American).—A consequential, pompous
individual; one who will neither allow others a voice in any matter, or
permit dissent from his own views. The obvious derivation is from the
customary guarding of tanyards by ferocious watch-dogs. For synonyms,
see Great gun.


Big Dog with the Brass Collar, phr. (American).—The chief in any
undertaking or enterprise; a leader. A simile evidently derived from
the stable or kennel. The phrase is sometimes shortened to big dog. For
synonyms, see Great gun.

    1848. J. R. Bartlett, Americanisms, p. 42. In some parts of the
    country, the principal man of a place or in an undertaking is
    called the big dog with a brass collar, as opposed to the little
    curs not thought worthy of a collar.

    1882. Alan Pinkerton, The Molly Maguires, p. 24. ‘Yes,’ said
    Dormer, ‘Lawler is the big dog in these parts now; besides he kapes
    a good tavern, and will see no old-timer, or young one either, for
    that matther, sufferin’ from want while he can relieve him!’


Big Drink, subs. (familiar).—1. The ocean; more particularly applied to
the Atlantic. Also called the big pond, herring pond, the puddle
(q.v.).

    1882. Miss Braddon, Mount Royal, ch. xiii. ‘I was coming across the
    big drink as fast as a Cunard could bring me.’

2. (Western American.)—When a Western plainsman talks of the big drink,
he is always understood to mean the Mississippi river.

To take a big or long drink is to partake of liquor from a large glass.
It is very customary when calling for refreshment to state whether a
long or short drink is required.


Big Figure. To go the big figure, phr. (common).—A variant of ‘to go
the whole hog,’ or ‘to go the whole animal.’ It signifies embarking
upon an enterprise of magnitude. The phrase is mainly current in the
Southern States, and is derived from a term used in poker.

    1868. Pickings from the Picayune, p. 226. When I saw that, I
    thought I might as well go the big figure, you see, and so I
    grabbed the bag; but mischief would have it, that just then the
    policeman grabbed me and took me to the caboose.


Biggest, adj. (American).—A superlative often used in the sense of ‘the
best’ or ‘the finest.’

    1848. Ruxton, Life in Far West, p. 129. The thermal springs are
    regarded by the trappers as the breathing-places of his Satanic
    majesty; and considered, moreover, to be the biggest kind of
    medicine to be found in the mountains.

    1888. Washington (Pa.) Review. The Pittsburg Times is as breezy a
    journal as comes to this office. It is the biggest little paper we
    are acquainted with.


Biggest Toad in the Puddle, phr. (American).—One of the many bold, if
equivocal metaphors to which the West has given rise. The biggest toad
in the puddle is the recognised leader or chief whether in politics, or
in connection with the rougher avocations of pioneer life. Equivalent
to the big dog with the brass collar (q.v.).—See also Big bug, and for
synonyms generally, Great gun.

    1848. J. R. Bartlett, Americanisms, p. 42. Biggest toad in the
    puddle. A Western expression for a head-man; a leader of a
    political party, or of a crowd. Not an elegant expression, though
    sometimes well applied. Thus a Western newspaper, in speaking of
    the most prominent man engaged in the political contest for one of
    the Presidential candidates before Congress, says: ‘Mr. D. D. F.—is
    the biggest toad in the puddle.’


Biggin, subs. (Winchester College).—A coffee machine in two parts—a
strainer, and a coffee-pot for the infusion. It took its name from the
inventor, a Mr. Biggin, who received letters patent ‘some years’
previous to 1803. (Gent. Mag., lxxiii., p. 1094.)


Biggity, adv. (American).—Consequential; giving oneself airs. A negro
term.

    c. 1884. S. L. Clemens, Life on the Mississippi, p. 511. These
    railroads have made havoc with the steamboat commerce. The clerk of
    our boat was a steamboat clerk before these roads were built. In
    that day the influx of population was so great, and the freight
    business so heavy, that the boats were not able to keep up with the
    demands made upon their carrying capacity; consequently the Captain
    was very independent and airy—pretty biggity as Uncle Remus would
    say.


Big Gun, subs. (familiar).—A person of consequence. Possibly of
sporting origin. For synonyms, see Great gun.

    1888. Texas Siftings, Oct. 13. ‘Who’s a big gun? You don’t consider
    that insignificant ink-slinger across the way a big gun, do you?’
    ‘My wife can hardly wait to get it out of the mail,’ shouted Jones,
    desperately.


Big-Head. To have a big-head, phr. (American).—1. To be conceited;
bumptious. Also applied to men or youths who are ‘cocksure’ of
everything, or affected in manner.—See also Swell-head.

    1848. J. R. Bartlett, Americanisms, p. 43. Boys who smoke cigars,
    chew tobacco, drink strong liquors, gamble, and treat their parents
    and superiors as their inferiors—of such a boy it is said, ‘He has
    got the big-head.’

    1888. Texas Siftings, Oct. 20. If we were to base our calculation
    upon the corpulency of his iron hat and helmet, we should say it
    was a case of big-head, while his legs were long as a pair of
    duplex pinchers, his arms like the fans of a windmill, his feet
    like the foot of Mont Blanc, while his digital annex is like an
    inverted ham.

2. The phrase also signifies the after effect of a debauch.

To get the big-head. To get drunk. For synonyms, see Screwed.


Big House, subs. (common).—The workhouse,—a phrase used by the very
poor; sometimes called the large house.

    1851–61. H. Mayhew, London Lab. and Lon. Poor, vol. I., p. 52. ‘As
    long as they kept out of the big house (the workhouse), she would
    not complain.’ Ibid, II., p. 251. The men hate the thought of going
    to the big house.


Big Mouth, subs. (American).—Excessive talkativeness; loquacity. Cf.,
All mouth. For synonyms, see Gas.


Big Nuts to Crack, subs. phr. (American).—An undertaking of magnitude;
one not easy to perform. [From a presumed difficulty in cracking large
nuts.]


Big One or Big ’Un, subs. (old).—A man of note or importance. The
current colloquialism is big-wig, but at one time big-one was the more
frequently-used expression. For synonyms, see Great gun.

    1819. Moore, Tom Crib’s Memorial to Congress, p. 42. Then up rose
    Ward, the veteran Joe, And, ’twixt his whiffs, suggested briefly
    That but a few at first should go, And those, the light-weight
    Gemmen chiefly; As if too many big ones went, They might alarm the
    Continent!


Big People, subs. (familiar).—Persons of standing or consequence. Cf.,
Great gun.

    1858. Anthony Trollope, Dr. Thorne, I., p. 43. He would in no way
    assume a familiarity with bigger men than himself; allowing to the
    bigger men the privilege of making the first advances. Ibid, p. 81.
    When one is absolutely in the dirt at their feet, perhaps these big
    people won’t wish one to stoop any further.


Big Pond, subs. (popular).—The Atlantic. Also called the big drink
(q.v.).

    1838. Haliburton (‘Sam Slick’), The Clockmaker, 3 S., ch. xviii. He
    [old Clay] is all sorts of a hoss, and the best live one that ever
    cut dirt this side of the big pond, or t’other side either.

    1883. Sala, Living London, p. 204. Next time Miss Ward crosses the
    big pond, I earnestly hope that she will cross the ‘Rockies,’ and
    triumphantly descend the Pacific slope.


Big Pot, subs. (familiar).—A person of consequence. For synonyms, see
Great gun.

    1880. Punch’s Almanac, The Cad’s Calendar. Lor! if I’d the ochre,
    make no doubt, I could cut no end of big pots out. Call me cad?
    When money’s in the game, Cad and swell are pooty much the same.


Big-Side, subs. (Rugby School).—The combination of all the bigger
fellows in the school in one and the same game or run; also the ground
specially used for the game so denominated. Used also at other public
schools.


Big-Side Run, subs. (Rugby School).—A paper chase, in which picked
representatives of all houses take part, as opposed to a house run.


Big Take, subs. (American).—That which takes the public fancy; a great
success, etc.,—in short, anything that ‘catches on.’—See Take.


Big Talk, subs. (popular).—Pompous speech; a pedantic use of long
words.

    1874. Saturday Review, Feb., p. 280. [With regard to words like
    ‘psithurism,’ ‘cheirognomy,’ ‘scintillating eyes,’ ‘the
    phaesimbrotous sun’] perhaps they have been grown so accustomed to
    big talk that, etc.


Big-Wig, subs. (popular).—A person of consequence; one high in
authority or rank. [From big + wig, an allusion to the large and ornate
headgear of men of importance in former times.] The term is used both
contemptuously and humorously. For synonyms, see Great gun.

    1703. English Spy, p. 255. Most noble cracks, and worthy cousin
    trumps,—permit me to introduce a brother of the togati, fresh as a
    new-blown rose, and innocent as the lilies of St. Clements. Be unto
    him ever ready to promote his wishes, whether for spree or sport,
    in term and out of term,—against the Inquisition and their
    bull-dogs—the town-raff and the bargees—well-blunted or
    stiver-cramped—against dun or don—nob or big wig—so may you never
    want a bumper of bishop.

    1846. Thackeray, Vanity Fair, ch. xx. We live among bankers and
    city big-wigs, and be hanged to them, and every man, as he talks to
    you, is jingling his guineas in his pocket.

    1859. H. Kingsley, Geoffrey Hamlyn, ch. xlv. So you are going to
    sit among the big-wigs in the House of Lords.

    1876 circa. Broadside Ballad, ‘Justice and Law.’

        The Penge Case you know took a curious twist,
          But how it occurred, we can’t guess,
        Unless, unexpected, some turn of the wrist,
          Has got some ‘big-wig’ in a mess.
        To some folks it seems rather queer, now, you see,
          When ‘Sentence of Death’ had been passed,
        That one of the four is allowed to go free,
          And her prison doors wide open cast.
                                    Chorus.

    1880. A. Trollope, The Duke’s Children, ch. xxvi. ‘The Right
    Honorable gentleman no doubt means,’ said Phineas, ‘that we must
    carry ourselves with some increased external dignity. The world is
    bigwigging itself, and we must buy a bigger wig than any we have
    got, in order to confront the world with proper self-respect.’


Big-Wigged, ppl. adj. (popular).—Pompous; consequential. [From big-wig
(q.v.) + [g] ed.]

    1851. Carlyle, John Sterling, pt. I., ch. vii. And along with
    obsolete spiritualisms, he sees all manner of obsolete thrones and
    big-wigged temporalities.


Big-Wiggery, subs. (popular).—A display of consequence, or pomposity.
[From big-wig (q.v.) + [g] ery, a condition.]

    1848. Thackeray, Book of Snobs, ch. ii. Whilst Louis XIV., his old
    squaretoes of a contemporary—the great worshipper of bigwiggery—has
    always struck me as a most undoubted and Royal Snob.

    1855. Household Words, xii., 250. All this solemn bigwiggery—these
    triumphs, ovations, sacrifices, orations.


Big-Wiggism, subs. (popular).—Pomposity. [From big-wig (q.v.) + [g]
ism, a state or condition.]

    1871–72. G. Eliot, Middlemarch, ch. xvii. I determined not to try
    anything in London for a good many years at least. I didn’t like
    what I saw when I was studying there—so much empty big-wiggism and
    obstructive trickery.


Big Words, subs. (familiar).—Pompous speech; ‘crack-jaw’ words. Cf., To
talk big, and Big talk.

    1879. Grenville Murray, Member for Paris, I., p. 103. ‘I don’t like
    such cynicism!’ ‘Oh, cynicism is a big word.’


Bilbo or Bilboa, subs. (old).—A sword. Bilboa in Spain was once
renowned for well-tempered blades. Grose [1785] quotes the term as
slang; this, however, is somewhat doubtful.

    1592. Greene, Disputation, etc., in wks. X., 236. Let them doe what
    they dare with their bilbowe blades, I feare them not.

    1693. Congreve, Old Batchelor, Act iii., Sc. 7. Tell them, I say,
    he must refund—or bilbo’s the word, and slaughter will ensue.

    1713. Guardian, No. 145. ‘He that shall rashly attempt to regulate
    our hilts, or reduce our blades, had need to have a heart of oak
    ... Bilbo is the word, remember that and tremble.’

    1816. Scott, Old Mortality, ch. iv. ‘It was all fair play; your
    comrade sought a fall, and he has got it.’

    ‘That is true enough,’ said Bothwell, as he slowly rose; ‘put up
    your bilbo, Tom.’

2. A kind of stock—a long iron bar with sliding shackles for the ankles
of prisoners, and a lock by which to fasten the bar at one end to the
ground. The derivation is very uncertain.

    1557. Hakluyt, Voy., I., 295. I was also conveyed to their lodgings
    ... where I saw a pair of bilbowes.

    1594. Nashe, Terrors of the Night, in wks. (Grosart) III., 255. He
    that is spyced with the gowte or the dropsie, frequently dreameth
    of fetters and manacles, and being put on the bilbowes.

    1596. Shakspeare, Hamlet, Act v., Sc. 2. Ham. ... Methought I lay
    worse than the mutines in the bilboes.

    1695. Congreve, Love for Love, Act iii., Sc. 6. Now a Man that is
    marry’d, has as it were, d’ye see, his Feet in the bilboes, and
    may-hap mayn’t get ’em out again when he wou’d.

    1714. Memoirs of John Hall (4 ed.), p. 19. And are those shear’d,
    or put into bilboes, and handcufft.

    1748. T. Dyche, Dictionary (5 ed.). Bilboes, the punishing a person
    at sea, by laying or putting the offender in irons, or a sort of
    stocks, but more severe than the common stocks.

    1815. Scott, Guy Mannering, ch. xxxiv. ‘And now let us talk about
    our business.’ ‘Your business, if you please,’ said Hatterick;
    ‘bagel and donner!—mine was done when I got out of the bilboes.’


Bile, subs. (old).—1. The female pudenda. For synonyms, see
Monosyllable.

2. (common.)—A vulgarism for ‘boil.’


Bilgewater, subs. (common).—Bad beer. Properly the name given to the
drainings to the lowest part of a ship; being difficult to get at,
these become, at times, exceedingly foul and offensive. For synonyms,
see Swipes.


Bilk, subs. (common).—A word, formerly in general use, to which a
certain stigma of vulgarity is now attached. Uncertain in
derivation—possibly a corrupted form of ‘balk’—it was first employed
technically at cribbage to signify the spoiling of an adversary’s score
in the crib. Among obsolete or depraved usages may be mentioned.

Subs. 1. (obsolete.)—A statement or string of words without sense,
truth, or meaning, jointly or severally.

    1663. Jonson, Tale of a Tub, I., i. Tub. He will have the last
    word, though he talk bilk for’t. Hugh. Bilk! what’s that. Tub. Why
    nothing; a word signifying Nothing. [Note refers to Cole’s English
    Dict. (n.d. given) and to Halliwell, Arch. and Prov. Words, s.v.]

    1740. North, Examen, p. 213. Bedloe was sworn, and being asked what
    he knew against the prisoner, answered, Nothing.... Bedloe was
    questioned over and over, who still swore the same bilk.

2. (common.)—A hoax; an imposition; a humbug. For synonyms, see Sell.
Cf., Bite.

    1664. Butler, Hudibras, II., iii., 376. Spells, Which over ev’ry
    month’s blank-page In th’ Almanack strange bilk’s presage. [M.]

    1694. Congreve, Double Deal, III., x. There he’s secure from danger
    of a bilk. [M.]

    1733 circa. North, Lives, i., 260. After this bilk of a discovery
    was known. [M.]

3. (common.)—A swindler; a cheat. This is the most familiar current use
of the word in its substantive form, and is applied mainly to persons
who cheat cabmen of their fares, or to men who swindle prostitutes out
of their wretched earnings. Also bilker. For synonyms, see Sell. Cf.,
Bite.

    1790. Sheridan, in Sheridaniana, 109. Johnny W[i]lks, Johnny
    W[i]lks, Thou greatest of bilks.

    1836. Marryat, Japhet, ch. ix. After a little delay, the wagoner
    drove off, cursing him for a bilk, and vowing that he’d never have
    any more to do with a ‘larned man.’

4. (American.)—A strongly offensive term used in the West to signify a
person who habitually sponges upon another, and who never by any chance
makes a return or even offers to do so. In English slang it means a
downright cheat or swindler (see sense 3). It will therefore be seen
that the Western American usage has considerably softened its meaning.

    1840. McClure, Rocky Mountain, p. 211. The term was entirely novel
    to me, and I first asked its meaning of a landlord, who explained
    to me by saying that a bilk is a man who never misses a meal and
    never pays a cent.

Adj. (obsolete).—Fallacious; without truth or meaning.

    1740. North, Examen, p. 129. To that [Oates’s plot] and the
    author’s bilk account of it I am approaching.

Verb (common).—To cheat; defraud; evade one’s obligations; escape from,
etc. (see subs., sense 2, and compare with quotations). For synonyms,
see Stick. Cf., Bite.

    1677. Wycherley, Plain Dealer, Act v., Sc. 3. 1. Knight: Ay, a
    great lawyer that shall be nameless bilked me too.

    1729. Gay, Polly, Act ii., Sc. 9. Honour plays a bubbles part, ever
    bilk’d and cheated.

    1748. T. Dyche, Dictionary (5 ed.). Bilk (v.), to cheat, balk,
    disappoint, deceive, gull, or bubble; also to go out of a
    publick-house or tavern, without paying the reckoning.

    1750. Fielding, Tom Jones, bk. XIV., ch. iv. ‘I promise you,’
    answered Nightingale, ‘I don’t intend to bilk my lodgings; but I
    have a private reason for not taking a formal leave.’

    1785. Grose, Dictionary of the Vulgar Tongue. Bilke. ‘Let us bilk
    the rattling cove’; let us cheat the hackney coachman of his fare:
    bilking a coachman, a box keeper, or a poor whore, was formerly
    among men of the town thought a gallant action.

    1847. Lytton, Lucretia, pt. II., ch. xix. ‘Are you playing me
    false? Have you set another man on the track with a view to bilk me
    of my promised fee?’

To bilk the blues, phr. (thieves’).—To evade the police.—See Blues.

To bilk the schoolmaster, phr. (common).—To obtain knowledge or
experience without paying for it.

    1821. W. T. Moncrieff, Tom and Jerry, Act ii., Sc. 5. Log. Well,
    don’t grumble—every one must pay for his learning—and you wouldn’t
    bilk the schoolmaster, would you? But, come, I’m getting merry; so
    if you wish for a bit of good truth, come with me, and let’s have a
    dive among the cadgers in the back slums, in the Holy Land.


Bilker, subs. (common).—A cheat; a swindler. Sometimes abbreviated to
bilk (sense 3).


Bilking, subs. (common).—The action of cheating or swindling.


Bill, subs. (Eton College).—1. A list of the boys who have to go to the
head master at 12 o’clock; also of those who get off absence (q.v.), or
names-calling, e.g., an eleven playing in a match are thus exempt.

    1876. Brinsley Richards, Seven Years at Eton. Some of the small
    boys whom this delightful youth tempted to ape his habits, had
    often occasion to rue it when they staggered back to college giddy
    and sick, carrying with them a perfume which told its tale to their
    tutors, and caused them to be put in the bill.

2. (Harrow School.)—Names-calling.

To hang up a bill, phr. (American political).—Explained by quotation.

    1887. Cornhill Magazine, June, p. 628. To hang up a bill is to pass
    it through one or more of its stages, and then to lay it aside and
    defer its further consideration for a more or less indefinite
    period.

To rush a bill, phr. (American political).—To expedite the passing of a
bill through the Senate and Congress. Cf., Rush.

    1887. Cornhill Magazine, June, p. 628. To rush a bill is an
    expression well known in the American Senate, and occasionally also
    used here.

Long or short bill, subs. phr. (thieves’).—A long or short term of
imprisonment.

To pay a bill at sight, phr. (old).—Said of a man or woman who is
always ready for sexual commerce.


Billbrighter, subs. (Winchester College).—A small fagot used for
lighting coal fires in Kitchen. So called from a servant, Bill Bright,
who was living in 1830.

    1870. Mansfield, School-Life at Winchester College, p. 89. The
    Kitchen is a spacious apartment with a vaulted roof, occupying the
    entire height of the building on the west side of the quadrangle,
    and at least half its length; here we might see a few Fags
    endeavouring to coax Jem Sims, John Coward, or Mother Mariner (the
    cooks), for an extra supply of mashed potatoes, till Kitchen is
    cleared by the exasperated Manciple, who has just detected a
    delinquent in the act of secreting under his gown an armful of the
    small faggots used for lighting the Kitchen fires (called Bill
    Brighters), an opportunity for purloining which was never allowed
    to slip by a Junior of a properly regulated mind.


Billed Up, ppl. adj. (military).—In the Guards’ regiments to be billed
up signifies to be confined to barracks.


Billet, subs. (popular).—A situation; a ‘berth.’ [From billet, an
official military order requiring food and shelter to be provided for
the soldier bearing it.]

To get a billet, phr. (thieves’)—When in prison to obtain promotion to
duties which carry with them certain privileges.


Billiard Block, subs. (society).—An epithet applied to one who puts up
with disagreeables for the sake of pecuniary or other advantages; also,
occasionally, to one who acts as ‘jackal’ for another and to tame cats
(q.v.).

    1831. Mrs. Gore, Mothers and Daughters, p. 75. The Duke of L. was
    fortunate in somewhat more than the usual apportionments of
    souffre-douleurs, doubles, billiard-blocks, living hunters, younger
    brothers, to talk to the young lady nieces, etc.


Billiard-Slum, subs. (Australian thieves’).—False pretences.

To give on the billiard-slum.—See Mace.


Billingsgate, subs. (popular).—Foul, coarse language; scurrilous
vituperation. From the evil reputation which the market of the same
name has enjoyed for centuries. In the seventeenth century references
to the violent and abusive speech of those frequenting the place were
very numerous. In French an analogous reference is made to the Place
Maubert, long noted for its noisy market.

    1677. Wycherley, Plain Dealer, Act iii. Quaint. ... Whose
    reputation, though never so clear and evident in the eye of the
    world, yet with sharp invectives—Wid. Alias, Billingsgate. Quaint.
    With poignant and sour invectives, I say, I will deface.

    1711. Defoe, The Review, vol. VII., preface. As long as faction
    feeds the flame, we shall never want Billingsgate to revile one
    another with.

    1712. Spectator, No. 451. Our satire is nothing but ribaldry, and
    Billingsgate.

    1852. Thackeray, Esmond, ch. ix. If she had come with bowl and
    dagger, would have been routed off the ground by the enemy with a
    volley of Billingsgate, which the fair person always kept by her.

    1876. Hindley, Life and Adventures of a Cheap Jack. Messrs. Cannon
    and Co. defied the surgeon or anybody else to say the fish was bad,
    and kept jabbering away both at the same time and in elegant
    Billingsgate, until the constable returned; but he came without the
    doctor, who had gone to attend an urgent case out of the town, and
    the people at his house could not say when he would return.

To Billingsgate or talk Billingsgate.—To scold; to talk coarsely, or
violently; to ‘slang.’

    1678. A. Littleton, Lat. Dict. To Billingsgate it. Arripere
    maledictum ex trivio.

So also, You’re no better than a Billingsgate fish-fag, i.e., rude and
ill-mannered; Billingsgatry, scurrilous language.


Billingsgate Pheasant, subs. (common).—A red herring or bloater. This
is also called a two-eyed steak, but for synonyms, see Atlantic-ranger.


Bill of Sale, subs. (old).—Widow’s weeds. Such are also said to have
apartments or a house to let (q.v.).


Billy, subs. (thieves’).—1. A pocket or neck-handkerchief, chiefly of
silk. The various ‘fancies’ have been thus described:—Belcher, darkish
blue ground, large round white spots, with a spot in the centre of
darker blue than the ground. This was adopted by Jem Belcher, the
pugilist, as his ‘colours,’ and soon became popular amongst ‘the
fancy.’ Bird’s-eye wipe, a handkerchief of any colour, containing white
spots. The blue bird’s-eye is similar to the Belcher except in the
centre. Sometimes a bird’s-eye wipe has a white ground and blue spots.
Blood-red fancy, red. Blue Billy, blue ground, generally with white
figures. Cream fancy, any pattern on a white ground. King’s man, yellow
pattern on a green ground. Randal’s man, green, with white spots; named
after the favourite colours of Jack Randal, pugilist. Water’s man, sky
coloured. Yellow fancy, yellow with white spots. Yellow man, all
yellow. For synonyms generally, see Wipe.

    1857. Snowden, Mag. Assistant, 3 ed., p. 444. A silk handkerchief.
    A billy.

2. (thieves’.)—Stolen metal.—See Billy-hunting.

3. (American thieves’.)—A weapon used by desperadoes, and also by the
police when apprehending violence or dangerous resistance on the part
of the former when pursued. The construction of a billy varies, but
usually it is composed of a piece of untanned cowhide, as hard as horn
itself, some six inches in length, twisted or braided into a sort of
handle, and covered from end to end with woollen cloth. One extremity
is loaded with three quarters of a pound of lead; to the other is
firmly attached a loop, large enough to admit a man’s hand, formed of
strong linen cord, and intended to allow the billy to hang loose from
the wrist, and at the same time prevent it being lost or wrenched from
the grasp of its owner. At close quarters, it proves a very savage and
formidable arm of defence, resembling, but being much more dangerous
than the ordinary slung-shot in use by policemen and others. Twelve
ounces of solid lead and raw-hide, dashed against the thickest skull by
a strong armed ruffian, would as effectually silence a man as an ounce
of the same metal discharged from the bore of a Springfield rifle. It
may be remarked that billy in English slang is a policeman’s staff, a
very different weapon.

    1888. Daily Inter-Ocean, Ap. 4. The condition of the man reported
    as having been shot twice in the head on Thursday afternoon, is not
    at all alarming. It transpires that his wounds are not of the
    gun-shot sort, but were inflicted with a billy in the hands of a
    Pinkerton man.

4. (popular.)—A policeman’s staff; a truncheon.

    1884. Daily News, Ap. 7, p. 5, col. 1. Anderson was first brought
    down by a pistol shot, and was then corrected with a billy, till he
    declared himself vanquished.

5. (Australian and New Zealand.)—A bushman’s tea-pot or saucepan.

    1885. G. A. Sala, in Daily Telegraph, Sept. 3, 5, 5. They got
    enough flour from Sydney to make their ‘dampers,’ and enough tea to
    boil in their billies.

    1886. G. Sutherland, Australia, p. 104. A billy, or small tin can,
    for boiling tea or coffee.

    1889. Illustrations, Oct., p. 22. Refusing a pressing invitation to
    stay and spend Christmas with the good people with whom I had been
    boarding, and heeding lightly their remarks as to ‘new chum,’
    ‘dangers of the bush,’ ‘all alone,’ ‘strange country,’ etc., etc.,
    I took a look at the map, and packed my ‘swag.’ Now a ‘swag’
    proper, usually contains blankets, towels, ‘billy,’ pannikin, and
    many other articles ... Ibid, p. 28. The ‘billy’ is off, but the
    roadman (Irish, of course) gives me a grateful cup of beer, and
    accompanies me to the hotel another mile down the road.


Billy Barlow, subs. (common).—A street clown; a mountebank—so called
from the hero of a slang song. Billy was a real person, semi-idiotic,
and though in dirt and rags, fancied himself a swell of the first
water. Occasionally he came out with real witticisms. He was a
well-known street character about the East-end of London, and died in
Whitechapel Workhouse.

    1851–61. H. Mayhew, London Lab. and Lon. Poor, vol. III., p. 148.
    Billy Barlow is another supposed comic character, that usually
    accompanies either the street-dancers or acrobats in their
    peregrinations. The dress consists of a cocked-hat and red feather,
    a soldier’s coat (generally a sergeant’s with sash), white trousers
    with the legs tucked into Wellington boots, a large tin eye-glass,
    and an old broken and ragged umbrella.

These merry Andrews are otherwise called Jim crows and saltimbancos;
among the French, un pitre.


Billy-Boy, subs. (nautical).—A vessel like a galliot, with two masts,
the fore-mast square-rigged. They hail mainly from Goole. Also called
humber-keels.


Billy-Button, subs. (rhyming slang).—1. Mutton.

2. (tailors’.)—A contemptuous term for a journeyman tailor.

    1851. Mayhew, London Labour and London Poor, III., p. 117. And
    there I did Jeremiah Stitchem to his Billy Button. Ibid, p. 142. A
    laughable sketch entitled Billy Button’s ride to Brentford, and I
    used to be Jeremiah Stitchem, a servant of Billy Button’s, that
    comes for a ‘situation.’


Billy-Buzman, subs. (thieves’).—A thief whose speciality is silk pocket
and neckerchiefs. [From billy, slang for a pocket-handkerchief, +
buzman, slang for a thief.]


Billy-Cock, subs. (popular).—A round, low-crowned hat—generally of soft
felt, and with a broad brim. Speculation has been rife as to the
derivation of the term. Murray says ‘apparently the same as
“bully-cocked,” used 1721, probably meaning after the fashion of the
“bullies” or hectoring “blades” of the period’ (see quot.). A writer,
C. K. C. in Notes and Queries, however [6 S., ii., p. 355], points out
that ‘these hats were first made for “Billy Coke”—or to speak more
respectfully, Mr. William Coke—a gentleman well known at Melton Mowbray
a quarter of a century ago [circa 1853], and used by him at the great
shooting parties at Holkham. The old-established hatters in the
West-end still call them “Coke hats.”’ Of the reality of the
personality of William Coke of Melton fame there is, and can be no
doubt, and although the name of the hat may be derived from
‘bully-cock,’ yet the weight of evidence seems to be against it, unless
a slight transference of meaning, very common in slang, has taken
place.

    1721. Amherst, Terræ Filius, No. 46, p. 246. [A description of an
    Oxford ‘smart’ or dandy.] When he walks the street, he is easily
    distinguish’d by a stiff silk gown, which rustles in the wind, as
    he struts along; a flaxen tie-wig, or sometimes a long natural one,
    which reaches down below his waist; a broad bully-cock’d hat, or a
    square cap of above twice the usual size; white stockings, thin
    Spanish leather shoes; his cloaths lined with tawdry silk, and his
    shirt ruffled down the bosom as well as at the wrists. Besides all
    which marks, he has a delicate jaunt in his gait, and smells very
    philosophically of essence.

    1862. Life Among Colliers, 35. I was told to take off my bonnet,
    and tie a billy-cock [wide-awake] tight down.

    1872. Farjeon, Griff, p. 14. With the men, mole-skin trousers,
    pea-jackets, billy-cock hats, and dirty pipes predominated.

    1884. Pall Mall G., March 28, p. 11, col. 1. He wore a plaited
    blouse drawn in at the waist and a dilapidated billy-cock hat.

2. (Australian.)—The billy-cock of the Antipodean colonies differs from
the English head-gear known by the name in being made of hard instead
of soft felt, and in having a turned up brim.

For synonymous terms of head-gear, see Deerstalker.


Billy-Fencer, subs. (thieves’).—A marine store dealer.—See Fence.


Billy-Goat, subs. (common).—A tufted beard; similar to that of a goat.

    1882. Standard, 11 Feb., p. 3, col. 2. Hair turning grey, hazel
    eyes, billy-goat beard. [M.]


Billy-Hunting, subs. (thieves’).—1. Collecting and buying old
metal.—See Billy-fence.

    1851–61. H. Mayhew, London Lab. and Lon. Poor, vol. I., p. 465. ‘He
    goes tatling and billy-hunting in the country (gathering rags and
    buying old metal).’

2. Going out to steal pocket-handkerchiefs.—See Billy, sense 1.


Billy Noodle, subs. (American).—This combination stands in American
slang for a fellow whose self-conceit leads him to suppose himself
specially attractive to the other sex. [From Billy, a male name, +
noodle, a fool.]


Billy-Roller, subs. (common).—See quotations.

    1840. Mrs. Trollope, Michael Armstrong, ch. xiv. ‘What is the
    billy-roller?’... ‘It’s a long stout stick, ma’am, that’s used
    often and often to beat the little ones employed in the mills when
    their strength fails.’

    1875. Ure, Dict. Arts, III., 1166. This is the billy-roller, so
    much talked of in the controversies between the operatives and
    masters in the cotton-factories, as an instrument of cruel
    punishment to children, though no such machine has been used in
    cotton-mills for half a century at least. [M.]


Bim, Bimshire, subs. (West Indian).—Nicknames for a Barbadian and the
island of Barbadoes. This place is also sometimes jeeringly called
Little England, and Barbadian is contracted into ’Badian.

    1887. Paton, Down the Islands. Barbadoes is known all the world
    over as the little island that pays her way; it has never been
    conquered; its people are enterprising and energetic, go-ahead and
    driving; in short, the business men of these islands (the
    Caribbees). Barbadian may therefore be said to mean a man with ‘go
    and grit, energy and vim.’


Bing.—See Bynge a waste.


Binge, subs. (Oxford Univ.)—A drinking bout.


Bingham’s Dandies, subs. (military).—The 17th Lancers. From its Colonel
(Lord Bingham) causing the men’s uniforms to fit so well. It is one of
the smartest regiments of the service. They were also at one time
christened the Horse Marines (q.v.). Two troops of this showy corps
were employed as marines on board the ‘Hermione’ frigate during some
severe fighting in the West Indies. Hence the sobriquet now almost
quite forgotten. But the 17th are still well-known as the Death or
Glory Boys, from their badge, which consists of a death’s head, with
the words, ‘or glory.’


Bingo, subs. (old cant).—Brandy, or other spirituous liquor. Thought by
Dr. Murray to be a humorous formation from B. for ‘brandy’ (Cf., ‘B.
and S.’) and stingo.

    1785. Grose, Dictionary of Vulgar Tongue. Bingo, brandy.

    1830. Bulwer Lytton, Paul Clifford, p. 41.

        FIGHTING ATTIE’S SONG.

        Air.—‘He was famed for deeds of arms
        ’Rise at six—dine at two—
        Rob your man without ado-
        Such my maxims—if you doubt
        Their wisdom, to the rightabout!’

    (Signing to a sallow gentleman on the same side of the table to
    send up the brandy bowl.)

        ‘Pass round the bingo,—of a gun,
        You musty, dusty, husky son!’

    (The sallow gentleman in a hoarse voice,)

        ‘Attie—the bingo’s now with me,
        I can’t resign it yet, d’ye see!’

    (Attie, seizing the bowl,)

        ‘Resign, resign it—cease your dust!’

    (Wresting it away, and fiercely regarding the sallow gentleman.)

        ‘You have resigned it—and you must.’

    CHORUS.

        ‘You have resigned it—and you must.’

    1861. Hughes, Tom Brown at Oxford, xxxiii. Some soda water with a
    dash of bingo clears one’s head in the morning.

For all synonyms, see Drinks.

Hence bingo boy, a tippler; a drunkard. Bingo mort, a drunken
woman.—See Mort.


Bingy, adj. (trading).—A term largely used in the butter trade to
denote bad, ropy butter; nearly equivalent to vinnied. It may be noted
that in the English Dialect Society’s Chestere Glossary, bingy is given
as a peculiar clouty or frowsty taste in milk—the first stage of
turning sour.

    1857. Mrs. Gaskell, Life of C. Bronté, ch. iv. The milk, too, was
    often bingy, to use a country expression for a kind of taint that
    is far worse than sourness, and suggests the idea that it is caused
    by want of cleanliness about the milk pans, rather than by the heat
    of the weather.

    1860. Mrs. Gaskell, Sylvia’s Lovers, ch. xv. I’ve heerd my aunt say
    as she found out as summat was wrong wi’ Nancy as soon as the milk
    turned bingy, for there ne’er had been such a clean lass about her
    milk-cans afore that.


Binnacle Word, subs. (old nautical).—A fine or affected word, which
sailors jeeringly offer to chalk up upon the binnacle.—Grose.


Birch-Broom, subs. (rhyming slang).—A room.

Like a birch-broom in a fit, phr. (common).—Said of a rough, towzly
head.

    1876. Hindley, Life and Adventures of a Cheap Jack, p. 90. I should
    like to know what looks worse than to see a young man or woman with
    their hair in an uproar, like a birch-broom in a fit, and some of
    you chaps down there look as if you hadn’t had your hair combed
    since last reaping time, when you did it with a field-rake, which
    is very harrowing to one’s feelings.


Birchin Lane.—To send one to Birchin Lane, phr. (old).—To castigate; to
flog. A punning allusion to birch, a rod. Cf., Strap oil, etc.


Bird, subs. (theatrical).—Mr. H. J. Byron says that when a piece is
hissed the actors say ‘The bird’s there!’;—the bird alluded to being
the goose notorious for its hissing capacities.—See however, Big bird
and Goose.

Verb (old).—To thieve; to steal; to look for plunder. So used by Ben
Jonson.


Bird-Cage, subs. (common).—1. A bustle, an article of feminine attire,
used for extending the skirts of the dress. So called because at one
time constructed of such a size and in such a manner as to be not
altogether unlike an elongated bird-cage.

    1860 circa. Broadside Ballad, ‘The Agricultural Irish Girl,’ verse
    3.

        She has no great education, for
          She’s not much past her letters;
        But for acting like a lady, I
          Would like to see her betters:
        She does not read Ouida’s works,
          Nor Bow Bells’ fashions pages;
        And she does not wear those things behind,
          The ladies call bird-cages.

Among English Synonyms may be mentioned canary cage; backstaircase;
false hereafter; bishop.

French Synonyms. Un volapuk; un strapontin; un lieutenant (a pun on
tenant lieu de ce qui manque); un nuage (parcequ’il cache la lune; lune
= the posteriors).

2. (common.)—A four-wheeled cab. For synonyms, see Growler.

3. (racing.)—The paddock at the Newmarket race-course where saddling
takes place. It adjoins the grand stand.

    1884. St. James’s Gazette, May 1, p. 1. All the favourites were
    brought into the bird-cage. [M.]


Birdlime, subs. (rhyming slang).—1. Time.

2. (old.)—A thief. From the glutinous substance of the same name spread
upon twigs for the purpose of catching birds and holding them fast.

    1705. Vanbrugh, Confederacy, V., 2. That birdlime there stole it.

    1705. Vanbrugh, Confederacy, III., 2. My rogue of a son has laid
    his birdlime fingers on’t.


Bird’s-Eye, Bird’s-Eye Fogle, Bird’s-Eye Wipe, subs. (common).—A silk
handkerchief spotted with eye-like markings.—See also Billy and Wipe.

    1665. Pepys, Diary, May 14. To church, it being Whit-Sunday; my
    wife very fine in a new yellow bird’s-eye hood, as the fashion is
    now.

    1861. Hughes, Tom Brown at Oxford, ch. xviii. He wore a blue
    bird’s-eye handkerchief round his neck.

    1883. Daily Telegraph, August 7, p. 6, col. 2. His neckerchief was
    of the same hue [silver grey], with a light crimson bird’s-eye.


Bird-Witted, adj. (old).—Inconsiderate; thoughtless; easily imposed
on.—Grose.

    1605. Bacon, Adv. Learning, II. (1861), 228. If a child be
    bird-witted, that is, hath not the faculty of attention, the
    mathematics giveth a remedy thereunto.

    1650. Ussher, Ann., VI., 360. [He] proved ... but a bird-witted
    man.


Birk, subs. (back slang).—A ‘crib’ (q.v.), i.e., a house. For synonyms,
see Diggings.


Birthday Suit, subs. (common).—Naked; in the buff (q.v.); in the suit
in which Adam and Eve first saw each other, and ‘were not ashamed.’ A
French equivalent is s’habiller en sauvage.

    1771. Smollett, Humphry Clinker, l. 61. I went in the morning to a
    private place, along with the housemaid, and we bathed in our
    birth-day soot.


Bishop, subs. (old).—1. A warm decoction of wine, orange or lemon peel,
and sugar—but variously compounded. Similar to flip and purl (q.v.).

    1703. English Spy, p. 255. Most noble cracks, and worthy cousin
    trumps,—permit me to introduce a brother of the togati, fresh as a
    new-blown rose, and innocent as the lilies of St. Clements. Be unto
    him ever ready to promote his wishes, whether for spree or sport,
    in term and out of term,—against the Inquisition and their
    bull-dogs—the town-raff and the bargees—well-blunted or stiver
    cramped—against dun or don—nob or big-wig—so may you never want a
    bumper of bishop.

    1738. Swift, Women Who Cry Oranges, wks., 1755, IV., i., 278. Well
    roasted, with sugar and wine in a cup. They’ll make a sweet bishop.

    1753. The World, No. 37. Punch, bishop, cool tankard, and negus are
    equally denied me.

    1836. Dickens, Pickwick, ch. xlviii., p. 421. He and the landlord
    were drinking a bowl of bishop together.

2. subs. (American).—A bustle—part of feminine attire consisting of a
pad worn on the back part of the waist, and designed to give prominence
to the skirt. For synonyms, see Bird-cage.

    1848. Bartlett, Dictionary of Americanisms, p. 42. Bishop. An
    appendage to a lady’s wardrobe, otherwise called a bustle.

I sing the bishop, alias the bustle.

    1862–75. Saxe, Progress. Imperial Fashion decides the gravest
    questions which divide the world.

        If wrong may not, by circumstance, be right,—
        If black cravats be more genteel than white,—
        If, by her bishop, or her ‘grace,’ alone
        A genuine lady, or a church, is known.

3. (common.)—A chamber utensil; a jerry; jordan; and it (q.v.).

4. (Winchester College.)—The sapling with which a fagot is bound
together.

Verb.—1. A term among horse dealers, for burning marks into a horse’s
teeth, after he has lost them by age; or, by other deceptive arts to
give a good appearance to a bad horse. By bishopping, a horse is made
to appear younger than he is. The expression is derived from the name
of a person who initiated the practice, and has no connection with ‘to
bishop,’ a provincialism for ‘to burn.’ For synonyms, see Fig.

    1727. R. Bradley, Family Dict., vol. I., s.v. ‘Horse.’ This way of
    making a horse look young, is by Horse Coursers called Bishoping.

    1884. Ill. Lon. News, 23 August, 171, col. 2. To bishop ... a term
    ... signifying the use of deceptive arts to make an old horse
    appear like a young one.

In French the process is called masquer en alezan; also maquiller un
gayet.

2. To murder by drowning. The term, now obsolete, is like burke and
boycott from the name of an individual. A man named Bishop drowned a
boy in Bethnal Green, in 1831, to sell the body for dissecting
purposes.

    1837. Barham, I. L. (Account of a New Play). I burked the papa, now
    I’ll bishop the son. [d.]

    1864. Athenæum, p. 559, col. 1. We have ‘to burke,’ and ‘to
    bishop.’ [M.]


Bismarquer, verb (familiar).—To cheat; to play foul at cards or
billiards. A word formed from the name of Prince Bismarck, the German
Chancellor, whose policy in 1865–6 roused the indignation of a large
section of European thought.


Bit, Bite, Byte, subs. (old).—1. An old cant term for money. For
synonyms, see Actual.

    1532. Use of Dice Play (Percy Soc.). Now waxen is he so proud of
    his gain, because he hath gotten a new chain, fyer new apparel, and
    some store of byte.

    1592. Defence of Conny-Catching, in Greene’s wks. XI., 44. So some
    that would not stoope a farthing at cardes, would venter all the
    byte in their boung at dice.

    1607. Dekker, Jests to make you Merie, in wks. (Grosart) II., 328.
    If they follow you in the street, and once know where the bung and
    the bit is, as much as to say your purse and the money.

    1608. Dekker, Belman of London, in wks. (Grosart) III., 122. To
    learne before he play what store of Bit he hath in his Bay, that
    is, what money he hath in his pursse.

    1789. Geo. Parker, Life’s Painter, p. 149. Snack the bit. To share
    the money.

    1834. H. Ainsworth, Rookwood, bk. III., ch. v. He is caught—he must
    ‘stand and deliver’; then out with the dummy [pocket book], and off
    with the bit.

2. (colloquial)—The name given to coins varying in value according to
locality—usually, however, to the silver piece of the lowest
denomination. Fourpenny pieces are still called bits in English slang,
but are more popularly known as Joeys (q.v., for synonyms); and in
Demerara the term is in general use for the same coin; in America a 12½
cent piece is called a bit, and a defaced 20 cent piece is termed a
long bit. A bit is the smallest coin in Jamaica, equal to 6d.

    1748. T. Dyche, Dictionary (5 ed.). Bit (s.) ... In the West
    Indies, it is the least piece of silver coin, which goes current at
    7 pence half-penny.

    1875. Scribner’s Magazine, July, p. 277. For a young city, San
    Francisco is very much wedded to petty traditions. It clings to the
    bit with a deathlike tenacity; clings to it against all reason and
    against its own interests. The bit is a mythical quantity. It is
    neither twelve and a half cents, nor half of twenty-five; it is
    neither fifteen cents nor ten cents. If you buy a bit’s worth, and
    throw down twenty-five cents, you get ten cents back; if you offer
    the same ten cents in lieu of a bit, you are looked upon as a mild
    sort of a swindler. And yet, the bit is the standard of minimum
    monetary value.


Bitch, subs. (low).—1. An opprobrious term for a woman, generally
containing an implication of lewdness and ‘fastness.’ Not now in
literary use, though formerly so. [From its primary sense of a female
dog.] It is the most offensive apellation that can be given to an
English woman, even more provoking than that of whore.

    1400. Chester Pl. (1843), 181. Whom calleste thou queine skabde
    biche? [M.]

    1575. J. Still, Gammer Gurton, II., ii. Come out, thou hungry needy
    bitch. [M.]

    1712. Arbuthnot, John Bull (1755), 9. An extravagant bitch of a
    wife.

    1750. Fielding, Tom Jones, bk. XVII., ch. iii. There was my lady
    cousin Bellaston, and my lady Betty, and my lady Catharine, and my
    lady I don’t know who; damn me if ever you catch me among such a
    kennel of hoop-petticoated bitches.

    1833. Marryat, P. Simple (1834), 446. You are a ... son of a bitch.

2. (old.)—Applied, opprobriously, as in sense 1, to a man. It has long
since passed out of decent usage.

    c. 1500. E. E. Misc. (1855), 54. He is a schrewed byche, In fayth,
    I trow, he be a wyche.

    1675. Hobbes, Odyssey, xviii., 310. Ulysses looking sourly
    answered, You bitch. [M.]

    1750. Fielding, Tom Jones, bk. XVII., iii. It is an old
    acquaintance of above twenty years standing. I can tell you
    landlord is a vast comical bitch, you will like un hugely.

Verb (low).—1. To go whoring; molrowing; to frequent the company of
prostitutes.

2. To yield, or give up an attempt through fear.—Grose.

3. (common.)—To spoil; to bungle.

To stand bitch.—To make tea, or do the honours of the tea table, or to
perform a female part. Bitch is here used generically for a woman.


Bitch Booby, subs. (old military).—A country girl.—Grose.


Bitchery, subs. (low).—Harlotry; lewdness. [From bitch, sense 1, +
ery.]

    1532–3. More, Confut. Tindale, wks., 648, col. 1. Such marriage is
    very vnlawfull leckery and plain abhominable bychery.

    1598. Marston, Sco. Villanie, I., iv., 188. He will vnline himselfe
    from bitchery.

    1663–1704. Thomas Brown, Works, Serious and Comical, III., p. 94.
    Thither run Sots purely to be drunk that they may ... forget ...
    the roguery of their lawyers, the bitchery of their paramours, or
    the ingratitude of the world.

(?). Stanyhurst, Description of Ireland, p. 14. The quip sat as
unseemly in his mouth as for a whore to reprehend bitchery, or for an
usurer to condemn simony.


Bitch Party, subs. (popular).—A party composed of women. Originally an
Oxford term for a tea-party, tea being considered a beverage only fit
for women. [From bitch, a woman, + party.] Also hen party (q.v.). Cf.,
Stag party.

    1889. C. Whibley, In Cap and Gown, Characters of Freshmen, p. 176.
    ‘The studious freshman ... goeth to a small bitch-party and findeth
    his gown taken “by mistake.”’


Bite, subs. (old).—1. An old slang term for money.—See Bit.

2. (old.)—The female pudenda. For synonyms, see Monosyllable.

3. An imposition; a piece of humbug; a ‘sell’ or ‘do.’ Cf., Bilk, Bam,
Bargain, and Sell, for synonyms. The sense runs through all stages,
from jocular hoaxing to downright swindling. Also in the sense of
disappointment, as in the old proverb ‘the biter bit.’ A man is bitten
when he burns his fingers meddling in matters, which, though promising
well, turn out failures.—See also Cross bite.

    1711. Steele, Spectator, No. 156, ¶ 2. It was a common bite with
    him, to lay Suspicions that he was favoured by a Lady’s Enemy.

    1721. Amherst, Terræ Fil., ix., 43. Sharpers would not frequent
    gaming-tables, if the men of fortune knew the bite.

    1817. Scott, Rob Roy, ch. ix. ‘It’s all a bam, ma’am—all a
    bamboozle and a bite, that affair of his illness.’

    1860. Sat. Review, Ap. 14, 475, 2. That form of practical joking,
    which in the time of ‘The Spectator,’ was known as a bite ... in
    the popular slang of the day, is designated ‘a sell.’

    1883. Daily News, Ap. 18, p. 5, col. 4. Lord Randolph Churchill, we
    fear, has been making Mr. Gladstone the victim of what, in the
    slang of Addison’s time, would have been called a bite, and what in
    the slang of our own time is called a ‘sell.’

4. (old.)—A sharper; cheat; trickster. Cf., Bilk. See Rook for
synonyms.

    1742. Fielding, Miss Lucy (1762), 176. Is this wench an idiot, or a
    bite? Marry me, with a pox!

    1751. Smollett, Peregrine Pickle, ch. xcviii. From which
    circumstance it was conjectured that Peregrine was a bite from the
    beginning, who had found credit on account of his effrontery and
    appearance, and imposed himself upon the town as a young gentleman
    of fortune.

    1787. S. Jenyns, in Dodsley, III., 169. The fool would fain be
    thought a bite.

5. (popular.)—Applied in a transferred sense to anybody or anything
suspected of being different to what it appears, but not necessarily in
a bad sense.

    1846. Brackenridge, Mod. Chiv., 21. The jockeys suspected that the
    horse was what they call a bite, that under the appearance of
    leanness and stiffness, was concealed some hidden quality of
    swiftness.

6. (common.)—One who drives a hard bargain; a ‘close fist.’

7. (familiar.)—A nickname for a Yorkshireman.—See Daily News, Sept. 11,
1883, and Yorkshire Post, Jan. 9, 1884.

    1883. Daily News, Sept. 4, p. 5, col. 6. The great and puissant
    race known indifferently as ‘tykes’ or bites.

8. (printers’.)—An irregular white spot on the edge or corner of a
printed page, caused by the frisket not being sufficiently cut out.

    1677. Moxon, Mech. Exerc. in Savage Dict. Print, s.v. Bite. If the
    frisket is not sufficiently cut away, but covers some part of the
    form, so that it prints on the frisket, it is called a bite. [M.]

    1884. Blades, Caxton, 130. In ‘Speculum Vitæ Christi’ we actually
    find a bite, half of the bottom line remaining unprinted. [M.]

Verb (old).—1. To deceive; cheat; swindle; to ‘do’ or ‘take in.’ In
modern colloquial English to slick or to sell (q.v.). Formerly used
both transitively and passively; now only in latter.

    1669. Nicker Nicked, in Hart. Misc. (ed. Park), ii., 109. Then a
    rook ... follows him close, and engages him in advantageous bets,
    and at length worries him, that is gets all his money, and then
    they smile and say, ‘The lamb is bitten.’

    1709. Steele, Tatler, No. 12. Nay, he has bit you fairly enough,
    that’s certain.

    1724. A Journey through England. Many a poor German hath been bit
    by an ordinary or his taylor, after this manner; they have suffered
    the poor wretch to run in debt, made him an extravagant bill, and
    then arrested him, and so forced him to pay their demands.

    1731. Fielding, The Lottery, Sc. 3. However, Madam, you are bit as
    well as I am; for I am no more a lord, than you are a fortune.

    1822. [Nares] Love in a Barn, an old ballad.

        He shall not have my maiden-head,
          I solemnly do swear;
        But I’ll bite him of a portion,
          Then marry with Ralph, my dear.

    1838. Thackeray, Yellowplush Memoirs, ch. x. ‘You were completely
    bitten, my boy—humbugged, bamboozled—ay, and by your old father,
    you dog.’

    1853. Thackeray, Barry Lyndon, ch. xvii., p. 232. I have no
    particular pleasure in recalling my Newmarket doings. I was
    infernally bit and bubbled in almost every one of my transactions
    there.

Hence 2. (popular.)—To strike a hard bargain.

3. (old.)—To steal; e.g., ‘to bite the roger,’ to steal a portmanteau;
‘to bite the wiper,’ i.e., to purloin a handkerchief.

Intj. (old.)—1. Formerly an equivalent to the modern ‘Sold!’ ‘Done!’
etc.

    1704. Cibber, Careless Husband, Act iii.

    Ld. Mo. ’Tis possible I may not have the same regard to her frown
    that your Lordship has.

    Ld. Fop. That’s bite, I’m sure; he’d give a joint of his little
    finger to be as well with her as I am.

    1738. Swift, Polite Conversation (conv. i.).

    Miss. I’m sure the gallows groans for you.

    Nev. Bite, Miss; I was but in jest.

    1714. Addison, Spectator, No. 514. It is a superstition with some
    surgeons who beg the bodies of condemned malefactors, to go to the
    gaol and bargain for the carcass with the criminal himself.... The
    fellow who killed the officer of Newgate, very forwardly, and like
    a man who was willing to deal, told him, ‘Look you, Mr. Surgeon,
    that little dry fellow, who has been half starved all his life, is
    now half dead with fear, cannot answer your purpose.... Come, for
    twenty shillings I am your man.’ Says the Surgeon, ‘Done, there’s a
    guinea.’ This witty rogue took the money, and as soon as he had it
    in his fist, cries, ‘bite, I am to be hanged in chains.’

2. (Charterhouse.)—A warning = Cave!

To do a thing when the maggot bites, phr. (common), is to do it when
the fancy takes one; ‘at one’s own sweet will.’ When a person acts from
no apparent motive in external circumstances, he is said to have ‘a
maggot in his head,’ to have ‘a bee in his bonnet’; or, in French,
avoir des rats dans la tête; in Platt-Deutsch, to have a mouse-nest in
his head, the eccentric behaviour being attributed to the influence of
the internal irritation. Cf., Apartments to let.


Bite One’s Hips, verbal phr. (tailors’).—To regret a word or action.


Bite One’s Name In, verbal phr. (common).—To drink heavily; to tipple;
also to drink greedily.


Bite on the Bridle, verbal phr. (old).—To be pinched in circumstances;
to be reduced; in difficulties.


Biter, subs. (old).—1. A practical joker; a hoaxer; one who deceives; a
cheat and trickster. Cf., Bite. The term now only survives in the
proverbial expression, ‘the biter bit.’ For synonyms, see Rook.

    1669. Nicker Nicked, in Hart. Misc. (ed. Park), ii., 108. [Biter is
    given in a list of names of cheats and thieves’.]

    1680. Cotton, Complete Gamester, in Singer’s Hist. Playing Cards
    (1816), p. 333. Hectors, setters, gilts, pads, biters, etc., and
    these may all pass under the general appellation of rooks.

    1709. Steele, Tatler, No. 12. A biter, who is a dull fellow, that
    tells you a lye with a grave face, and laughs at you for knowing
    him no better than to believe him.

    1711. Spectator, No. 47. These gentlemen are commonly distinguished
    by the name of biters: a race of men that are perpetually employed
    in laughing at those mistakes which are of their own production.

    1712. Spectator, No. 504. A biter is one who tells you a thing you
    have no reason to disbelieve in itself, and perhaps has given you,
    before he bit you, no reason to disbelieve it for his saying it;
    and if you give him credit, laughs in your face, and triumphs that
    he has deceived you.

    1812. Coombe, Syntax, Picturesque, c. xix.

        Pray have you travell’d so far north,
        To think we have so little wit,
        As by such biters to be bit?

2. (old.)—An amorous woman (sexually). Cf., Athanasian wench.


Bite the Ear, verbal phr. (thieves’).—To borrow. Formerly, a term of
endearment; to caress fondly. For synonyms, see Shins.

    1879. J. W. Horsley, in Macm. Mag., xl., 502. He used to want to
    bite my ear (borrow) too often.


Bite the Thumb, verbal phr. (old).—To make a gesture of contempt, which
was formerly regarded in the light of an insult. Nares says the thumb
in the action represented a fig, and the whole was equivalent to ‘a fig
for you.’ There are several gestures of this kind. That best known is
probably taking a sight (q.v.). A similar gesture of contempt is used
by the lower orders in France which, there is little doubt, is the
‘biting the thumb’ spoken of in Romeo and Juliet. The person using the
gesture placed the nail of his thumb under the front teeth of the upper
jaw, and then jerked the thumb forward, using at the same time an
expression equivalent to ‘I don’t care that for you.’ Another
contemptuous action is placing the thumb between the closed fore and
middle fingers; while according to Darwin’s Expression of the Emotions,
it appears that with the Dakota Indians of North America ‘contempt is
shown ... conventionally by the hand being closed and held near the
breast; then, as the fore arm is suddenly extended, the hand is opened
and the fingers separated from each other. If the person at whose
expense the sign is made is present, the hand is moved towards him and
the head sometimes averted from him.’ This sudden extension and opening
of the hand perhaps indicates the dropping or throwing away a valueless
object.

    1595. Shakspeare, Romeo and Juliet, i., 1. I will bite my thumb at
    them; which is a disgrace to them if they bear it.

    1596. Lodge, Wit’s Miserie. Behold next I see Contempt marching
    forth, giving me the fies, with his thombe in his mouth.

    1638. Randolph, Muses’ L. Glass, O. Pl., ix., 220. Dogs and
    pistols! To bite his thumb at me! Wear I a sword To see men bite
    their thumbs?

    1678. Rules of Civility, transl. from French, p. 44. ’Tis no less
    disrespectful to bite the nail of your thumb, by way of scorn and
    disdain, and drawing your nail from between your teeth, to tell
    them you value not this what they can do.


Bite Up, subs. (tailors’).—An unpleasant altercation.


Bit-Faker or Turner Out, subs. (thieves’).—Coiner of bad money. [From
bit, an old canting term for money, + faker, one who makes, or does.]
Also bit-maker.—See Turner out and Faker.


Bit Faking, subs. (thieves’).—Manufacturing base coin; counterfeiting.
[From bit + fake + ing.—See preceding.] Cf., Turner out.


Biting Up, subs. (tailors’).—Grieving over a loss or bereavement.


Bit-Maker, subs. (old).—A counterfeiter.—See Bit-faker.

    1857. Snowden, Mag. Assistant, 3 ed., p. 447. Coiners—bit-makers.


Bit-o’-Bull, subs. (old).—Beef. The French say un gobet; formerly, a
dainty morsel.


Bit of Blood, subs. (common).—A high-spirited horse; a thoroughbred.
The derivation is obvious. For synonyms, see Prad.

    1819. Moore, Tom Crib’s Memorial to Congress, p. 10.

        ’Mong the vehicles, too, which were many and various,
        From natty barouche down to buggy precarious,
        We twigg’d more than one queerish sort of turn-out,
        C—n n—g came in a job, and then canter’d about
        On a showy, but hot and unsound, bit of blood,
        (For a leader once meant, but cast off, as no good).

    1843. Dickens, Martin Chuzzlewit, II., p. 156. Not that we slacken
    in our pace the while, not we: we rather put the bits of blood upon
    their mettle.


Bit of Cavalry, subs. (old).—A horse.

    1821. W. T. Moncrieff, Tom and Jerry, Act i., Sc. 6. Tom. You are
    now at Tattersal’s, Jerry, a very worthy fellow, who made his
    fortune by a horse called Highflyer. Jerry. Hum! and if one may
    judge from the splendour and extent of his premises, he seems to be
    no small highflyer himself. Tom. You are right, Jerry—I shall here
    buy a bit of cavalry—that is a prad, on your judgment.


Bit of Ebony, subs. (common).—A negro or negress. For synonyms, see
Snowball.


Bit of Fat, subs. (common).—1. An unexpected pecuniary advantage in a
transaction.

2. (printers’.)—See Fat.


Bit of Jam.—See Jam.


Bit of Leaf, subs. (thieves’).—Tobacco.


Bit of Muslin, subs. (common).—A young girl; generally applied only to
prostitutes. Also bit of stuff. For synonyms, see Barrack-hack.


Bit of Mutton, subs. (familiar).—A woman; generally, a prostitute is
meant. Cf., Laced mutton, and for synonyms, see Barrack-hack.


Bit of Sticks, subs. phr. (sporting).—A corpse. For synonyms, see Dead
meat.


Bit of Stiff, subs. (common).—A bank-note, or other paper money; the
equivalent of money when not in specie, i.e., a draft or bill of
exchange.

    1854. Lever, Dodd Family Abroad, I., 313. I’m sorry that bit of
    stiff, meaning the bill, wasn’t for five thousand francs.

    1876. Hindley, Life and Adventures of a Cheap Jack, p. 234. He
    liked to have the party’s name written across a piece of paper with
    a stamp attached, commonly called a bit of stiff.

To do a bit of stiff, phr. (common).—To accept a bill.


Bit of Stuff, subs. (familiar).—An overdressed man; a man with full
confidence in his appearance and abilities; a young woman; also called
a bit of muslin.

    1835. Marryat, Jacob Faithful, ch. xxiii. ‘One night he says to me,
    “Will, come up and I’ll show you a devilish fine piece of stuff.”
    So I walks with him, and he takes me to a shop where they dealed in
    marine stores, and we goes and finds your mother in the back
    parlour.’


Bit On.—See On.


Bitter, subs. (popular).—A glass of beer.

To do a bitter.—To drink a glass of bitter. Originally, says Hotten, an
Oxford term varied by to do a beer.

    1853. Rev. E. Bradley (‘Cuthbert Bede’), Verdant Green, 1st., III.,
    ch. x. Mr. Verdant Green and Mr. Bouncer ... turned into the
    coffee-room of ‘The Mitre’ to do bitters, as Mr. Bouncer phrased
    the act of drinking bitter beer.

    c. 1882. Comic Song, ‘The West End Boys,’ verse 3.

        Let fortune frown and friends betray,
        There’s a class of men that’s ever gay,
        Where some make troubles, they make joys,
        And are known by the title of the West End Boys.
        They commence their evening with cigars,
        And ‘How-d’ye-do, dear,’ at the bars,
        ‘Another bitter, I really can’t go,
        There’s something about you that charms me so.’
                   Oh, don’t they like, etc.


Bittock, subs. (originally provincial; now common).—A distance of very
undecided length. If a North countryman be asked the distance to a
place, he will most probably reply, ‘a mile and a bittock.’ The latter
may be considered any distance from one hundred yards to ten miles.
Also of time. [From bit + ock, a diminutive suffix.]

    1802. J. Wilson (‘Congleton’), M.S. Let. to F. Boucher. Bittock, a
    small Piece or small Bit; Cheshire. [M.]

    1816. Scott, Old Mortality, ch. x. ‘To Chamwood, madam? It’s unco
    late, and its sax miles an’ a bittock down the water.’

    1884. Daily News, April 15, p. 4, col. 7. Edinburgh University is
    three hundred years old, or rather, three hundred years and a
    bittock.


Bit You.—A hair of the dog that bit you.—See Hair.


Bivvy or Gatter, subs. (provincial).—Beer; ‘shant of bivvy,’ a pot or
quart of beer; probably from the Italian, bevere, bere. Latin, bibere.
English, beverage.


Biz, subs. (originally American, now general).—A vulgar corruption for
business, employment, or occupation. ‘Good biz’ is profitable business.

    1882. Democracy, ch. vii. A number of gentlemen were waiting for
    interviews with the President, and among them was the whole
    Pennsylvania delegation, ready for biz, as Mr. Tom Lord remarked,
    with a wink.

    1884. Saturday Review, Jan. 5, p. 13, col. 2. It is satisfactory to
    learn from the conductor of the circus that biz is very fair.

    1889. Ally Sloper, Aug. 17, p. 262, col. 1. We understand, though
    we cannot vouch for the truth of the statement, that a New York
    lady, moving in the best society, while twisting some worsted, hit
    upon the idea of applying a little system of her own to a larger
    field than mere yarn, so she invented a machine for twisting wire
    rope, and has sold the patent for £10,000 and a royalty upon future
    sales. Very good biz, this, eh!


B. K. S., subs. (military).—An abbreviation of ‘barracks’; its usage is
explained by quotation.

    1887. Standard, 10 Feb., p. 5, col. 2. B. k. s., used by officers
    ‘in mufti,’ who do not wish to give their address.


Blab, subs. (vulgar).—A revealer of that which should be kept secret; a
betrayer; a babbler. A depraved word; once in common use, but rarely
employed now, except colloquially. Grose [1785] includes it in his
Dictionary of the Vulgar Tongue as forming part of the slang of his
time. These remarks apply with more or less cogency to blab when used,
to signify loose talk or chatter, when employed as a verb, and to the
various derivative compounds and allied forms, such as ‘blabber,’
‘blabbing,’ ‘blabbing-book,’ etc.—a taint of vulgarism now rests upon
them all.


Black Act, subs. (American).—A corrupted form of black art (q.v.).


Blackamoor’s Teeth, subs. (old).—Cowrie shells—the currency of some
savage tribes.

    1700. W. King, Transactioneer, p. 36. He has shells called
    Blackmoore’s Teeth, I suppose ... from their Whiteness. [M.]

    1719. W. Wood, Surv. Trade, p. 334. Known by the Name of Cowries
    amongst Merchants, or of Blackamores’ Teeth among other Persons.
    [M.]


Black-and-Tan, subs. (vagrants’).—Porter or stout and ale, mixed in
equal quantities. [From black, in allusion to the dark colour of porter
and stout, + and + tan, i.e., of the yellowish brown colour of ale.]


Black-and-Tan Country, subs. phr. (American).—The Southern States of
North America. [From black, a sobriquet for a negro, + and + tan, a pun
and an allusion to the slang verb ‘to tan,’ to thrash or beat +
country; i.e., the country where the negroes were tanned or beaten.]


Black and White, subs. phr. (colloquial).—The black characters of print
or writing on white paper. Therefore, to put a thing down in black and
white is to preserve it in writing or in print. Black on white is a
variant.

    1596. Jonson, Every Man in His Humour, IV., ii. I have it here in
    black and white. [Pulls out the warrant.]

    1667. Shirley, Love Tricks, Act ii., Sc. 2. Gov. [with a letter]
    ... Alas, poor gentleman! Little does he think what black and white
    is here.

    1712. Spectator, No. 286. My desire is, Sir, that you will be
    pleased to give us, in black and white, your opinion in the matter
    of dispute between us.

    1714. Spectator, No. 616. They had like to have dumfounded the
    justice; but his clerk came in to his assistance, and took them all
    down in black and white.

    1837. Carlyle, French Revolution, pt. III., bk. II., ch. viii. His
    accounts lie all ready, correct in black and white to the uttermost
    farthing.

    1874. Mrs. H. Wood, Johnny Ludlow, 1 S., No. xii., p. 202. ‘A man
    can’t so much as put on a pair of clean stockings in the morning,
    but its laid before high quarters in black and white at mid-day by
    the secret police!’


Black-Arse, subs. (old).—A kettle; a pot. [From black, from its colour,
+ arse, the posterior, hinder, or ‘bottom’ part.]


Black Art, subs. (old).—1. Picking of locks; burglary. For synonyms,
see Crack.

    1591. Greene, Conny-Catch., wks., 1883, II., x., 72. I can set down
    the subtiltie of the blacke art, which is picking of lockes.

    1608. Dekker, Belman of Lond., wks., 1884–5, III., 137. This blacke
    art ... is called in English, Picking of Lockes.

    1785. Grose, Dictionary of the Vulgar Tongue. Black art, the art of
    picking a lock.

    1811. Lexicon Balatronicum. [The definition given is the same as
    that of Grose, as above-mentioned.]

2. (undertakers’.)—The business of an undertaker. Cf., Black work.

    1861. Sala, Seven Sons of Mammon, i., p. 78. Rich men’s funerals in
    the first style of black art.


Black-ball, verb (common).—See Pill.


Blackballing, subs. (nautical).—Stealing or pilfering. A sailor’s word.
It originated amongst the employees of the old Black Ball line of
steamers between New York and Liverpool. The cruelty and scandalous
conduct of officers to men—and sailors to each other—were so
proverbial, that the line of vessels in question became known all over
the world for the cruelty of its officers, and the thieving
propensities of its sailors.


Blackbeetles, subs. (old).—The lower strata of society. [Apparently a
term of contempt derived from the cockroach, generally called a
blackbeetle.] Obsolete.

    1821. W. T. Moncrieff, Tom and Jerry, Act ii., Sc. 6. Jerry: Tom,
    here’s a group of blackbeetles—do you see those lovely mendicants?
    Tom: Beauty in rags—I do—Cupid imploring charity. I’ll relieve him,
    for I’ll be after that match-girl directly. Jerry: And I’ll chant a
    few words to that beautiful ballad-singer. Log: And I’ll take pity
    on that charming beggar.


Blackberry Swagger, subs. (common).—A person who hawks tapes,
boot-laces, etc.


Blackbird, subs. (popular).—Formerly an African captive on board a
slaver; now generally understood as referring to a Polynesian
indentured labourer, who, if not by name a slave, is often one to all
intents and purposes. [Obviously derived from the black or dark-brown
colour of these people.]

    1881. Chequered Career, p. 180. The white men on board knew that if
    once the blackbirds burst the hatches ... they would soon master
    the ship. [M.]

Verb.—To capture negroes or Polynesians; to kidnap (see subs.). Hence
the verbal substantive and ppl. adj. blackbirding, in the same sense.

    1883. Graphic, April 21, p. 398, col. 1. The day is not far distant
    when, to avoid blackbirding, and the revengeful massacres which
    these kidnappers provoke, the whole of Oceania will have to be
    placed under civilised control.

    1883. Academy, 8 Sep., p. 158. [He] slays Bishop Patteson by way of
    reprisal for the atrocities of some blackbirding crew. [M.]

    1884. Pall Mall Gazette, 19 Aug. p. 2, col. 2. Years ago
    blackbirding scoundrels may have hailed from Fiji. [M.]


Blackbird-Catching.—See Blackbird.


Black-Birders, subs. (popular).—See quotation.

    1883. All the Year Round, 22 Sep., p. 355. Blackbirders, the
    kidnappers for labour purposes on the islands of the Pacific.


Black Box, subs. (old).—A lawyer. So given in Grose [1785]; Lexicon
Balatronicum [1811]; and in Duncombe’s Sinks of London [1848]. [From
the black tin boxes in which clients’ papers are kept.]


Black-Boy, subs. (old).—See Black-coat.


Black Bracelets, subs. (old).—Handcuffs. For synonyms, see Darbies.

    1839. Harrison Ainsworth, Jack Sheppard [1889], p. 63.

        When the turnkey, next morning, stepped into his room,
        The sight of the hole in the wall struck him dumb;
        The sheriff’s black bracelets lay strewn on the ground,
        But the lad that had worn ’em could nowhere be found.
                                Tol-de-rol!


Black-Cattle, subs. (popular).—1. Clergymen; parsons. [From the
prevailing hue of the garments worn by the profession.] Sometimes used
in the same way as red-coats for soldiers, e.g., black-coats (q.v.);
also devil dodgers, the latter of which, see for synonyms.

2. (old.)—Lice. These are also called active citizens and chates
(q.v.).


Black-Cattle Show, subs. (popular).—A gathering of clergymen. [From
black-cattle (q.v.) + show, in its slang sense of a party or meeting.]


Black-Coat, subs. (familiar.)—A parson. Cf., Black-cattle and
Devil-dodger.

    1627. R. Perrot, Jacob’s Vow, 52. Let us take heed how these
    black-coates get the day of us. [M.]

    1671. Eachard, Observations, p. 176. Suppose we should bestow upon
    a poor low thinking black-coat, one of our best forms, such as
    follows; it is five to one he would commit some ecclesiastical
    blunder or other, in setting his name too near.

    1818. Scott, Heart of Midlothian, i. You are the black-coat’s son
    of Knocktarlitie.

    1870. Emerson, Soc. and Solit., ix., p. 197. The black-coats are
    good company only for black-coats. [M.]


Black-Cuffs, subs. (military).—The Fifty-eight Foot, from the
regimental facings which have been black since 1767. They have also
been nicknamed the Steel Backs (q.v.).


Black Diamonds, subs. (popular).—1. Coals. [A simile in allusion to the
colour, and also to the fact that both coal and diamonds are carbon.]

    1849. T. Miller, in Gabarni in London, p. 43. Were he even trusted
    with the favourite horse and gig to fetch a sack of black diamonds
    from the wharf.

2. Also formerly a rough but clever or good person; this sobriquet,
however, has given place to rough diamond (q.v.).


Black Dog, subs. (old).—1. Applied, circa 1702–30, to a counterfeit
shilling and other base silver coinage. In this connection it may be
pointed out that black had long previously been applied to base money.
Ruding, in his Annals of the Coinage [London, 1817, vol. I., p. 405],
having mentioned black money, appends this note—‘Qy. Turonenses Nigri?
Copper money struck at Tours.’ [See Turney’s infra. Qy. corrupted from
Tierney, name of maker.] It is introduced in his account of the Statute
of Money, passed at York, 1335, 9 cap., Edward III., which recites that
all manner of black money which had been commonly current in the king’s
realm and obeisance should be utterly excluded, so as not to be current
in one month after proclamation, on pain of forfeiture of the same.
Later on, in 1339, a certain black money called ‘turneys’ was made by
certain persons in Ireland, who circulated it to the injury of the
king’s sterling money, and to his no little loss and prejudice.
Proclamation had, therefore, been ordered to be made to prohibit the
circulation of it, on pain of forfeiture of money and goods. But the
king having been informed that great inconvenience had arisen from this
prohibition on account of the scarcity of sterling money, it was,
therefore, commanded that, provided it should be found on due inquiry
more advantageous to the public to allow the currency of the said black
money, proclamation should be made to authorise it until a sufficient
quantity of other money was provided.

    1706. Luttrell, in Ashton’s Reign Queen Anne, II., p. 225. The Art
    of making black dogs, which are shillings, or other pieces of money
    made only of Pewter, double wash’d. [M.]

    1724. Swift, Drapier’s Lett., wks., 1755, V., ii., 44. Butcher’s
    half-pence, black-dogs, and others the like. [M.]

2. (common.)—Delirium tremens; the horrors; ‘jim jams.’ Black dog is a
frequent figurative expression dialectically for depression of spirits,
and melancholy. Among the ancients a black dog and its pups were
considered an evil omen. For synonyms, see Gallon distemper.

    1861. Hughes, Tom Brown at Oxford, ch. xxxiii. ‘Yes, sir,’ said the
    butler, nodding, ‘D.T., sir. After one of his rages the black dog
    comes, and it’s hawful work; so I hope you’ll go, sir.’

To blush like a black dog, phr. (old).—Not to blush at all; to be
shameless.—See also Blush.

    1634. Withal, Dictionary, p. 557 [ed. 1634]. Faciem perfricuit. He
    blusheth like a black dogge, hee hath a brazen face.


Black Doll.—See Dolly shop.

    1835. Charles Dickens, Sketches by Boz, p. 174. [Speaking of a
    marine-store shop]: imagine, in addition to this incongruous mass,
    a black doll in a white frock, with two faces—one looking up the
    street, the other looking down, swinging over the door.

    1838. Douglas Jerrold, Men of Character, II., p. 100. Five hundred
    articles, among which might be found knockers, scrapers, barbers’
    poles, black dolls.

    1861. Cornhill Magazine, Nov., p. 609. The best price given for old
    rags—inquire at the sign of the black doll.


Black-Eye. To give a bottle a black eye, phr. (old).—To empty it. Cf.,
Dead man.


Black-Eyed Susan, subs. (American).—Texan for a revolver. Among other
slang equivalents for this weapon current in the Lone Star State may be
mentioned meat in the pot, blue lightning, the peace-maker, mr.
speaker, a one-eyed scribe, pill box and my unconverted friend. For
synonyms, see Meat in the pot.


Black-Fly, subs. (old).—A contemptuous name for a clergyman. For
synonyms, see Devil-dodger.

    1811. Lexicon Balatronicum. The greatest drawback on the farmer is
    the black fly, i.e., the parson who takes tithe of the harvest.


Blackfriars! intj. (thieves’).—An exclamation of warning; look out!
beware!—See Thieves.


Blackguard, subs. (common).—A man coarse in speech, and offensive in
manner; a scamp; a scoundrel; a disreputable fellow. The term, as now
used, is one of the utmost opprobrium, and although a good deal of
uncertainty hangs about its history and derivation, it seems pretty
clear that a certain amount of odium has always been attached to the
word. Between two of its primary significations, however,—(1) a kitchen
knave or scullion, and (2) a guard of attendants, black in person,
dress, or character, generally in reference to the devil’s
body-guard—and the modern usage, there is a somewhat marked line to be
drawn. The earliest mention is as follows:—

    1532. MS. Churchwarden’s Accompts. St. Margaret’s, Westminster
    (Receipts for burials). Item Receyvid for the lycens of iiij.
    torchis of the blake garde vjd.

What this guard was is not definitely known. Some have suggested that
it was a body of soldiers; others that it was a band of torch bearers
at funerals; while some incline to the belief that it was comprised of
street link-boys.

Better supported by evidence are the senses first mentioned, in which
blackguard signifies (1) a scullion, and (2) a member of the devil’s
body-guard. But here too, Murray points out that it would be difficult
to assign priority. First, however, let the quotations be given in
sets:—

Sense 1 = a scullion.

    1535. Sir W. Fitzwilliams, 17 Aug., in Cal. State Papers. Two of
    the ring-leaders had been some time of the black guard of the
    king’s kitchen. [M.]

    1579. Fulke, Refut. Kastel, 779. They ought not, nor yet any of the
    scullerie or blacke garde. [M.]

Sense 2 = Devil’s body-guard; also other attendants.

    1583. Fulke, Defence, x., 386. Pelagius, Celestins, and other like
    heretics of the devil’s body-guard, [M.]

    1609. Dekker, Lanthorne and Candlelight, wks. [1884–5] III., 214.
    The Great Lord of Limbo did therefore commaund all his Blacke guard
    that stood about him, to bestirre them. [M.]

Comparing these one with the other, we are clearly face to face in one
set of quotations with a popular superstition—a belief of an age when
witchcraft was prevalent, and when hobgoblins and the like were
assigned as black guards to his Satanic Majesty. Whether there was any
connection in the popular mind between the King’s scullions and the
Devil’s body-guard, cannot now be definitely stated. Still, it is
probable; and this view is borne out by later references. It is curious
to note the concluding lines of Hudibras’ Address to Ralpho, which may
perhaps explain the process by which the term of black guard may have
come to be applied to the lowest class of domestics in the royal
kitchens or other great establishments. Still, as stated, priority
cannot be given to either; moreover, the use of black guard in either
sense may have been a mere play on words, whether of 1 on 2, or 2 on 1
is equally uncertain. The quotation from Hudibras is as follows:

    1678. Butler, Hudibras, pt. III., canto 1, line 1403.

        I do believe thee, quoth the knight;
        Thus far I’m sure thou’rt in the right,
        And know what ’tis that troubles thee,
        Better than thou hast guess’d of me.
        Thou art some paltry, blackguard sprite,
        Condemn’d to drudg’ry in the night;
        Thou hast no work to do in th’ house,
        Nor half-penny to drop in shoes;
        Without the raising of which sum
        You dare not be so troublesome;
        To pinch the slatterns black and blue,
        For leaving you their work to do.
        This is your business, good Pug Robin,
        And your diversion, dull dry bobbing.

So also the following:—

    1655. Fuller, Church History [1845], vol. V., p. 160. For who can
    otherwise conceive but such a prince-principal of darkness must be
    proportionately attended with a black guard of monstrous opinions.

The Black Guard of Satan, argues a writer in Notes and Queries [Sir J.
Emmerson Tennent, N. and Q., 1 S., vii., 78], was supposed, in the
popular view, to perform the drudgery of the kitchen and servants’ hall
in the infernal household.

    1588–1628. Hobbes, Microcosmus, vol. II., p. 134. Since my lady’s
    decay I am degraded from a cook, and I fear the devil himself will
    entertain me but for one of his blackguards, and he shall be sure
    to have his roast burnt.

Hence came the popular superstition that these goblin scullions, on
their visits to the upper world confined themselves to the servants’
apartments of the houses which they favoured with their presence, and
which at night they swept and garnished; pinching those of the maids in
their sleep who, by their laziness, had imposed such toil on their
elfin assistants; but slipping money into the shoes of the more tidy
and industrious servants whose attention to their own duties before
going to rest had spared the goblins the task of performing their share
of the drudgery. In allusion to this is Gifford’s note on Ben Jonson’s
plays [vol. II., p. 170],—

    In all great houses, but particularly in the Royal Residences,
    there were a number of mean dirty dependents, whose office it was
    to attend the wool-yard, sculleries, etc. Of these, the most
    forlorn wretches seem to have been selected to carry coals to the
    kitchens, halls, etc. To this smutty regiment, who attended the
    progresses, and rode in the carts with the pots and kettles, which,
    with every other article of furniture, were then removed from
    palace to palace, the people, in derision, gave the name of black
    guards; a term since become sufficiently familiar, and never
    properly explained.

Many other references also go to prove the connection in the popular
mind, so far as usage is concerned, between the two significations. In
all this, however, the peculiarly contemptuous odium attached to the
word in modern times is absent, and between the old and the modern
significations a sharp line may, as already stated, be drawn.

The earliest reference to blackguard as applied to a vagabond or loafer
occurs in 1683. Since that time the word seems gradually to have become
more and more depraved, until its present meaning of a low, worthless
fellow, one open to, and ready for any villainy has been reached. The
following quotations will well repay comparative study.

    1683. MS., in Lord Steward’s Office, Windsor Castle [N. and Q., 1
    S., ix., p. 15]. 7 May, Whereas of late a sort of vicious, idle,
    and masterless boys and rogues, commonly called the blackguard,
    with divers other lewd and loose fellowes, vagabonds, vagrants, and
    wandering men and women, do usually haunt and follow the Court.

    1695. Congreve, Love for Love, Act iii., Sc. 10. Or if that won’t
    do, I’ll bring a Lawyer that shall out-lye the Devil: and so I’ll
    try whether my black-guard or his shall get the better of the day.

    1744. Nov. 26, Walpole, Lett. to Mann (1833), II., 57. The whole
    stage filled with blackguards, armed with bludgeons and clubs.

    1780. Parody on the Rosciad, etc., p. 13. Like him I’m a blackguard
    and sot.

    1788. G. A. Stevens, Adv. of a Speculist, i., 59. As black-guards
    at Newmarket meeting bawl about the lists of horses.

    1874. Mrs. H. Wood, Johnny Ludlow, 1 S., No. iii., p. 37. ‘I must
    request you to be a little more careful in your language. You have
    come amidst gentlemen here, not blackguards.’

Adj.—Of or pertaining to a blackguard; to the scum or refuse of
society; vile; vicious.

    1760. Smollett, Sir L. Greaves, vol. II., ch. ix. He is become a
    blackguard gaol-bird.

    1803. C. K. Sharpe, in Correspondence (1888), I., 178. His friends
    were ill-natured, and behaved like blackguard beasts.

Verb.—To act like a ruffian; to use filthy, scurrilous language; to
play the vagabond or scoundrel.

    1855. Thackeray, Newcomes, ch. xxix. ‘I have been called names, and
    blackguarded quite sufficiently for one sitting.’

So also with other derivatives and compounds—blackguardism,
blackguardize, blackguardly, blackguardy.

    1781. G. Parker, View of Society, I., 124. The talent of common
    blackguardism.

    1849. C. Kingsley, Alton Locke, ch. v. I was awakened by being
    shoved through the folding-doors of a gin-shop, into a glare of
    light and hubbub of blackguardism.

    1861. H. Kingsley, Ravenshoe, ch. xxvi. ‘I beg your pardon, sir,
    for saying that; I said it in a hurry. It was blackguardly.’

    1883. William Morris, reported in Illust. London News, March 10, p.
    243, col. 3. Almost all ordinary wares now made by man were
    shabbily and pretentiously ugly.... Not even the pine-trees and
    gardens could make the rich men’s houses at Bournemouth tolerable.
    They were simply blackguardly; and even as he spoke they were being
    built by the mile.


Black Hole, subs. (Anglo-Indian).—Cheltenham, from the number of
retired Anglo-Indians who live there. Cf., Asia Minor.

    1878. Notes and Queries, 5 S., x., p. 234, col. 1. Gained for
    Cheltenham the ... title of The Black Hole.


Black Horse, subs. (military).—A nickname of the Seventh Dragoon
Guards, so called from the regimental facings, black on scarlet.
Occasionally the epithet is shortened into The Blacks. During the reign
of George II., the corps was known as The Virgin Mary’s Guard, and is
now often called Strawboots (q.v.).


Black House, subs. (trade).—A place of business where hours are long,
and wages at starvation rates; a sweating house.

    1851. Mayhew, London Labour and London Poor, III., p. 234. I have
    mentioned that the black houses or linen-drapers at the west end of
    London, were principally supplied from the east end.


Black Indies, subs. (old).—Newcastle-on-Tyne, from its wealth in coal.
The term is now obsolete, but it was in common use at the latter part
of the eighteenth century.


Black Jack, subs. (Winchester College).—A large leathern jug for beer,
holding two gallons. The term was not peculiar to Winchester; in olden
times Jacks were common everywhere.

    (?) Simon the Cellarer. But oh, oh, oh! his nose doth show, How oft
    the Black Jack to his lips doth go.


Black job, subs. (common).—A funeral. Mr. H. J. Byron, in his annotated
copy of the Slang Dictionary states ‘it was the late Lord Portsmouth’s
hobby to attend all the black jobs he could hear of.’ [From black, in
reference to the sombre trappings of funerals + job].—See Black work.

    1866. Yates, Land at Last, I., p. 101. ‘What, a funeral mute?’
    ‘Yes, Sir, black-job business,’ etc.


Black Joke, subs. (old).—The female pudenda.—See Monosyllable for
synonyms. Said to have been the burden of an obscene song, circa 1811.


Blackleg, subs. (common).—1. A turf swindler; a rook; a welsher; also
one who cheats at cards or billiards. Origin unknown; although many
speculations have been hazarded, none are satisfactory.—See Leg.

    1771. B. Parsons, Newmarket, II., 163. The frequenters of the Turf,
    and numberless words of theirs are exotics everywhere else; then
    how should we have been told of blacklegs, and of town-tops ...
    taken in ... beat hollow, etc. [M.]

    1774. Colman, Man of Business, I., in wks. (1777) II., 133.
    Countesses and semptresses, lords, aldermen, blacklegs, and
    Oxonians.

    1812. Coombe, Dr. Syntax, Picturesque, ch. x. The crowd with their
    commission pleas’d, Rudely the trembling black-leg seiz’d, Who, to
    their justice forc’d to yield, Soon ran off dripping from the
    field.

    1830. S. Warren, Diary of a Late Physician, ch. xv. ‘Mr. T—— is
    pursuing quite disgraceful courses all night and day, squandering
    away his money among sharpers and blacklegs.’

2. A workman who, when his fellows are on strike, is willing to go on
working. An opprobrious term. Cf., Black-nob and Scab.

    1865. Pall Mall Gazette, 29 Oct., p. 7. If the timber merchants
    persist in putting on blacklegs, a serious disturbance will ensue.
    [M.]

3. Also by another transference of meaning applied to any one failing,
or refusing to join his fellows in combination for a given purpose.

    1889. Pall Mall Gazette, Nov. 21, p. 5, col. 1. It was stated at
    the meeting that the master bakers were much behind the journeymen
    in the matter of organisation, and the difficulty of maintaining
    the price against unscrupulous bakers at ‘a living figure’ was
    emphasized. The question of the preparation of a list of master
    baker ‘blacklegs’ was also touched upon. These men are selling
    bread at 4½d. the quartern, and at even a lower rate.

Verb (tailors’).—Amongst the fraternity of ‘snips,’ to blackleg is used
as synonymous with ‘to boycott’—i.e., to make things so uncomfortable
for a man that he is compelled to leave his work or the town.

To blackleg it, phr. (trades’).—Amongst trades’ union men to return to
work before the causes of a strike have been removed, or settled to the
satisfaction of the leaders.

    1888. Baltimore Herald, May 6. Early this morning the mountain
    paths leading to the William Pen colliery were lined with men,
    dinner in hand, determined to go to work. Some were non-union
    miners, while the remainder were Knights of Labor who had
    determined to blackleg it, regardless of the jeers and threats of
    their companions.


Black-Leggism, Black-Leggery, subs. (common).—Cheating; swindling; the
arts and practices of a blackleg (q.v.—sense 1).

    1832. Maginn, in Blackwood’s Mag., XXXII., 427. From following any
    profession save the Army, the Navy, Black-apronry and
    Black-leggery. [M.]


Black-Man or Black Gentleman, subs. (old).—The devil. For synonyms, see
Skipper.

    1606. Dekker, in Newes from Hell, in wks. (Grosart) II., 113. [Old
    Nick called the Black Gentleman.]

    1861. G. Meredith, Evan Harrington, ch. iii., p. 23 (1885). ‘Rich
    as Crœsus, and as wicked as the black man below! as dear papa used
    to say.’


Blackmans.—See Darkmans.


Black Maria, subs. (popular).—A prison van or omnibus, used for the
conveyance of prisoners. The origin of the phrase is unknown, but black
is obviously from the dark and sombre colour of Her Majesty’s Carriage
as it is sometimes jocularly called. This view is also supported by the
fact that a variant is Sable Maria (see quot.). Julian Marshall, in
Notes and Queries [6 S., vii., p. 355], suggests that the term Maria
may be allied to ‘Marinated,’ transported to some foreign plantation,
and ‘married,’ persons chained or handcuffed together, in order to be
conveyed to gaol [Grose has this, as also has the Lexicon
Balatronicum]. In marinated evident allusion is made to the compulsory
voyage; in married to the forced wedlock of convictism. Black Maria
may, therefore, possibly be a corruption of one or the other, or both
terms. A writer on slang states that the term is said to have
originated in Philadelphia in 1838, but gives no evidence in support of
the statement.

    1877. Five Years’ Penal Servitude, ch. ii., p. 61. On alighting
    from the ‘Sable Maria’ we were ushered through a door into a long
    white-washed passage, with cells on one side.

    1880. G. R. Sims, Three Brass Balls, pledge xvii. It is the time
    when Black Maria, the prison van, stands waiting at the door, and
    the signal is given that the prisoners are coming out.

    1889. Answers, Feb. 9. There are two kinds of Black Marias. One is
    called the night van and the other the day. The passengers politely
    term them ‘mails.’ The day van holds eighteen passengers not
    including the driver and warder, and the night van a dozen. The
    vans are divided into two halves, and on each side are small
    compartments about two feet square with a seat and door, which is
    carefully locked.

Amongst French Synonyms may be mentioned:—Le courrier du Palais (a
thieves’ term: courrier, a post or mail + Palais, an abbreviated form
of Palais de Justice, a police court or sessions house); un panier à
salade (familiar: ‘a salad basket’); le courrier de la prefecture
(thieves’: Cf., courrier du Palais. Préfecture = the office of a chief
magistrate); l’omnibus pègres (in slang un pègre signifies ‘a thief’);
un guimbard (thieves’: une guimbarde is properly ‘a long cart’); le
service du château (roughs’ and thieves’: ‘the prison service’; château
= prison).

For other synonyms, see Her Majesty’s Carriage.


Black-Monday, subs. (old).—1. A schoolboys’ term for the Monday on
which, after holidays, school re-opens. Obviously called black, from
the reluctance with which young hopefuls turn their backs upon the
sweets of home and play. Black Friday was used of the day on which
Overend, Gurney & Co., suspended payment—10 May, 1886. Cf., Blue
Monday.

    1750. Fielding, Tom Jones, bk. VIII., ch. xi. She now hated my
    sight, and made home so disagreeable to me, that what is called by
    school-boys black Monday was to me the whitest in the whole year.

    1882. F. Anstey, Vice Versâ, ch. i. There comes a time when the
    days are grudgingly counted to a blacker Monday than ever makes a
    schoolboy’s heart quake within him.

2. (popular.)—The Monday on which the death penalty is carried out;
these events are generally arranged to fall on the day in question.


Black-Mummer, subs. (old).—An epithet applied to one unwashed and
unshorn.


Black-Nob, subs. (trades’ union).—A non-unionist; one who, while his
fellows are on strike, persists in working at his trade; a blackleg
(q.v.). [Apparently a humorous variant of blackleg. From black =
wicked, atrocious, + nob, the head, in place of leg in blackleg.] They
are also called knobsticks and scabs (q.v.).


Black Ointment, subs. (American thieves’).—A term for uncooked meat.


Black-Pot, subs. (old).—A toper; a tippler. [Beer mugs were called
black-pots; also black-jacks, hence, probably, a transference of the
name from the utensil to the drinker.]

    1594. Greene, Fr. Bacon, v., 122. I’ll be Prince of Wales over all
    the black-pots in Oxford.

    1636. Heywood, Love’s Mistr., II. Iugg, what’s shee but sister to a
    black-pot.

    1818. Scott, Heart of Midlothian, xxxii. A whole whiskin, or
    black-pot of sufficient double ale.


Black Psalm. To sing the black psalm, phr. (old).—To cry; a saying used
to children.—Grose.


Blacks.—See Black horse.


Black Sal or Suke, subs. (popular).—A kettle.—See Sukey for synonyms.


Black Saturday, subs. (workmen’s).—A Saturday on which an artisan or
mechanic has no money to take, having anticipated it by advances. Cf.,
Black Monday and Blue Monday.


Black-Sheep, subs. (common).—A mildly opprobrious term for a
scapegrace; a ‘bad lot’; ‘un mauvais sujet.’ It is also applied like
blackleg and black-nob to workmen who persist in working when their
comrades are on strike. The word is hardly slang now.

    1864. Le Fanu, Uncle Silas, ch. xxvi. ‘Your Uncle Silas had injured
    himself before that in the opinion of the people of his county. He
    was a black sheep, in fact. Very bad stories were told and believed
    of him.’

    1874. M. Collins, Frances, ch. xxxvii. ‘In all cities there are
    black sheep, but in a city like London, sound finance is the rule,
    I am sure.’

    1876. Besant and Rice, Golden Butterfly, ch. xxviii. ‘Many
    companies, perfectly sound in principle, may be ruined by a sudden
    decrease in the price of shares; a panic sets in, and in a few
    hours the shareholders may lose all. And if you bring this about by
    selling without concert with the other favoured allottees, you’ll
    be called a black sheep.’

Verb (Winchester College).—When a fellow in ‘Junior Part’ got above (or
‘jockeyed’) a fellow in ‘Middle Part.’


Blacksmith’s Daughter, subs. (popular).—A key. Formerly the key with
which the doors of sponging houses were unlocked. Also Locksmith’s
daughter, which see for synonyms.

    1859. C. Dickens, Tale of Two Cities. Place it under the care of
    the blacksmith’s daughter.

    1864. Reader [quoted in N. and Q., 5 S., ix., 263]. Blacksmith’s
    daughter. A key. I have never met with this word in print, but have
    heard it frequently in conversation.


Black-Spice Racket, subs. (old).—The practice of robbing chimney
sweepers of their tools, bag, and soot.—Lexicon Balatronicum.


Black Spy, subs. (old).—A cant name for the devil. The French
equivalent is le dache. For synonyms, see Skipper.


Black-Strap, subs. (common).—1. Thick, sweet port. A contemptuous term,
in allusion to its dark colour, strap being an old name for wine.—(See
quot.).

    1608. Dekker, Belman of London, in wks. (Grosart) III., 131.
    Sometimes likewise this Card-cheating, goes not vnder the name of
    Bernard’s Lawe, but is called Batt fowling, and then ye Setter is
    the Beater, the foole that is caught in the net, the bird, the
    Tauerne to which they repaire to worke the Feate, is the Bush; the
    wine the Strap, and the cardes the Limetwigs.

    1821. Moncrieff, Tom and Jerry, p. 3. Tom (taking his seat):
    Gentlemen, I beg pardon for being scarce so long; but having to
    start early, I thought it best to see that the toggery was all
    right and fly—I never shirk the black strap intentionally, you
    know. Jerry: Don’t mention it, my dear Tom.

    1853. Wh. Melville, Digby Grand, ch. x. The orator gets deeper into
    his subject, till an extremely abrupt conclusion ... empties every
    bumper of ‘black strap’ like a shot.

2. (American.)—Properly speaking, gin mixed with molasses, but
frequently applied to a compound of any alcoholic liquor with molasses.
Beverages of this description were at one time the commonest of drinks
among agricultural labourers.

    1882. Pinkerton, Molly Maguires and Detectives, p. 84. From the
    great iron kettle a savory incense arose; it came from an admixture
    of high-wines and common molasses, in about the proportion of one
    gallon of the latter to four of the spirit.... The seething
    blackstrap was pronounced ready for use. It rapidly disappeared,
    and, as it diminished and was imbibed, the fun and hilarity
    proportionately increased.

3. (old.)—A task of labour imposed on soldiers at Gibraltar as a
punishment for small offences.—Grose.


Black’s Your Eye. To say black’s your eye, phr. (old).—To accuse; to
find fault with. The phrase was varied by black’s your eyebrow, nail,
etc. A more modern rendering is black is the white of your eye.

    1528. Roy, Sat. (1845). They eate their belies full.... And none
    sayth blacke is his eye. [M.]

    1583. Stubbs, Anatomic of Abuses, p. 65. And then no man say blacke
    is their eye, but all is well, and they as good Christians, as
    those that suffer them unpunished.

    1647. Beaumont and Fletcher, Love’s Cure, iii., 1. I can say
    black’s your eye, though it be grey; I have conniv’d at this your
    friend, and you.

    1750. Fielding, Tom Jones, IX., iv. The house is well known to be a
    house of as good reputation as any on the road, and, though I say
    it, is frequented by gentry of the best quality, both Irish and
    English. I defy anybody, to say black is my eye, for that matter.


Black-Teapot, subs. (popular).—A negro footman.


Blackwork, subs. (common).—Undertaking. The waiters met with at public
dinners are often employed during the day as mutes, etc. Omnibus and
cab drivers regard blackwork as un dernier ressort.—See Black-job.

    1859. Sala, Gaslight and Daylight, ch. xxvi. A florid man who
    officiates as a waiter at the London Tavern o’nights, and sometimes
    takes a spell in the black work, or undertaking line of business.


Bladder of Lard, subs. (popular).—A bald-headed person. [From the
supposed similarity of the smooth, hairless cranium to a bag or bladder
of lard.]

    1886. Athenæum, July 31, p. 142. An elderly Jew money-lender, whom
    she afterwards describes to her admiring friends as a bladder of
    lard, a graceful reference to his baldness and tendency to
    stoutness.


Blade, subs. (common.)—A roysterer; a gallant; a sharp, keen fellow; a
free and easy, good fellow. [Probably from blade, a sword, a soldier.
There seems no warrant for supposing the word connected with the Dutch
bloed, or with the term ‘blood,’ a dandy, in use in the time of the
Georges in a somewhat similar sense; indeed, the following quotations
show a much older usage. In French a ‘sly blade’ is called un renaré.]

    1595. Shakspeare, Romeo and Juliet, ii., 4. The pox of such antic,
    lisping, affecting fantasticoes; these new tuners of accents! By
    Jesu, a very good blade!—a very tall man!

    1632. Chapman and Shirley, The Ball, Act iv.

        This came first o’ keeping company with the blades,
        From whom I learnt to roar and run away.

    1636. Davenant, The Wits, Act v.

                    The old blade
        Skulks there like a tame filcher, as he had
        New stolen ’bove eggs from market-women.

    1637. Fletcher, Elder Brother, I., ii.

                    If he be that old
        Rough testy blade he always used to be.

    1664. Pepys, Diary, Jan. 4. For suffering his man (a spruce blade)
    to be so saucy as to strike a ball while his master was playing in
    the Mall.

    1667. Pepys, Diary, June 3. With his hat cocked like a fool behind,
    as the present fashion among the blades is.

    1698. Farquhar, Love and a Bottle, Act iv., Sc. 2. These London
    blades are all stark mad; I met one about two hours ago, that had
    forgot his name, and this fellow would persuade me now, that I had
    forgot mine.

    1748. T. Dyche, Dictionary (5 ed.). Blade (s.) ... is sometimes
    used to signify a beau, spark, or hectoring fellow.

    1773. O. Goldsmith, She Stoops to Conquer, Act i., Sc. 2. ‘A
    troublesome old blade, to be sure; but a keeps as good wines and
    beds as any in the whole country.’

    1860. Dickens, Great Expectations, ch. xxiv., p. 115. ‘He forged
    wills, this blade did, if he didn’t also put the supposed testators
    to sleep too.’

    1883. Broadside Ballad, ‘Happy Thoughts,’ st. 4.

        My Uncle Dowle has lots of money;
        He’s a very knowing looking blade.


Blamed, ppl. adj. (popular).—An expletive used to emphasize a
statement. It partakes of the nature of an oath, being often used
instead of ‘doomed’ or ‘damned.’ In America the expression is more of a
colloquialism than it is in England.—See Oaths.

    1835. Haliburton (‘Sam Slick’), The Clockmaker, 3 S., ch. vi. Yes,
    John Bull is a blamed blockhead.

    1872. S. Clemens, Roughing It, ch. ix. The keeper had fired four
    times at an Indian, but he said with an injured air, that the
    Indian had ‘skipped’ around so’s to spile everything—and
    ammunition’s blamed skurse too.

    1873. Carleton, Farm Ballads, p. 18.

        And so that pourin’ dissentions in our cup;
        And so that blamed cow-critter was always coming up.

    1888. Detroit Free Press, Oct. 6. ‘Did you see any Quakers in
    Philadelphia?’ was asked of a Detroiter who lately returned from
    that city. ‘Only one that I was sure of.’ ‘Did he “thee” and “thou”
    you?’ ‘He did. He got down off his hack and said: “If thee don’t
    pay me 2 dols. I’ll knock thy blamed head off,” and I paid,
    although I knew the regular fare was twelve shillings. You don’t
    want to fool with those Quakers any, and don’t you forget it.’

    1888. Portland Transcript, May 9. ‘Why do you object to your
    daughter marrying?’ ‘Wouldn’t object ef she wuster marry the right
    sorter man.’ ‘Isn’t Tom the right sort of man?’ ‘Not by a blamed
    sight.’


Blame it! intj. (common).—A round-about oath. Equivalent to ‘Damn it!’
[A transferred sense of blame.]


Blamenation! intj. (common).—Damnation!—See Oaths.


Blank, Blanked, Blankety, adj. (common).—Euphemistic oaths, the
derivation of which is clearly an outcome of the practice of
representing an oath, for decency’s sake in printing, by a dash or
blank space; e.g., d——d. The terms are used in America in many
combinations (see quots.). Cf., Oaths.

    1857. C. Dickens, Farce for the Championship, in All the Year
    Round. Enter a closely shaven, bullet-headed fellow in an ecstasy
    of excitement at having just seen Cuss, and at the exquisite
    ‘fitness’ of that worthy. ‘So help me blank, blank!’ he cries
    delightedly, ‘if he ain’t a blank picter with the weins in his face
    down ’ere and ’ere, a showin’ out just if a blank hartist ’ad
    painted him. Tell yer he’s beautiful, fine as a blank greyhound,
    with a blank heavy air with him that looks blank like winnin’. Take
    yer two quid to one, guv’nor,’ adds the speaker, suddenly picking
    out a stout purple-faced farmer in the group of eager listeners.

    1873. C. Reade, Simpleton, xxiii. Blank him! that is just like him;
    the uneasy fool! [M.]

    1878. Mrs. Edwardes, Jet, iii., 272. ‘——the colonel of the
    regiment!’ exclaims Mark.... ‘Blank the colonel of the regiment!’
    With slow, unmistakable gusto she lingers over the monosyllable
    ‘blank.’ [M.]

    1879. Bret Harte, Gabriel Conroy, in Hallberger’s Illustrated
    Magazine, vol. I., p. 378. Because you’re religious, blank you, do
    you expect me to starve? Go and order supper first! Stop! Where in
    blank are you going? Here you’ve been and gone three hours on an
    errand for me, and blame me if you ain’t runnin’ off without a word
    about it.

    1888. Troy Daily Times, Feb. 3. The captain looked anxious, and an
    irate fellow-passenger, who had not ceased swearing since we left
    Tuxpan, declared by all that is sacred and profane that he had
    known vessels to be hindered thirty days; yes, even three months,
    by that blankety blankety bar!

    1888. Owosso (Mich.) Press, April. ‘Doctor, I’m a dead man!’ ‘Not
    right now?’ said I, as I kicked his dog out. ‘Just as good as
    dead,’ said he, ‘or you wouldn’t kick that dog in that way with
    safety. Not by a blankety blank blank sight.’ ‘Needn’t waste so
    much profanity, Mr. Starkhill,’ said I.


Blanket. Lawful blanket, subs. (old).—A wife. For synonyms, see Dutch.


Blanket Fair, subs. (popular).—Bed. Cf., Bedfordshire, Sheet Alley, and
Land of Nod.


Blanket Hornpipe, subs. (common).—Sexual commerce. The allusion is
obvious. Cf., Basket making.


Blarmed, ppl. adj. (common).—A euphemism for blessed (q.v.); ‘damned’;
‘blowed’ (q.v.); or blamed (q.v.), of the last of which it is probably
a corruption.—See Oaths.

    1867. No Church, I., 104. To be in a blarmed hurry.

    1872. John Forster, Life of Dickens, ch. xxxi. (III., p. 191). He
    saw a strange sensation among the angry travellers whom he had
    detained so long; heard a voice exclaim, ‘I am blarmed if it ain’t
    Dickens!’ and stood in the centre of a group of Five Americans!


Blarm Me! intj. (common).—A euphemistic oath.—See Blarmed.


Blarney, subs. (colloquial).—Blandishment; soft speech, or ‘sawder’;
gross flattery; ‘gammon.’ [From Castle Blarney in Ireland, in the wall
of which, difficult of access, is placed a stone. Whoever is able to
kiss this is said thereafter to be able to persuade to anything.
Blarney is from bladh-ey, flowery island, and this may have some
connection with the curious tradition. On the other hand, according to
Brewer, Cormack Macarthy held the Castle of Blarney in 1602, and
concluded an armistice with Carew, the lord president, on condition of
surrendering the fort to the English garrison. Day after day his
lordship looked for the fulfilment of the terms, but received nothing
except protocols and soft speeches, till he became the laughing-stock
of Elizabeth’s ministers, and the dupe of the lord of Blarney.]

    1785. Grose, Dictionary of the Vulgar Tongue. He has licked the
    blarney stone; he deals in the wonderful, or tips us the traveller.

    1839. Lever, Harry Lorrequer, ch. xix. They were as cunning as
    foxes and could tell blarney from good sense.

    c. 1876. Broadside Ballad, ‘A nice young thing.’

        Such a nice young thing, such a sweet young thing,
        Her name was Kate Carney, she came from Killarney,
        So full of her blarney, but fond of her Barney,
        Such a fair young thing, a rare young thing,
        And just for a lark she had dyed her hair dark,
        And they called her the Colleen Dhu.

    1884. Ruskin, in Pall Mall Gazette, 17 Nov., p. 11, col. 2. It was
    bombastic English blarney—not Irish. [M.]

The French have baliverne and pelotage with the same meaning.

Verb.—1. To wheedle; to coax; to flatter grossly.

2. (American thieves’.)—Besides the English slang signification of ‘to
wheedle,’ it also bears the secondary meaning, among the low and
criminal classes of America, of ‘to pick locks.’


Blart Out, verb (American, ? nonce word).—A corruption of ‘blurt out’;
to utter abruptly.

    1835. Haliburton (‘Sam Slick’), The Clockmaker, pref., p. v. It
    warn’t the part of a gentleman for to go and pump me arter that
    fashion, and then go right off and blart it out in print. Ibid, ch.
    viii. And there are others again who blart right out whatever comes
    uppermost.


Blasé, adj. (common).—Used up; exhausted with enjoyment; satiated.
[From French blaser, of unknown derivation.] Its extended colloquial
use in England is explained in second quotation.

    1823. Byron, Don Juan, ch. xii., st. 81. A little blasé—’tis not to
    be wondered At, that his heart had got a tougher rind, And though
    not vainer from his past success, No doubt his sensibilities were
    less.

    1883. G. A. Sala, in Illustrated London News, March 10, p. 235,
    col. 3. There should be a chronology of slang. It is about forty
    years ago, I think, that the great popularity of a French farce
    called ‘L’Homme Blasé’ brought the word into colloquial use in
    England; indeed the first translation of the French piece (at the
    Princess’s, Wright, the low comedian, playing the hero,) was called
    Blasé, with some sub-title that I forget. Subsequently another
    translation was produced, Charles Mathews playing the principal
    character. As a title for this version, we borrowed a slang term
    from the Americans, and ‘L’Homme Blasé’ became ‘Used Up’!


Blast, verb (low).—To curse; to damn. An expression of reprobation and
hatred. Used in such combinations as Blast me! Blast you! Blast your
eyes! etc.—See Oaths.

    1654. Chapman, Revenge for Honour, V., ii. And thus I kiss’d my
    last breath. Blast you all! Ta. Damn’d desperate villain!

    1752. Fielding, Amelia, bk. X., ch. v. ‘I don’t know what you mean
    by ominous,’ cries the colonel; ‘but, blast my reputation, if I had
    received such a letter, if I would not have searched the world to
    have found the writer.’

    1759. Goldsmith, Cit. of the World, lett., 105. ‘Blast me!’ cries
    Tibbs, ‘if that be all, there is no need of paying for that.’

    1825. Scott, St. Ronan’s Well, ch. viii. ‘Hands, Captain MacTurk!’
    exclaimed Sir Bingo, in some confusion; ‘no, blast him—not so bad
    as that neither.’


Blasted, ppl. adj. (low).—Execrable; confounded; often substituted for
‘damned,’ ‘bloody,’ it being thought a milder form. Grose has blasted
fellow for an abandoned rogue, and blasted brimstone for a prostitute.
[From blast, q.v.]—See Oaths.

    1682. Dryden, Medal, 260. What curses on thy blasted Name will
    fall.

    1750. Chesterfield, Letters, 8 Jan. (1870), 169. Colonel Chartres
    ... who was, I believe, the most notorious blasted rascal in the
    world. [M.]

    1874. Pusey, Lent. Sermons, 79. Balaam after the success of his
    blasted counsel. [M.]

    1884. Good Words, Nov., p. 767, col. 1. Jim Black states that the
    blasted railway has done away with those journeys.


Blatantation, subs. (? nonce word).—Noisy effusion; swagger. [From
blatant, noisy, offensively clamorous, + ation.] Cf., Blatancy.

    1833. Graphic, Feb. 24, p. 199, col. 3. On the ground betting men
    are conspicuous with their books, blatantations, blackguardism, and
    swell clothes.


Blater, subs. (old).—A calf. [Probably a corruption of ‘bleater,’ from
its cry.]

    1714. Memoirs of John Hall (4 ed.), p. 11 [list of cant words in].
    Blater, a calf.

    1827. Lytton, Pelham, ch. lxxxii. Don’t be glim-flashy; why you’d
    cry beef on a blater.


Blather, subs. (familiar).—Noisy talk; voluble nonsense. Cf., Blether.

    1864. E. Yates, Broken to Harness, ch. xxix., p. 309 (1873).
    ‘There’s a letter there from Sir Mordaunt, askin’ for more time,
    and promisin’ all sorts of things; but I’m sick of him and his
    blather.’

Verb.—To talk volubly; noisily; nonsensically.—See Blether.

    1884. W. C. Russell, Jack’s Courtship, ch. xxiv. Mrs. O’Brien was
    blathering about the pedigree of the O’Briens and the O’Shandrydans
    to Mrs. Joyce.


Blatherskite, subs. (common).—1. Boastful disputatious swagger. Cf.,
Bletherskite.

2. A swaggerer; boaster; one who talks volubly and nonsensically. Cf.,
Bletherskite.

    1888. New York Herald, July 29. Every blatherskite republican is
    filled to the brim and spouting high protection, while the
    democrats are not prepared to meet them for want of documents.

    1888. Chicago Watchman. Dr. Brookes, of St. Louis, must be a nice
    man to live with. He refers to Dr. R. W. Dale and Dr. Parker as
    ‘blatant blatherskites,’ and evidently regards Professor Drummond
    as beyond reformation.


Blayney’s Bloodhounds, subs. (military).—The Eighty-ninth Foot. They
obtained this nickname during the Irish Rebellion in 1798. [Blayney,
from their Colonel’s name + Bloodhounds from their skill in tracking
Irish rebels.] They also earned for themselves the sobriquet of The
Rollickers, in allusion to the ‘jolly doggish’ bearing of the corps.


Blaze, subs. and verb (common).—In some of the usages of this word, the
precincts of slang are narrowly touched, even if the boundary line is
not crossed; as e.g., when a man is said to blaze his way through the
labyrinths of the metropolis. The original meaning is well known. The
early settlers in traversing the vast forests which abounded on the
American continent, found it very necessary to mark their route. This
they did by the simple expedient of blazing the trees at convenient
distances. Blazing consists merely in chopping a piece of the bark off
each tree selected in the desired line of march. The mark itself is
called a blaze. In addition to this, blazing was also adopted as an
indication that the land within the limits of the trees thus marked had
been appropriated by a settler—a rude and informal, but, in early days,
a thoroughly well recognised method of securing a title to the land.
Some writers affect to derive the word from the old French blazon, the
armorial bearing of the Normans, and quote the use of ‘blazen,’ by
Shakspeare, in a sense not altogether dissimilar to the meaning
conveyed by blazing, as proof to this effect.

It is employed generally in America and all English-speaking colonies.
The following quotations will exemplify its use both in the original
and more figurative senses.—See Blazes.

    1737. Wesley, wks. (1872) I., 68. We then found another blaze and
    pursued it. [M.]

    1883. Bret Harte, In the Carquinez Woods, ch. viii. ‘I made a blaze
    hereabouts to show where to leave the trail. There it is,’ he
    added, pointing to a slight notch cut in the trunk of an adjoining
    tree.... They proceeded cautiously at right angles with the blazed
    tree for ten minutes more.

Blaze-away, intj. (common).—Look sharp; ‘stir your stumps’—an
injunction to renewed and more effective effort.


Blazer, subs. (popular).—Originally applied to the uniform of the Lady
Margaret Boat Club of St. John’s College, Cambridge, which was of a
bright red and was called a blazer. Now applied to any light jacket of
bright colour worn at cricket or other sports. Prof. Skeat [N. and Q.,
7 S., iii., 436] speaking of the Johnian blazer, says it was always of
the most brilliant scarlet, and thinks it not improbable that the fact
suggested the name which subsequently became general.

    1880. Times, June 19. Men in spotless flannel, and club blazers.
    [M.]

    1885. Punch, June 27, p. 304. On the morning of the start for our
    ‘Spin to Brighton,’ Harkaway turns up clad in what he calls a
    blazer, which makes him look like a nigger minstrel out for a
    holiday.

    1889. Daily News, Aug. 22, p. 6, col. 6. Dress by the Sea. Sir,—In
    your article of to-day, under the above heading, you speak of ‘a
    striped red and black blazer,’ ‘the blazer,’ also of ‘the pale
    toned’ ones. This is worth noting as a case of the specific
    becoming the generic. A blazer is the red flannel boating jacket,
    worn by the Lady Margaret, St. John’s College, Cambridge, Boat
    Club. When I was at Cambridge it meant that and nothing else. It
    seems from your article that a blazer now means a coloured flannel
    jacket, whether for cricket, tennis, boating, or seaside
    wear.—Yours faithfully, Walter Wren.


Blazes, subs. (general).—The infernal regions. This, an allusion to the
flames of hell, was the original meaning; constant use, however, has
lessened the force of the expression, and as in the case of ‘bloody,’
few who employ such flowers of oratory have any notion of the proper
signification. In most cases the word is now a meaningless intensitive,
and takes rank with such expressions as like one o’clock, like winkey,
etc. The verb to blaze is likewise employed in a manner closely
bordering on slang. Thus one says of an action that it is a blazing
shame; that he has a blazing headache; that so-and-so is a blazing
thief; that such a job is blazing hard work; that it is a blazing hot
day—all figurative uses of the legitimate idea. Appended are
illustrations of some of its usages.

(Common.)—The brilliant habiliments of flunkeys. Derived from the
episode of Sam Weller and the ‘swarry.’

Old Blazes, subs. (common).—The devil. For synonyms, see Skipper.

    1849. Southern Literary Messenger, June. He looked, upon my word,
    like Old Blazes himself, with his clothing all on fire, and rage
    and despair in his face.

Go to blazes, phr. (common).—Go to the devil; go to hell—expressions of
contempt used in imprecations.

    1851. Mayhew, London Labour and London Poor, III., p. 135. He jumps
    through a trap in the window with a bottle on it, marked ‘Old Tom,’
    and a scroll falls down, written gone to blazes.

    1861. Thackeray, Adventures of Philip, I., p. 99. Old Parr Street
    is mined, sir—mined! And some morning we shall be blown into
    blazes,—into blazes, sir, mark my words!

    1862. Mrs. Riddell (‘F. G. Trafford’), Too Much Alone, p. 200. ‘Has
    no one been here this afternoon?’ ‘Yes, one man, to ask his way to
    blazes, or some place else.’

    1880. S. Clemens (‘Mark Twain’), Sketch (Mr. Skae’s Item). I could
    have told Johnny Skae that I would not receive his communication at
    such a late hour, and to go to blazes with it.

    1882. Jas. Payn, in ‘A Failure of Justice’, in Glow Worm Tales, p.
    97. ‘Sir,’ cried I, authoritatively, ‘let me tell you I am a
    Middlesex magistrate.’ ‘Oh, yes: a likely story!’ was his audacious
    reply. ‘You’ve got ’Ighbury Barn written on your countenance you
    have, go to blazes!’ and he slammed down the window.

Like blazes, adv. phr. (popular).—Vehemently; with extreme ardour.—See
Anything and Winkey.

    1845. B. Disraeli, Sybil or The Two Nations, p. 330. Syllabubs like
    blazes, and snapdragon as makes the flunkeys quite pale. Ibid, p.
    369. ‘They pelted the police....’ ‘And cheered the red-coats like
    blazes,’ said Mick. Ibid. She sets her face against gals working in
    mills like blazes.

    1851. Mayhew, London Labour and London Poor, III., p. 159. She
    liked this very much, in fact so much, that the other little ones
    used to cry like blazes because I wouldn’t let them have a turn at
    them [the stilts].

    1859. Chas. Dickens, Tale of Two Cities, I., p. 15 (in parts). A
    blazing strange answer.

    1864. J. Lawrence, Guy Livingstone or Thorough. They hate each
    other like blazes.

    18(?). De Quincey, Spanish Nun, sect. 24. The horse was so maddened
    by the wound, and the road so steep, that he went like blazes.

How, Who, or What the blazes, phr. (popular).—A somewhat more intense
interrogatory than Who or What or even Who or What the Dickens.

    1836. Dickens, Pickwick, ch. lv., p. 479. ‘Pell,’ he used to say to
    me many a time, ‘how the blazes you can stand the head-work you do,
    is a mystery to me.’

    1884. W. C. Russell, Jack’s Courtship, ch. xvii. ‘Who the blazes
    would recognise Jack Seymour in those shore-going duds?’

Drunk as blazes or blaizers, phr. (common).—Very drunk; what is
vulgarly called ‘beastly’ drunk. Whether this expression follows the
derivation of the examples given above, or whether we must seek its
origin in a totally different direction, is a matter of some doubt. The
alternative derivation suggested is that the phrase is really drunk as
blaizers, an expression which dates back at least to 1830 [N. and Q., 6
S., i., 434]. Sir Thomas Wyse, in Impressions of Greece, speaking (see
Life of Richard Waldo Sibthorp, by J. Fowler, 1880, p. 227) of the
reverence for St. Blaize, in Greece (who is also, as is known, the
patron saint of the English woolcombers), and how his feast was
observed in the woollen manufactories of the Midland Counties, says,
‘Those who took part in the procession were called Blaizers, and the
phrase as drunk as blaizers originated in the convivialities common on
those occasions! So good “Bishop and Martyr” Blaize is dishonoured as
well as honoured in England, and very probably in Greece.’ Further data
may be found in Chambers’ Book of Days, vol. I., pp. 219–20.


Bleach, verb (Harvard University.)—To absent oneself from morning
prayers.—Hall’s College Words and Phrases.


Bleached Mort, subs. (old).—A fair complexioned wench.—Grose. [From
bleached, white or fair, + mort, a girl or woman.]


Bleak, adj. (American thieves’).—In the phraseology of American
thieves, bleak means handsome.


Bleater, subs. (old).—The victim of a sharper or rook. In the following
quotation a Jack in the box (q.v.) is an old thieves’ term for a
swindler or cheat.

    1609. Dekker, Lanthorne, wks., 1884–5, III., 290. They that are
    Cheated by Iacke in a Boxe are called bleaters.

    1785. Grose, Dictionary of the Vulgar Tongue. Bleaters, those
    cheated by Jack in a Box.

    1811. Lexicon Balatronicum. (Same definition given.)


Bleating Cheat, subs. (old).—A sheep.—Grose. [In the old cant cheat or
chete [from Anglo-Saxon ceat] signified a thing; and the names of
animals were frequently formed by adding an adjective descriptive of
their peculiar noise or cry. Thus a grunting cheat was a pig; a
cackling cheat a fowl; a bleating cheat a sheep.] A sheep is also
called a wool-bird (q.v.). Among French thieves this animal is
designated une morne.


Bleating Cull, subs. (old).—A sheep stealer. [From bleating, see
preceding, + cull, a man, honest or otherwise.]


Bleating Prig or Rig, subs. (old).—Sheep stealing. [From bleating, see
Bleating cheat, + prig, or rig, the act of stealing.]


Bleed, verb tr. and intr. (popular).—1. To be victimised; to lose or
part with money so that the loss is felt; to be ‘rushed’ (q.v.); to
have money drawn or extorted from one. [An allusion to the loss
sustained by parting with one’s life blood.]

    1668. Dryden, An Evening’s Love, Act iv., Sc. 1. In fine, he is
    vehement, and bleeds on to fourscore or an hundred; and I, not
    willing to tempt fortune, come away a moderate winner of two
    hundred pistoles.

    1748. T. Dyche, Dictionary (5 ed.). Bleed (v.) ... also to part
    with money freely, upon proposing something agreeable to a person’s
    disposition, whether it be in gaming or anything else.

    1751. Smollett, Peregrine Pickle, ch. lxvi. To whom he was
    particularly agreeable, on account of his person, address, and
    bleeding freely at play.

    1830. S. Warren, Diary of a Late Physician, ch. xxii. The reputed
    readiness with which she bled, at last brought her the honour of an
    old countess, who condescended to win from her, at two sittings,
    very nearly £5,000.

    1849. Thackeray, Pendennis, ch. lxviii. ‘You have got a bill of
    sale for her furniture.... By Jove, sir, you’ve bled that poor
    woman enough.’

    1885. Manchester Evening News, 23 June, p. 2, col. 2. Men who give
    bills have to bleed for the accommodation.

2. (printers’.)—A book bleeds when the margins are ‘planed’ down so
that the edge of the printed portion is cut away.

    1876. Daily Telegraph, June 9, p. 2, col. 1. So very carelessly has
    the mechanical part of production been done that, in the
    phraseology of the craft—half technical, half slang—the pages bleed
    in many places—i.e., the binder’s knife when cutting the edges has
    also cut away portions of the printed matter.


Bleeder, subs. (University).—1. A duffer beyond compare; a superlative
fool. (common).—A euphemism for ‘bloody fool.’

2. (sporting.)—A sovereign. For synonyms, see Canary.

3. (old.)—A spur; an obvious allusion.


Bleeding, adj.—An expletive, which, if meant, would partake of the
nature of an oath; as it is there is little enough, sanguinary, either
literally or metaphorically about much that is described as bleeding.
It sounds big and weighty to those who use it, and that suffices.

    1877. Besant and Rice, Son of Vulcan, pt. II., ch. xxiii. ‘When he
    isn’t up to one dodge he is up to another. You make no bleeding
    error.’


Bleeding Cully, subs. (old).—One who parts easily with his money, or
bleeds freely.—Grose.—[See Bleed.]


Bleed the Monkey, verbal phr. (nautical).—To steal rum from the mess
tub called ‘the monkey.’ The term is exclusively naval, ‘monkeys’ not
being known on merchant ships. The practice is also called sucking the
monkey, and tapping the admiral.—See Admiral.

    1889. Chambers’ Journal, 3 Aug., p. 495. To suck the monkey is a
    phrase explained in Peter Simple as having originally been used
    among sailors for drinking rum out of cocoa-nuts, the milk having
    been poured out and the liquor substituted. It is now applied to
    the act of drinking on the sly from a cask by inserting a straw
    through a gimlet hole, and to drinking generally. Barham, in the
    legend of the Black Mousquetaire says:

        What the vulgar call sucking the monkey,
        Has much less effect on a man when he’s funky.


Blenker, verb (American).—To plunder. A cant phrase much used during
the Civil War. Possibly allied to the northern provincialism ‘blenk,’ a
trick or stratagem. ‘Blenk’ was also used in Morte d’Arthur in the
sense of ‘to bilk,’ or ‘cheat.’


Bless, verb (popular).—To curse; to damn.—See Blessed.

To bless oneself, verbal phr. (common).—To be surprised; to be vexed;
to be mortified. Generally, ‘God bless me!’ or ‘Bless my eyes!’ ‘Bless
my soul!’ ‘Lor’ bless me!’

    1592. Shakspeare, Midsummer Night’s Dream, iv., 2, 11. Quin: Yea,
    and the best person too: and he is a very paramour, for a sweet
    voice. Flu: You must say, paragon: a paramour is, God bless us, a
    thing of nought.

    1615. T. Adams, Black Dev., 71. He ... would blesse himselfe to
    think that so little a thing could extend itself to such a
    capacity. [M.]

    1665. Pepys, Diary, 1 Apr. How my Lord Treasurer did bless himself,
    crying he could do no more, etc.

    1759. Sterne, Tristram Shandy, ch. xl. Rub your hands thrice across
    your foreheads—blow your nose—cleanse your emunctories—sneeze, my
    good people!—God bless you.

    1814. Miss Austen, Mansfield Park, ch. xviii. Could Sir Thomas look
    in upon us just now, he would bless himself, for we are rehearsing
    all over the house.

    1843. Dickens, Christmas Carol, p. 77. ‘Why, bless my soul,’ cried
    Fred, ‘who’s that?’

    1853. Bulwer Lytton, My Novel, I., p. 307. After they had lain
    apart for a little while, very silent and sullen, John sneezed.
    ‘God bless you!’ says Joan, over the bolster.

Not a [penny] to bless oneself with, phr. (popular).—Utterly
impecunious; ‘without a sou.’

    1843. Dickens, Martin Chuzzlewit, I., p. 237. He landed there
    without a penny to bless himself with.

    1849. Dickens, David Copperfield, I., p. 113. I heard that Mr. Mell
    was not a bad sort of fellow, but hadn’t a sixpence to bless
    himself with.

    1851. Mayhew, London Labour and London Poor, III., p. 55. The most
    of ’em ain’t got a farthing to bless themselves with.

    1861. George Eliot, Silas Marner, p. 38. I have not a shilling to
    bless myself with.

To bless one’s stars, verbal phr. (common).—To thank oneself; to
attribute one’s good fortune to luck, generally in a ludicrous sense.

    1845. Hood, Pauper’s Christmas Carol, iii. Ought not I to bless my
    stars?

    1877. Five Years’ Penal Servitude, ch. iii., p. 230. Forty-eight
    marks! a week’s remission. The very thought made me savage, but I
    blessed my stars I had not lost my class, or my good berth.


Blessed, Blest, ppl. adj. (popular).—An ironical euphemism; often used
like blazing for ‘cursed,’ ‘damned,’ etc., or as a vow.—See quot. from
Hindley and Oaths.

    1806. Windham, Let. in Speeches (1812), I., 77. As one of the happy
    consequences of our blessed system of printing debates, I am
    described to-day ... as having talked a language directly the
    reverse of that which I did talk. [M.]

    1876. C. Hindley, Life and Adventures of a Cheap Jack, p. 139. One
    Maidstone Fair time, I saw one of the gipsy Lees called ‘Jemmy,’
    fighting with a man much bigger than himself. Tom Rosseter, the
    mumper, was seconding his brother-in-law, Jemmy Lee, when, as Jemmy
    kept throwing his man very heavily, he said, ‘My dear blessed
    brother, don’t throw the blessed man like that or you will be sure
    to kill him.’ ‘Well,’ said Jemmy, ‘but my dear blessed brother, if
    I don’t kill the dear blessed man, why the big blessed —— will be
    sure to kill me, and so I must keep on throwing the dear blessed
    man, for you see what a blessed big dear fellow he is to me.’

    1877. Five Years’ Penal Servitude, ch. iii., p. 245. ‘They called
    in the coppers, and some feller in the shop twigged my old girl as
    one he’d a-seen before, and blessed if they didn’t identify her as
    having lifted some things out of the shop, and she was pinched for
    seven “stretch.”’

    1882. Punch, Aug. 5, p. 49. Sir Pompey Bedell: ‘Oh!—er—Mr. Grigsby,
    I think! How d’ye do?’ [extending two fingers]. Grigsby: ‘I hope I
    see you well, Sir Pompey. And next time you give me two fingers,
    I’m blest if I don’t pull ’em off.’

    1889. Sporting Times, July 6. St. Mannock.—Did you ever hear a
    still, small voice whispering over its morning shrimps, ‘What a
    pair of blessed fools you are!’


Blether, Blather, subs. (Scotch and U.S.A.).—Nonsense; vapid talk;
voluble chatter.

    b. 1759, d. 1796. Burns, Tam Samson’s Elegy, st. 12.

        Yon auld gray stane, amang the heather,
                Marks out his head,
        Whare Burns has wrote in rhyming blether,
                Tam Samson’s dead!

    1886. Pall Mall Gazette, 3 May, 6, 2. Havelock’s florid adjurations
    to his men, the grim veterans of the 78th, bluntly characterized as
    blether.

Hence blethering (verb, subs.) used in the same sense as blether, and
as an adjective for ‘volubly’ or ‘foolishly talkative.’ Cf.,
Bletherskate.

    b. 1759, d. 1796. Burns, Holy Fair, st. 8.

        And some are busy blethrin’
                  Right loud that day.

    1816. Scott, Old Mortality, ch. xiv. ‘I hae been clean spoilt, just
    wi’ listening to twa blethering auld wives.’

    1883. Hawley Smart, Hard Lines, ch. vi. He had brought this
    blethering Irishman down here, and deluged him with punch for the
    express purpose of turning him inside out.


Bletherskate, Blatherskite, subs. (provincial and American).—1.
Boastful swagger, whether in talk or action.

2. A boaster; noisy talker of blatant nonsense. [From blether, to talk
nonsensically, + skate, allied to Scotch skyte, a contemptible fellow.]
It occurs in Maggie Lauder, a well-known Scotch song, a fact which
Murray says led to its popularisation in the United States. In Ireland
it seems to have taken the forms of bladder-skate and bladderum-skate.

    Circa 1650. F. Sempill, Maggie Lauder, i. Jog on your gait, ye
    blether-skate. [M.]

    1825. C. Croker, Tradit. S. Ireland, p. 170. He was, as usual,
    getting on with his bletherumskite about the fairies. [M.]

    1870. J. R. O’Flanagan, Lives of the Lord Chancellors of Ireland.
    ‘Lord Redesdale was speaking of people who learnt to skate with
    bladders under their arms, to buoy them up if they should fall into
    a hole and risk being drowned.’ ‘Ah, my Lord,’ said Toler, ‘that is
    what we call bladderumskate in Ireland.’


Blew, verb (common).—1. To inform; to ‘peach’; to expose; to
betray.—See Blow upon, of which it is a variant.

2. (popular.)—To spend; to waste; generally in connection with money.
When a man has spent or lost all his money, he is said to have blewed
it. [The derivation is uncertain, that most likely being its reference
to a corrupt grammatical use of blew, the past tense of ‘to blow.’
Money spent recklessly and wasted vanishes as if blown away by the
wind.]

    1884. Daily Telegraph, May 28, p. 5, col. 1. ‘Which paid him £1,700
    compensation, when he took to horses, and blewed the blooming lot
    in eighteen months.’

    1889. Sporting Times, June 29.

        Isabel and Maudie knew the Turf and all its arts—
          They had often blewed a dollar on a wrong ’un—
        And Isabel one evening met a mug from rural parts,
          An attenuated Juggins, and a long ’un.

French Synonyms. Se faire rincer (popular: ‘to be cleared out’ [at a
game]. Rincer, properly ‘to drench,’ ‘to serve out,’ also has the slang
signification of ‘to thrash’); paumer (thieves’ and vagrants’: this
verb is very old, and is derived from palma = empoigner. It also
signifies to arrest, lose, etc.); laumir (an old cant term); se faire
ratisser (familiar: literally ‘to scrape oneself’); faire rasoir
(gaming: ‘to be penniless’); se faire enturer (popular: ‘to cut into
oneself’; enture = incision or cut); panner quelqu’un (popular); mettre
dans le sac (gamesters’: Cf., ‘be in a hole’); décavage (familiar: a
term employed to signify the circumstances of a gamester who has
‘blewed it’; one who is in ‘Queer Street’—from décavé, a ruined
gamester); se faire lessiver: ‘to wash oneself.’ Michel gives lessive =
defence, and lessiveur = barrister, and remarks that better terms could
hardly be given to advocate and speech by those charged with offence,
and who wish to return from the same ‘white as snow,’ or, as police
phraseology hath it, without a stain upon one’s character. For other
synonyms, see Shave.


Blimey, intj. (low).—A corruption of ‘Blind me!’; an expression little
enough understood by those who constantly have it in their mouths.


Blind, subs. (common).—1. The night time—an allusion to the absence of
light.—See Darkmans.

2. (familiar.)—A pretence; a shift; an action through which one’s real
purpose is concealed; that which obstructs; a ‘make-believe.’

    1663. Dryden, Wild Gallant, Act iii. He ... took your court to her,
    only as a blind to your affection for me.

    1694. Congreve, Double Dealer, Act ii., Sc. 5. I know you don’t
    love Cynthia, only as a blind for your passion to me.

    1703. Mrs. Centlivre, Beau’s Dual, I., i. (1872), i., 70. Am I
    publish’d to the world as a blind for his designs?

    1877. E. L. Linton, World Well Lost, ch. xxviii. The excuse was too
    palpably a blind to be accepted as a reason.

    1889. Answers, July 13, p. 104, col. 3. The Major and the Captain
    he referred to in his letters were mere ‘blinds.’ The Captain
    relied upon the fact that not one person in a dozen took the
    trouble to apply to these gentlemen.

3. (printers’.)—A paragraph [¶] mark is so called; from the eye of the
reversed ‘P’ being filled up.

Adj. (old).—Tipsy; in liquor. Nares says this cant term was used with
others in the works of Taylor, the water-poet [1630]. For synonyms, see
Screwed.

Blind as a brickbat, adv. phr. (colloquial).—A facetious simile for
very blind—mentally or physically.

    1849. Dickens, David Copperfield, III., p. 97. The old scholar ...
    is as blind as a brickbat.

When the devil is blind, adv. phr. (common).—Never. The French have
three very graphic—though in one case very vulgar—analogues for this
expression—quand les poules pisseront, which need not be translated; le
trente six du mois, i.e., ‘on the thirty-sixth day of the month,’ and
quand les poules auront des dents, i.e., when cocks and hens have
teeth.

To go it blind.—A luminous figure of speech to convey the idea of
entering upon an undertaking without thought as to the result, or
inquiry beforehand. This is one of the many slang expressions which owe
their origin to the American game of poker, the special form of which
known as blind poker, where the cards are betted upon before being
looked at, being responsible for the phrase now in question. Cf., also
Blind (subs.).

    1848. J. Russell Lowell, Biglow Papers, II., p. 118—

              ‘to impress on the popular mind
        The comfort and wisdom of goin’ it blind.’

    1871. De Vere, Americanisms, p. 328. Blind Poker has given rise to
    the very common phrase, to go it blind, used whenever an enterprise
    is undertaken without previous inquiry.

    1882. General Sherman, Memoirs, vol. I., p. 342. I know that in
    Washington I am incomprehensible, because at the outset of the war
    I would not go it blind, and rush headlong into a war unprepared
    and with an utter ignorance of its extent and purpose.

    1888. Chicago Ledger, May 12. ‘And so you’ve married a jewel, have
    you, Tom?’ ‘I have, for a fact, Dick.’ ‘Lucky dog! You’re a man in
    a million. Mighty few go it blind and fare as well as you’ve done.’
    ‘I didn’t go it blind. I employed a detective, and he managed to
    get board in the family.’


Blind Cheeks, subs. (common).—The posteriors. [The derivation is from
an obvious simile.]

Among English Synonyms are—Two fat cheeks and ne’er a nose; blind
Cupid; ampersand; cheeks; arse; corybungo; dopey; droddum; dummock;
feak; bum; nock (i.e., ‘a notch’); round mouth; windmill; blind-eye;
monocular eye-glass.

French Synonyms. Un borgne (low: ‘a one-eyed person’); un cyclope (the
allusion is mythological—from Cyclops, the one-eyed giant, whose optic
was placed in the middle of the forehead); la rose des vents; un piffe;
un pignard; boite aux ordures. German Synonym. Acherponim (from Hebrew
achar ponim; literally ‘the face at the back’). For other synonyms, see
Bum.


Blind Drunk, adj. phr. (common).—Very intoxicated; so drunk as to be
unable to see better than a blind man. Americans say, ‘So drunk as not
to be able to see through a ladder.’ For synonyms, see Screwed.

    1845. Disraeli, Sybil or the Two Nations, p. 350. Hang me if I
    wasn’t blind drunk at the end of it.


Blinder. To take a blinder, phr. (thieves’).—To die. For synonyms, see
Aloft.


Blind Eye, subs. (common).—The podex.—See Blind cheeks.


Blind Half Hundred, subs. (military).—The Fiftieth Regiment of Foot;
from so many men suffering from ophthalmia during the Egyptian campaign
[1801]; also the Dirty Half Hundred from the men in action wiping their
faces with their black facings during the Peninsula War. Half Hundred
is an adaptation of the number of the regiment—the Fiftieth. The corps
is also called the ‘Gallant Fiftieth,’ from its gallantry at the battle
of Vimiera, 1808.

    1871. Chambers’ Journal, No. 417, p. 803. The Dirty Half Hundred
    was the curious nickname given to the 50th Foot. Two accounts are
    given of the origin of this. One asserts that it was from their red
    uniforms being faced with black and silver lace, and thus giving
    the regiment a dull and sombre appearance; whilst the other tells
    us that it was from the men wiping their perspiring faces with the
    black cuffs of their coats, and thus giving their countenances a
    somewhat swarthy tint. Whatever may be the origin of this
    sobriquet, they bear a second about which there can be no doubt.
    From the glorious charge, led by Colonel Walker, at Vimiera, this
    regiment is known as the ‘Gallant Fiftieth.’

    1886. Tinsley’s Magazine, April, p. 322. Most people have heard of
    the ‘Fighting Fiftieth.’ But the 50th are rich in nicknames. They
    are, or at least they were, the Blind Half-Hundredth, having been
    but too literally blinded by the ravages of ophthalmia when in
    Egypt with Sir Ralph Abercromby. And when on one occasion the men
    dried the perspiration from their faces with their cuffs, they for
    a while became the Dirty Half-Hundredth.


Blind Harpers, subs. (old).—Beggars counterfeiting blindness, playing
on fiddles, etc.—Grose.


Blind-Man’s Holiday, subs. (familiar).—Formerly this common
colloquialism signified the night or darkness; it is now, however,
usually applied to the time ‘between lights’ when it is too dark to
see, but often not dark enough to light up, and a holiday or rest from
work is taken. The blind from their infirmity are in general exempted
from labour, and in this view keep holiday; when the twilight hour
comes, when those that can work, or read, etc., can no longer see to do
so, it is blind-man’s holiday to them, and they of necessity rest
accordingly. This derivation, one would think, is sufficiently obvious;
but, on the other hand, there are those who think the expression a
corruption of ‘blind-man’s all-day.’ The meaning then would be that the
gradual departure of light brings one to the state which the blind man
endures all day, or which is all the day the blind man has. Whichever
derivation be true, it is, however, interesting to note that this
‘household word’ of to-day has been in the mouths of the English people
for more than three hundred years. It is the English equivalent of the
Scotch in the gloaming, of an equally venerable lineage.

    1599. Nashe, Lenten Stuffe, in wks. V., 263. And what will not
    blinde Cupid doe in the night which is his blindman’s holiday?

    1738. Swift, Polite Conversation (conv. iii.). Indeed, madam, it is
    blindman’s holiday; we shall soon be all of a colour.

    1824. T. Fielding, Proverbs, etc. (Familiar Phrases), p. 147.
    Blindman’s holiday.

    1866. Aunt Judy’s Mag., Oct., 358. At meal times, or in blindman’s
    holiday, when no work was to be done. [M.]


Blind Monkeys, subs. (common).—Hotten thus explains this expression:—An
imaginary collection at the Zoological Gardens, which are supposed to
receive care and attention from persons fitted by nature for such
office and for little else. An idle and useless person is often told
that he is only fit to lead the blind monkeys to evacuate. Another form
this elegant conversation takes, is for one man to tell another that he
knows of a suitable situation for him. ‘How much a week? and what to
do?’ are natural questions, and then comes the scathing and sarcastic
reply, ‘Five bob a week at the doctor’s—you’re to stand behind the door
and make the patients sick. They won’t want no physic when they sees
your mug.’


Blindo, verb (military).—To die. For synonyms, see Aloft.


Blind One’s Trail, verbal phr. (American).—Figuratively, to remove the
traces of one’s actions; to conceal one’s intentions. This expression
is obviously traceable to the days of Indian warfare, when even the
lives of those engaged often depended upon the success with which the
trail could be ‘blinded,’ or obliterated. Also to trash one’s trail
(q.v.).


Blind Side, subs. (familiar).—The blind side of a person or thing is
that which is weakest; the most assailable side. The expression is much
older than the example quoted by Murray [1655].

    1606. Chapman, Gentleman Usher, Act i., p. 79 (Plays, 1874).

        For that, we’ll follow the blind side of him,
        And make it sometimes subject of our mirth.

    1663. Dryden, Wild Gallant, Act iii. Con. My father’s credulous,
    and this rogue has found the blind side of him.

    1742. Fielding, Joseph Andrews, bk. III., ch. v. Indeed, if this
    good man had an enthusiasm, or what the vulgar call a blind side,
    it was this,—he thought a schoolmaster the greatest character in
    the world, and himself the greatest of all schoolmasters.

    1820. Lamb, Elia (Mrs. Battle). All people have their blind
    side—their superstitions.


Blink, verb (American).—To drink. [Probably of humorous origin, similar
to smile (q.v.).—and alluding to a wink or blink exchanged between
friends and comrades before drinking. A frequent toast is ‘I look
towards you,’ and the transference of sense in such a phrase as ‘I
wink’ or ‘blink to you,’ and then the use of to blink for ‘to drink’ is
easy enough. Cf., also To go out and see a man.]


Blinker, subs. (popular).—1. The eye. [From blink, to move the eyelids,
to wink; Cf., Winkers; Peepers; Optics, etc.] For synonyms, see Glims.

    1816. Quiz, Grand Master, I., ii. A patent pair of goggle winkers,
    Conceal’d from public view his blinkers. [M.]

    1888. American Humorist. ‘Blank your blinkers,’ angrily retorted
    Brudee, ‘your business was not to fight, but show us the enemy.’

2. (common.)—pl. Spectacles. For synonyms, see Barnacles.

    1732. M. Green, Grotto, 10. Bigots who but one way see through
    blinkers of authority. [M.]

    1803. Bristed, Pedest. Tour, I., 38. A little fellow, with blinkers
    over his eyes. [M.]

    1851. Thackeray, Eng. Hum., IV. (1858), 205. Who only dare to look
    up at life through blinkers. [M.]

3. (provincial.)—In Norfolk, a black eye.

4. (pugilistic.)—A hard blow in the eye.

Blank your blinkers.—A euphemistic oath, equivalent to the more common
‘D——n your eyes.’—See Oaths.


Blink-Fencer, subs. (thieves’).—A person who sells spectacles. [From
blink, a contracted form of ‘blinkers,’ spectacles + fence, primarily a
receiver of stolen goods, but also applied to a tradesman of any kind,
+ er.]


Blinko, subs. (thieves’ and vagrants’).—An amateur entertainment held,
generally, at a public house; a free and easy (q.v.); a sing song
(q.v.).

    1877. J. Greenwood, Dick Temple. ‘What is a blinko for instance?’
    ‘Well, it’s a kind of entertainment, singing, and that,’ replied
    the old fellow, ‘to which strangers are not invited—least of all
    the police.’

    1883. Daily Telegraph, August 4, p. 2, col. 1. ‘An Harmonic blinko,
    the proceeds of which will be given towards buying a barrow for
    Young Duckling, who has got married with no visible means of
    support.’


Blister, verb (common).—Employed euphemistically for ‘to damn.’ Cf.,
Blamed.

    1840. H. Cockton, Valentine Vox, ch. xxvi. ‘Where can they be hid?’
    he exclaimed, with great emphasis. ‘Blister ’em! Where can the
    scoundrels be got to?’


Blizzard, subs. (popular).—A poser; a stunning blow; an unanswerable
argument, etc., etc. This word, recently brought into prominent notice
as the name by which sudden and exceptionally severe snowstorms are
known in the Western States of America, is one the etymology of which
is dubious. Some authorities derive it from the German blitz—lightning,
but a correspondent of N. and Q. claims it as of English nationality,
asserting that the word has been known in the Midland Counties in its
present form, or nearly so, for over thirty years; further stating that
‘may I be blizzered’ is a common oath there. Assuming that the
expression is a variation of the more generally familiar ‘May God
strike me blind’ (that is, presumably by lightning), there is nothing
antagonistic between the two theories of its genesis, and a further
light is perhaps thrown upon the subject, tending to support its German
origin, by the fact that, in Pennsylvania, it has been familiar,
according to a correspondent of the New York Sun, for more than
half-a-century, its use and meaning being akin to the instances above
mentioned. It appears that in the central counties of the State in
question, the word was always used to include the idea of the ‘poser,’
and even of force, violence, spitefulness, or vindictiveness. If one
dealt another a hostile blow he ‘gave him a blizzard on the nose,’ ‘on
the jaw,’ ‘between the eyes,’ etc. If a magistrate lectured a litigant
severely he ‘gave him a blizzard.’ If in debate one dealt mercilessly
in ridicule he ‘gave his opponent a blizzard.’ If one man swore at or
cursed another he ‘gave him a blizzard.’ If a man’s wife scolded him
she ‘gave him a blizzard.’ When it is remembered that Pennsylvania is
the State in which the Dutch or German element most largely
predominates, it does not seem far fetched to attribute its origin to a
Teutonic source, more especially as there is nothing in the English
usage to preclude such a derivation. However this may be, the word
invariably seems to imply suddenness combined with violence; and, at
any rate, it apparently disposes of the supposition that the word is of
Western origin, or a coinage of so recent a date as is frequently
supposed. Like most words of its class, which have largely struck the
popular taste, it has been generally adopted in an idiomatic sense to
signify a stunning blow; an overwhelming argument, or a cool reception.

    1834. Crockett, Tour Down East, 16. A gentleman at dinner asked me
    for a toast; and supposing he meant to have some fun at my expense,
    I concluded to go ahead, and give him and his likes a blizzard.

    1871. De Vere, Americanisms, p. 443. Blizzard, a term referred back
    to the German Blitz, means in the West a stunning blow or an
    overwhelming argument.

    1884. G. A. S[ala], in Ill. L. News, Feb. 23, p. 171, col. 2.
    Blizzard. The philologers in American Slang refer back to the
    German blitz; and its original meaning in the Western States seems
    to have been a stunning blow or an overwhelming argument. In the
    Eastern States a sudden set-in of severe frost is called a ‘cold
    snap.’ Query, how many ‘cold snaps’ does it take to make a
    ‘blizzard’?

    1888. San Francisco News Letter. I should like to have seen the
    Colonel’s face when he got that very cold, blizzardy letter. I bet
    that if Minnie had been near him he would have slapped her real
    hard.


Bloak.—See Bloke.


Bloat, subs. (American thieves’).—1. A drowned body.

2. A drunkard. The simile which groups the two is, perhaps, not far
wrong. [Probably from bloat, an adjective signifying puffed, swollen,
inflated. Bloat was also formerly in use in England as a contemptuous
name for a human being.]


Bloated Aristocrat, subs. (familiar).—An opprobrious epithet for a man
swollen with the pride of rank or wealth; also a general sobriquet
applied by ‘the masses’ to ‘the classes.’ ‘Bloated’ has long been
employed in a similar sense. Swift spoke of a certain statesman as ‘a
bloated minister’ [1731].

    1861. Thackeray, Adventures of Philip, I., p. 101. What a bloated
    aristocrat Thingamy has become since he got his place!

    1863. G. A. Sala, Breakfast in Bed, essay I., p. 17 (1864). Of the
    two most salient English gentlemen represented, one is a bloated
    aristocrat of a Baronet hopelessly in debt, the other a rapid
    brainless nobleman.

    1869. M. Twain, Innocents Abroad, ch. x. We sat down finally, at a
    late hour, in the great Casino, and called for unstinted champagne.
    It is so easy to be bloated aristocrats where it costs nothing of
    consequence!


Bloater.—See My Bloater; also Mild Bloater.


Blob, verb (vagrants’).—To talk; to ‘patter.’ [Probably a corrupted
form of blab.] Beggars are of two kinds—those who screeve (introducing
themselves with a fakement, or false document) and those who blob, or
state their case in their own truly ‘unvarnished’ language. [See,
however, second quot.]

    1851–61. H. Mayhew, London Lab. and Lon. Poor, vol. I., p. 339. ‘Of
    professional beggars there are two kinds—those who “do it on the
    blob” (by word of mouth), and those who do it by “screeving,” that
    is, by petitions and letters.’

    1861. Whyte Melville, Good for Nothing, ch. xxvi. ‘Five minutes
    more and we shall run into him,’ he shouts, sitting well back on
    his horse, and urging him to his extreme pace, ‘when he blobs like
    that he’s getting beat. See how Canvas sticks to him, and the
    yellow dog hangs back waiting for the turn.’


Block, subs. (old).—A stupid person; a hard unsympathetic individual;
one of mean, unattractive appearance. [A figurative sense of block, as
of wood or stone.]

    a. 1534. N. Udall, Roister Doister, III., iii., p. 44 (Arber). Ye
    are such a calfe, such an asse, such a blocke.

    1595. Shakspeare, Two Gentlemen, Act ii., Sc. 5. Speed. What an ass
    art thou! I understand thee not. Launce. What a block art thou,
    that thou canst not!

    1599. Jonson, Every Man out of his Humour. Induct. Cor. Hang him,
    dull block!

    1624. Massinger, Bondman, II., ii. This will bring him on, Or he’s
    a block.

    1748. T. Dyche, Dictionary (5 ed.). Block (s) ... sometimes an
    ignorant, stupid fellow.

    1881. Besant and Rice, Chaplain of the Fleet, pt. II., ch. iv. She
    said that her partner was delightful to dance with, partly because
    he was a lord—and a title, she said, gives an air of grace to any
    block—partly because he danced well and talked amiably.

2. The head. Possibly an abbreviated form of barber’s block (q.v.). For
synonyms, see Crumpet.

    1637. Shirley, Lady of Pleas, II., i. Buy a beaver For thy own
    block.

    1861. H. Kingsley, Ravenshoe, ch. xxxv. ‘I cleaned a groom’s boots
    on Toosday, and he punched my block because I blacked the tops.’

Barber’s Block, subs. (common).—1. A transferred sense [from a wooden
head for showing off a wig] applied to a showy, over-dressed man; a
fop.

    1876. E. Lynn Linton, Hallberger’s Illus. Mag., p. 72. No, not to
    men worthy of the name of men—men, not barber’s blocks.

2. The head.—See Block, sense 2.

    1823. Scott, Peveril of the Peak, ch. v. (I., p. 67). Were I not to
    take better care of the wood than you, brother, there would soon be
    no more wood about the town than the barber’s block that’s on your
    own shoulders.

A chip of the same old block, phr. (common).—A man or thing exhibiting
the same qualities as he or that with which a comparison is made.

    1627. Sanderson, Serm., I., 283. Am not I a child of the same Adam,
    a vessel of the same clay, a chip of the same block, with him. [M.]

    1655. L’Estrange, Charles I., 126. Episcopacy, which they thought
    but a great chip of the old block Popery. [M.]

To cut a block with a razor, phr. (old).—Inconsequent argument; futile
endeavour; incongruous application of means or ability to the end in
view.

    1774. Goldsmith, Retaliation, 42. ’Twas his fate unemployed or in
    place, sir, to eat mutton cold and cut blocks with a razor.

To block a hat, phr. (popular).—To crush a man’s hat over the eyes by a
blow; to bonnet (q.v.).


Blockers.—See Block Ornaments.


Block House, subs. (old).—A prison; the house of detention. For
synonyms, see Cage.

    1624. Capt. Smith, Virginia, III., xi., 85. To stop the disorders
    of our disorderly Theeues ... built a Block-house. [M.]

    1785. Grose, Dictionary of the Vulgar Tongue. Block-houses,
    Prisons, houses of correction, etc.

    1811. Lexicon Balatronicum. [Same definition given as in Grose.]

    1889. Murray, New English Dictionary. [Common since c. 1500: of
    uncertain history. The Ger. equivalent blockhaus (‘einen steinen
    Blockhaus’) is quoted by Grimm, 1557 and 1602; the Du. blokhuis is
    in Kilian, 1599; Fr. blocus, generally considered to be the same
    word, and orig. in same sense, is quoted by Littré in the 16th c.
    (Cf., Bloccuz). So far as evidence goes, the Eng. is thus the
    earliest; but we should expect it to be of Du. or Ger. origin. In
    any case the sense was not originally (as in modern notion) a house
    composed of blocks of wood, but one which blocks or obstructs a
    passage. The history and age of the Ger. blockhaus and Fr. blocus
    require more investigation.]


Block Island Turkey, subs. (American).—Salted cod-fish. Connecticut and
Rhode Island. Slang delights in naming fish as flesh. For some curious
examples, see Two-eyed steak.


Block Ornaments, or Blockers, subs. (common).—1. Small pieces of meat
of indifferent quality, trimmings from the joints, etc. Exposed for
sale on the blocks or counters of butcher’s shops in cheap
neighbourhoods.

    1848. Fraser’s Mag., XXXVII., 396. Forced to substitute a blocker
    of meat, with its cheap accompaniment of bread and vegetables ...
    for poultry and rump steaks. [M.]

    1851–61. H. Mayhew, London Lab. and Lon. Poor, vol. I., p. 54. For
    dinner ... they buy block ornaments, as they call the small,
    dark-coloured pieces of meat exposed on the cheap butchers’ blocks
    or counters. Ibid, p. 516. What they consider a good living is a
    dinner daily off good block ornaments (small pieces of meat,
    discoloured and dirty, but not tainted, usually set for sale on the
    butcher’s block).

    1884. Punch, No. 2063, p. 29. And eager-faced women must bargain
    for tainted block ornaments still.

    1887. Standard, Jan. 20, The Poor at Market. Watching a man who
    stands with his wife and little girl before a butcher’s shop, let
    us see what they have to choose from in buying for the next day’s
    dinner. On the shelves set out in front of the shop meat scraps are
    offered at 3½d. the lb.; better scraps (or block ornaments, as they
    are termed) at 4d.; somewhat shapeless small joints of beef from
    inferior parts at 5d., one coarse shoulder of mutton at the same;
    tolerably good-looking meat at 6d.; mutton chops at 7d. and 8d.;
    and rump steak at 10d.

2. Applied to individuals, a block ornament signifies a queer looking
man or woman—one odd in appearance.


Bloke or Bloak, subs. (common).—A man; a fellow. In saying ‘not
strictly “a man” as Hotten defines it, but a man in a contemptuous
sense,’ Barrère is himself wide of the mark. The word may sometimes be
used contemptuously; but, generally speaking, any idea of reproach or
praise is absent, and a bloke means a man pure and simple. In witness
whereof are the following examples of its use.

    1851. Mayhew, London Labour and London Poor, III., p. 397. If we
    met an old bloke (man) we propped him.

    1857. Snowden, Mag. Assistant, 3 ed., p. 446. A gentleman.—A bloak.

    1860. Sala, The Baddington Peerage, II., p. 49. My old bloke!

    1862. Kingsley, in Macmillan’s Mag., Dec, 96. Little better than
    blokes and boodles after all. [M.]

    1863. Ouida, Held in Bondage, bk. I., p. 245. The girl is stunning,
    the blokes say, so we must forgive you.

    1865. Miss Braddon, in Temple Bar, XIII., 483. The society of the
    aged bloke is apt to pull upon the youthful intellect.

    1869. J. Greenwood, Seven Curses of London. It came out in the
    course of the evidence that the meaning of the word bloke was ‘a
    man whom a woman might pick up in the street.’

    1873. Robinson, Little Kate Kirby, I., p. 136. ‘Give us a horder
    then, old bloke,’ shrieked another gamin.

    c. 1875. Broadside Ballad, ‘Keep it Dark.’

        I have heard though may be it isn’t a fact,
                                Keep it dark!
        That the present Lord Chancellor’s going to be sacked,
                                Keep it dark!
        And Dr. Kenealy, that popular bloke,
        That extremely warm member, the member for Stoke,
        Is about to succeed him, the lawyers to choke—
                            But, keep it dark!

    c. 1869. Broadside Ballad, ‘Shooting the Moon.’ Spoken—Yes, and I
    used to do very well, until some ragged young urchin said to his
    pal, don’t you varder, don’t you know that ere bloke, that’s the
    bloke we saw the other day with a barrow.

    1883. Daily News, May 15, p. 7, col. 2. ‘When you are coming out
    into the yard ask the next bloke to change numbers with you.’

In each case the ‘face value’ of the word appears to be simply ‘a man,’
and in spite of Barrère’s assertion that ‘in the police newspapers
twenty-five years ago a bloke was a victim of sharps, a stupid person,
a greenhorn,’ the evidence is all the other way; in one instance,
indeed, the individual in question is reported to be ‘a gentleman.’ As
regards derivation, its origin is uncertain. Hotten and Ogilvie compare
it with the Hindustanee loke, a man; while Leland traces it to ‘the
Dutch blok, a log, a fool.’ For synonyms, see Cove.


Blood, subs. (old).—1. A fop; dandy; buck; or ‘fast’ man. Originally in
common use, but now obsolete. [From that legitimate sense of the word
which attributes the seat of the passions and emotions to the blood.
Hence, a man of spirit; one who is worth mention, and, in an inferior
sense, he who makes himself notorious, whether by dress or rowdyism.]
In the last century, especially during the regency of George IV., the
term was largely in vogue to denote a young man of good birth or social
standing about town; subsequently, it came to mean a riotous,
disorderly fellow.

    1562. Bulleyn, Sicke Men, etc., 73a. A lustie blood, or a
    pleasaunte brave young roister. [M.]

    1606. John Day, Ile of Gulls, Act i., p. 9. Basil. Welcome
    gallants, welcome honord bloods. Ibid. To which effect we have sent
    a generall challenge to all the youthfull bloods of Africa.

    1752. Adventurer, No. 15. Our heroes of liberty, whether Bucks or
    Bloods, or of whatever other denomination, when by some creditor of
    slavish principles they have been locked up in a prison, never yet
    petitioned to be hanged.

    1839. Harrison Ainsworth, Jack Sheppard [1889], p. 21. ‘Trenchard!’
    he muttered—‘Aliva Trenchard. They were right, then, as to the
    name. Well, if she survives the accident—as the blood who styles
    himself Sir Cecil fancies she may do—this ring will make my fortune
    by leading to the discovery of the chief parties concerned in this
    strange affair.’

    1846. Thackeray, V. Fair, ch. x. A perfect and celebrated blood, or
    dandy about town, was this young officer.

    1853. Thackeray, Barry Lyndon, ch. ii., p. 36. The modern bloods
    have given up the respectful ceremonies which distinguished a
    gentleman in my time.

2. (old.)—Money. [A comparison of blood, as the vital principle, to
money, as that upon which the sustenance of life depends—the ‘sinews of
war,’ the ‘needful,’ etc.] For all synonyms, see Actual.

    1748. Dodsley, Collection of Poems, III., 199.

        He sticks to gaming, as the surer trade;
        Turns downright sharper, lives by sucking blood.

    1872. M. E. Braddon, Dead Sea Fruit, ch. iv. ‘A man who ought to
    consider himself uncommonly fortunate never to have known what it
    was to be hard up, or to have a pack of extravagant sons sucking
    his blood, like so many modern vampires.’

Verb (familiar).—To deplete of money; to victimise; a figurative usage
of ‘to bleed’; i.e., surgically, to let or draw blood by opening a
vein. Cf., subs., sense 2, and Bleed.

    1884. Hawley Smart, From Post to Finish, p. 187. ‘He is very likely
    to want a thousand pounds at any moment. There’s a leaven of the
    old squire in his composition, and I recollect hearing that he was
    blooded over the Phaeton Leger.’ ‘You surely can’t mean that he has
    taken to racing? Why, you must be aware that he has no money for
    anything of that sort.’


Blood and Entrails, subs. (American).—The British ensign is so
nicknamed by Yankee sailors; English salts return the compliment by
jokingly speaking of the American flag as the gridiron and doughboys
(q.v.).


Blood and Thunder, subs. (common).—A beverage of port wine and brandy
mixed. Port is the blood, from its colour; brandy the thunder—the
combined effects being, it is held, provocative of ‘thundering’
head-aches.


Blood and Thunder Tales, subs. phr. (originally American, now
common).—Low class fiction, the term being generally applied to works
dealing with the exploits of desperadoes, cut-throats, and other
criminals. Also called Awfuls, Penny dreadfuls, Gutter literature,
Shilling shockers, etc., all of which see for further illustrations.

    1876. Portland Transcript, May. Here let me say one word to the
    Transcript mothers. Look carefully to your child’s reading matter.
    Beware of the cheap, trashy romances, the blood and thunder tales
    by Tom, Dick and Harry, which fill the counters of so many of our
    bookstores.

    1883. Daily News, March 26, p. 2, col. 3. The blood and thunder
    tragedies generally associated with the transpontine drama.


Blood-an’-’Ouns, phr. (old).—An abbreviated form of an old and
blasphemous oath—‘God’s blood and wounds!’

    1839. Harrison Ainsworth, Jack Sheppard [1889], p. 58. ‘Och! if
    he’s a friend o’ yours, my dear joy, there’s no more to be said;
    and right sorry am I I struck him. But, blood-an’-’ouns! man, if
    ould Nick himself were to hit me a blow, I’d be afther givin’ him
    another.’


Blood-Curdler or Blood-Freezer, subs. (common).—A narration or incident
which ‘makes the flesh creep’; that which stirs one’s feelings
strongly, and generally repulsively. Said of a sensational murder, a
thrilling ghost-story, etc. Cf., Blood and thunder tales.


Blood for Blood, phr. (trade).—When tradesmen exchange wares, setting
the cost of one kind off against another instead of making payment in
currency, they are said to give blood for blood. Cf., Blood. (1) the
vital fluid; (2) money—hence applied to that upon the sale of which a
man is dependent for a livelihood.

    1811. Lexicon Balatronicum. A hatter furnishing a hosier with a
    hat, and taking payment in stockings, is said to deal blood for
    blood.


Blood-Freezer.—See Blood-curdler.


Blood-Red Fancy, subs. (pugilistic).—A particular kind of handkerchief
sometimes worn by pugilists and frequenters of prize fights.—See Billy.

    1857. Snowden, Mag. Assistant, 3 ed., p. 446. Red silk
    handkerchief. Blood-red fancy.


Blood Suckers, subs. (military).—The Sixty-third Regiment of Foot.


Blood-Tub, subs. (American).—A rowdy; a blustering bully; a rough. This
nickname was peculiar to Baltimore, which city, perhaps of all cities
in the Union, enjoyed, for a time, an unenviable reputation on account
of the rowdyism of a section of its inhabitants. More or less, however,
these turbulent gangs infest all the more important centres of
population, and answer in many respects to the English ‘roughs.’ They
are recruited largely from the labouring and commercial population;
they drink, and swear, but commit no crime, save an occasional deed of
violence in times when excitement runs unusually high, and are for the
most part affiliated with one or other of the two political parties,
the Republicans or Democrats. They are known as Dead Rabbits in New
York, Moyamensing Hounds in Philadelphia, Blood-tubs in Baltimore,
where at other times they have also been designated Babes, Plug-uglies,
and Ashlanders. The Blood-tubs are reported to have been mostly
butchers, and to have got their epithet from having, on an election
day, dipped an obnoxious German’s head in a tub of warm blood, and then
driven him running through the town.

    18(?). Song of the Irish Legion.

        Blood-tubs and plug-uglies, and others galore,
        Are sick for a thrashing in sweet Baltimore;
        Be jabers! that same I’d be proud to inform
        Of the terrible force of an Irishman’s arm.


Bloody, adj. (low).—An epithet difficult to define, and used in a
multitude of vague and varying senses. Most frequently, however, as it
falls with wearisome reiteration every two or three seconds from the
mouths of London roughs of the lowest type, no special meaning, much
less a sanguinary one, can be attached to its use. In such a case it
forms a convenient intensitive, sufficiently important as regards sound
to satisfy those whose lack of language causes them to fall back upon a
frequent use of words of this type. Bloody occasionally carries with it
a suspicion of anger, resentment, or detestation. [For suggested
derivations, and some incidental illustrative examples, see adverbial
usage, which follows.]

    1840. R. Dana, Bef. Mast, ii., 2. You’ll find me a bloody rascal.
    Ibid, xx., 61. They’ve got a man for a mate of that ship, and not a
    bloody sheep about decks. [M.]

    1880. Ruskin, Fiction, Fair and F., § 29. The use of the word
    bloody in modern low English is a deeper corruption, not altering
    the form of the word, but defiling the thought in it. [M.]

Adv. (low).—Among the vulgar at the present day bloody, used
adverbially, says G. A. Sala [Notes and Queries, 4 S., i., Feb. 8,
1868], simply qualifies the superlative and excessive. Admiral Gambier,
who is said to have introduced ‘tea and piety’ into the navy, very
properly discountenanced the practice so long common to naval officers
of d——g the sailors’ eyes while they were reefing topsails. His tars,
scarcely grateful, nicknamed the admiral ‘Old Bloody Politeful.’ The
lower classes use bloody indifferently as a term of depreciation or
appreciation. Thus, it’s a bloody shame; and per contra in a flash
song, the poet (supposed to be languishing in prison) recounts that the
chaplain discoursed to the inmates—


    ‘How Jonah lived inside of a whale,
    ’Twas a bloody sight better than county gaol.’


As regards derivation, dual causes seem to have operated in the
evolution of bloody in its depraved sense. The various stages are
summarised by Murray, in so far as evidence will permit, as follows.
The origin is not quite certain; but there is good reason to think that
it was at first a reference to the habits of the ‘bloods’ or
aristocratic rowdies of the end of the 17th and beginning of the 18th
c. The phrase ‘bloody drunk’ was apparently = ‘as drunk as a blood’
(Cf., ‘as drunk as a lord’); thence it was extended to kindred
expressions, and at length to others; probably in later times, its
associations with bloodshed and murder (Cf., a bloody battle, a bloody
butcher) have recommended it to the rough classes as a word that
appeals to their imagination. We may compare the prevalent craving for
impressive or graphic intensives, seen in the use of jolly, awfully,
terribly, devilish, deuced, damned, ripping, rattling, thumping,
stunning, thundering, etc. There is no ground for the notion that
bloody, offensive as from association it now is to ears polite,
contains any profane allusion, or has connection with the oath
‘’sblood!’ In this particular it may be noted that Mr. C. G. Leland is
in error when he says ‘Mr. Hotten thinks this is an expletive without
reference to any [italics not in original] meaning.’ Mr. Hotten neither
said nor implied anything of the kind, but just the reverse; and Mr.
Leland has hung his remarks upon a misquotation. Hotten’s exact words
are ‘bloody, an expletive used, without reference to meaning, as an
adjective and an adverb, simply for intensification’—a very different
thing; ergo as far as Hotten goes he is absolutely correct.

There seems little doubt, however, that the association of bloody with
bloodshed and murder has had a very large influence in determining its
present bad signification in the mouth of a cockney of the lower
classes. It is noteworthy, too, that the German blutig is sometimes
used, says H. Tiedeman [N. and Q., 4 S., i., Feb. 8, 1868], in the same
manner as the London bloody:—While living in Dresden, I heard many
times uttered such phrases as—


    ‘Ich habe keinen blutigen Heller mehr,’
    [I have no bloody penny or ‘red cent’ more],


for ‘I have not a single penny left,’ etc. Was, then, the Dresden
blutig introduced to the London mob in the shape of bloody? The Dutch
bloedig may be used figuratively, just as the French sanglant. Une
injure sanglante might be translated by ‘een bloedige beleediging.’ It
might, and it is in fact, sometimes used to qualify an adjective. To
say ‘bloedig schoon’ (literally, ‘bloody beautiful’), would be
perfectly correct, but then it has not the sense of exceedingly; it
keeps its original meaning. ‘Bloedig schoon’ could not be rendered
otherwise than by sanguinary and beautiful.

    1676. Sir G. Etheredge, Man of Mode (Act i., Sc. 1), p. 186, ed.
    1723.

    Dor. Give him half-a-crown.

    Med. Not without he will promise to be bloody drunk.

    1684. Dryden, Prol. Southerne’s Disappointment, line 59. The
    doughty bullies enter bloody drunk. [M.]

    1706. Farquhar, Recruiting Officer, Act iv., Sc. 1. Plume. Thou art
    a bloody impudent fellow. [There is no question of fighting in the
    context.]

    1711. Swift, Journal to Stella, 8 May, letter 22. It was bloody hot
    walking to-day.

    1836. M. Scott, Tom Cringle’s Log, ch. ii. ‘I’ve a bloody great
    mind to go down with him,’ stuttered another.

From the foregoing examples the word would appear to have been once in
literary use; it is not now customary to print it in full, but thus,
b——y. In passing it may be mentioned that there is no ground for
attributing its derivation to ‘By’r Our Lady.’


Bloody Back, subs. (old).—A soldier; a nickname alluding to the colour
of his coat. [From bloody = of the colour of blood, i.e., scarlet or
blood-red + back.]

    1811. Lexicon Balatronicum. Bloody back. A jeering appellation for
    a soldier.


Bloody Chasm. To bridge the bloody chasm, phr. (American).—A favourite
expression with orators who, during the years immediately succeeding
the Civil War, sought to obliterate the memory of the struggle. The
antithetical phrase is to wave the bloody shirt (q.v.).


Bloody Eleventh, subs. (military). The Eleventh Regiment of Foot. At
the battle of Salamanca, fought with the French, the corps was nearly
cut to pieces, whence its sanguinary sobriquet. At Fontenoy and Ostend
also, it was hard-pressed and nearly annihilated.


Bloody Jemmy, subs. (common).—An uncooked sheep’s head.—See Sanguinary
James for synonyms.


Bloody Shirt. To wave the bloody shirt.—A phrase which is only one of
many of a similar character, variants such as ‘to wave the crimson
banner,’ ‘the ensanguined under garment,’ etc., being quite frequently
met with in American journalism. Its origin and history is thus
explained in Americanisms, Old and New:—It is a political phrase used
in the States to signify the opening anew or keeping alive of factious
strife on party questions. Primarily it was the symbol of those who,
during the Reconstruction period at the close of the rebellion of the
Southern or Confederate States, would not suffer the Civil War to sink
into oblivion out of consideration for the feelings of the vanquished.
Perhaps a more odious term never crept into politics than the bloody
shirt; it is alike distasteful to the sense, brutal and vulgar, and
capable of misuse. There are still those who, in American politics, in
the thousand and one points of difference which continually and
inevitably must arise between institutions so diverse in origin,
tradition, and practice as those of the North and South, seek for party
purposes to estrange the one from the other by keeping alive the
exciting memories of the old bitter struggle. When a man is said to
have waved the bloody shirt it is known that he has gone back in spirit
and intent to the sorrowful days of the Republic, when the blue and the
grey, each confident of battling for the right, were slaying each other
in the valleys of the South. He ignores the peace which has settled
over the old fields of war, and does not assent to the hand clasp of
Federal with Confederate. He tries to open the strife anew, mocks the
spirit of forgiveness, and rakes the old ashes over in the hunt for a
burning coal. He scoffs at those who fought against the Union, and,
because they have come back to it, calls them insincere. He rebukes the
veteran who forgave them when together they laid down their arms. This
is called waving the bloody shirt, and to-day, when many of those now
in active life cannot remember the time when the Rebellion had closed,
and the boys were marching home, there are legislators and journalists
who devote their efforts to stirring up a sectional hatred which
without these efforts would be but a tradition. Many Southerners keenly
resent the spirit which thus traduces the now loyal South, and declares
it hypocritical. The bloody shirters, as they are called, rail at the
decency which forgives and forgets, and with venomous tongues revile
alike those who fell in the lost cause, those who lived to repent, and
those who would grant pardon. So long as men lost to honour will do
this the action must have a name—it will be called waving the bloody
shirt. From this special meaning it is now passing into general use to
indicate similar tactics in regard to any cause. It has recently been
introduced into English journalism in connection with the Irish
struggle, and the ‘Unionist Party’ has been accused of waving the
bloody shirt—with how much truth or the reverse there is here no
concern. The origin of the expression is to be sought in a Corsican
custom now nearly, if not quite, obsolete. In the days of the fierce
vendette—the feuds which divided the Corsicans, family from family,
bloodshed was a common occurrence. Before the burial of a murdered man,
the gridata was celebrated. This word, which literally means a crying
aloud, may be translated ‘a wake.’ The body of the victim was laid upon
a plank; his useless firearms were placed near his hand, and his
blood-stained shirt was hung above his head. Around the rude bier sat a
circle of women, wrapped in their black mantles, who rocked themselves
to and fro with strange wailings. The men, relatives and friends of the
murdered man, fully armed stood around the room, mad with thirst for
revenge. Then one of the women—the wife or mother or sister of the dead
man—with a sharp scream would snatch the bloody shirt, and waving it
aloft begin the vocero—the lamentation. This rhythmic discourse was
made up of alternate expressions of love for the dead, and hatred of
his enemies; and its startling images and tremendous curses were echoed
in the faces and amidst the mutterings of the armed mourners. Its
application to American politics is credited to Mr. Oliver P. Morton,
who, elected United States senator in 1867, and again in 1873, took a
prominent part as a leader of the more radical Republicans, favouring a
stern policy of coercion in the reconstruction of the Southern States.
He was one of the Presidential Candidates at the Cincinnati Convention
of 1876, his name standing second on the first ballot. Happily,
however, his opinions were too pronounced to unite the factions of his
party, and the ultimate choice fell upon Mr. Hayes.

    1888. Coldwater (Mich.) Sun, Jan. The bloody shirt is gradually
    fading away. The white-winged dove of peace spreads her wings here
    and there, patriotism forgets and forgives old differences,
    sectionalism is gradually giving way to love of country—the whole
    country. In fact the ill-feeling between the North and South would
    have died out years ago among the veterans of both sections, had
    they been left to themselves, and the politicians been as patriotic
    as they.

    1888. New York Weekly Times, Mar. 21. It is reprehensible to the
    last degree for the Bourbons of the South to continue to play on
    the colour line—the Southern bloody shirt—and then denounce
    Republican extremists for doing the same thing at the North.


Bloomer, subs. (Australian prison slang).—A mistake. Said to be an
abbreviated form of ‘blooming error.’—See Blooming.


Blooming, often Bloomin’, ppl. adj. (common).—This word, similar in
type to ‘blessed,’ ‘blamed,’ and other words of the kind, is, as used
by the lower classes, a euphemism for bloody (q.v.), but it is also
frequently employed as a mere meaningless intensitive. Like the
last-named word, little count is taken of its exact primary meaning.
Its slang use may be traced to that figurative sense of the orthodox
word, which signifies ‘in the bloom of health and beauty,’ ‘in the
prime,’ ‘flourishing,’ etc. Some uncertainty exists as to the origin of
this not over-ornamental addition to our expletive vocabulary. If the
word is used by Granvil (see quot.) in its modern sense, then the
phrase is very much older than has hitherto been imagined. Barring
this, it would seem that we are indebted for it to the Californian
coast, although there is little doubt that the chief instrument in its
acclimatization in England was Mr. Alfred G. Vance, the comic singer,
well-known in connection with ‘Jolly dogs,’ and other extensively
popular music-hall songs. As before stated, it has very largely
supplanted ‘bloody’; bally (q.v.) is also used in the same manner. Its
applications are manifold. One is requested not to make any blooming
mistake or error; another ‘showing off,’ or ‘putting on side,’ is told
not to be so blooming flash; an excessively stupid man is spoken of as
a blooming idiot; and an inquisitive individual is told more forcibly
than politely, perhaps, ‘you asks me no bloomin’ imper’int questions,
an’ I tells yer no bloomin’ lies.’

    1726. Rev. J. Granvil, Sadducismus triumphatus [under the head of
    ‘The Demon of Tedworth’ (1661). Granvil makes mention that on one
    occasion the spirit came into a room panting like a dog, and]
    company coming up, the room was presently filled with a blooming
    noisome smell.

    18(?). Colonel John Hay, Ballad, ‘The Mystery of Gilgal.’

        He went for his ’leven inch bowie knife:
        I tries to foller a Christian life,
        But I’ll drop a slice of liver or two,
        My bloomin’ shrub, with you.

    1887. G. R. Sims, Dagonet Ballads (Told to the Missionary). ‘I
    feels like a bloomin’ babby—I gets so infernal weak.’

    1877. Five Years’ Penal Servitude, ch. iii., p. 222. ‘Afore that I
    worked in the galleries, a making the casemates for the guns, and
    blooming hard work it was.’

    1882. Punch’s Almanac, p. 4. The Steam Launch in Venice (‘Sic
    Transit Gloria Mundi’)—’Andsome ’Arriet: ‘Ow my! If it ’yn’t that
    bloomin’ old Temple Bar, as they did aw’y with out o’ Fleet
    Street!’ Mr. Belleville (referring to guide book): ‘Now it ’yn’t.
    It’s the fymous Bridge o’ Sighs, as Byron went and stood on; ’im as
    wrote ‘Our Boys,’ yer know!’ ’Andsome ’Arriet: ‘Well, I never!’

    1880. Jas. Greenwood, Flyfaker’s Hotel, in Odd People in Odd
    Places, p. 59. ‘Who’s got any music?’ presently exclaimed the dirty
    scoundrel who had been mending the boxing-glove; ‘—— me, let’s have
    a bloomin’ lark! Let’s have a tune and a song. Who’s got any
    bloomin’ music?’

    1884. W. C. Russell, Jack’s Courtship, ch. xxxviii. ‘And if there’s
    fire there ought to be nothen to stop us from cooking a bloomin’
    old goat.’

    1889. Ally Sloper, July 6. Injured Innocence: Indignant Son of
    Labour. Well, I’m blowed! If that ’ere bloomin’ swell ain’t
    a-himitatin’ me!


Bloss, subs. (old, and American thieves’).—A generic name for a woman,
whether girl, wife, or mistress. Probably from an attributive sense of
‘blossom.’ For example, Shakspeare, in Titus Andronicus [1588, iv., 2,
72], employs it in the sense of one lovely and full of promise. ‘Sweet
blowse you are a beautious blossome sure.’ Tennyson also [1847] in the
Princess [v., 79] uses the expression, ‘My babe, my blossom, ah, my
child!’ Cf., Blowen.

    1785. Grose, Dictionary of the Vulgar Tongue. Bloss (cant), the
    pretended wife of a bully or shop-lifter.

    1881. New York Slang Dictionary, ‘Slang Stories,’ p. 42. ‘Why,
    Bell, is it yourself? Tip us your daddle, my bene mort. May I dance
    at my death, and grin in a class-case, if I didn’t think you had
    been put to bed with a shovel....’ ‘No, Jim, I only piked into
    Grassville with a dimber-damber, who couldn’t pad the hoof for a
    single darkman’s without his bloss to keep him from getting pogy.’


Blot the Scrip, verbal phr. (old).—To put an undertaking into writing;
the modern phrase is ‘to put it in black and white.’ Hence

To blot the scrip and jark it (old), i.e., to stand engaged, or bound
for anyone.—Grose. Jark means a seal, and in Oxford slang, a safe
conduct pass; in the former sense it is retained in the patter of
modern American thieves, a synonym being jasker. Jarkman is the name
given in America to a begging letter writer, whose accomplishments in
this respect are varied by the production of false characters for
servants, and other documents of a kindred nature. This is a case, like
many others, in which old English cant terms have, across the Atlantic,
been invested with a new meaning. Formerly a jarkman was equivalent to
an ‘Abram-man,’ i.e., a licensed beggar.


Bloviate, verb (American).—To talk aimlessly and boastingly; to indulge
in ‘high falutin’. [A factitious word probably founded on the verb
blow, sense 1, on the model of ‘deviate.’] Said to have been in use
since 1850.


Blow, subs. (common).—1. A shilling.

Amongst Synonyms for this coin are beong; borde; button; deaner or
deener; bob; bobstick (old slang); breaky-leg; gen (this forms part of
the so-called back slang); hog; levy; peg; stag; teviss; twelver;
touch-me (this is an abbreviated form of touch-me-on-the-nob, rhyming
slang for bob or shilling); Abraham’s willing (also rhyming slang for a
shilling).

    1879. J. W. Horsley, in Macm. Mag., XL., 501. But afterwards I got
    3s. 9d., and then four blow. Ibid. I went to the Steel
    (Bastile—Coldbath Fields Prison), having a new suit of clobber on
    me and about fifty blow in my brigh (pocket).

    1885. Daily Telegraph, Feb. 5, p. 2, col. 6. They said they could
    sell some for five blows (shillings), and that he could easily make
    £158 of the stuff.

2. (Old University.)—A drunken frolic; a spree. Cf., Blow-out, subs.
For synonyms, see Jamboree.

Verb.—1. To boast; to brag; to ‘gas’—generally to talk boastfully or
self-assertingly of oneself or one’s affairs. In this sense to blow,
long dialectically current, is now regarded as slang. It is also
associated with the idea of angry speech, ‘storming,’ ‘fuming.’ Cf.,
Blow up, and for synonyms, see Gas.

    c. 1400. Apol. Loll., 97. Blouing veynly wip fleschli wit. [M.]

    1519. Four Elements, in Hazl. Dodsley, I., 41. Why, man, what
    aileth thee so to blow? [M.]

    1785. Burns, Epistle to J. Lapraik, st. 16. I winna blaw about
    mysel; As ill I like my fauts to tell.

    1883. Graphic, Jan. 27, p. 79, col. i. The whole team has taught
    Australia not to blow (as they say)—a not unneeded lesson.

    1883. Mrs. Campbell Praed, Sketches of Australian Life, p. 45. ‘He
    was famous for his coolness and daring, and for blowing, in
    Australian parlance, both of his exploits and of his “bonnes
    fortunes.”’

2. (general.)—To inform; to expose; to betray; to peach. Cf., also Blow
upon and Blow the gab. [This is a transferred sense of blow = to
breathe out; to give forth by breathing; hence, to sound a signal on an
instrument; to blaze abroad as by a trumpet.] For synonyms, see Peach.

    1575. Appius and Virg., in Hazl. Dodsley, IV., 136. Was all well
    agreed? did nobody blow ye? [M.]

    1721. Defoe, History of Colonel Jack. ‘As for that,’ says Will, ‘I
    could tell it well enough, if I had it, but I must not be seen
    anywhere among my old acquaintances, for I am blown, and they will
    all betray me.’

    1748. T. Dyche, Dictionary (5 ed.). Blow (v.) ... also to discover
    the secrets of another; also when a person undervalues or slights a
    person or thing, he is said to blow upon it.

    a. 1859. L. Hunt, Country Lodgings, in Casquet Lit. (1877), I., p.
    42, col. 1. D—n me, if I don’t blow ... I’ll tell Tom Neville, [M.]

3. (American.)—To lie; and in a slightly less opprobrious sense to
‘gas’ so much as to be perilously near the border-line which separates
boasting exaggeration from absolute untruth.

4. (general.)—Frequently employed euphemistically for ‘to
damn’—generally in the imperative.—Blow it! i.e., ‘hang it’! or damn
it! Cf., Blowed, with which it is closely allied in all senses.

    1849. C. Kingsley, Alton Locke, ch. ii. ‘Well, if you won’t stand a
    pot,’ quoth the tall man, ‘I will, that’s all, and blow
    temperance.’

    1883. Miss Braddon, Golden Calf, ch. xxvi. ‘Blow his station in
    life! If he was a duke I shouldn’t want him.’

5. (general.)—To lose or spend money. Cf., Blue.

6. (University.)—To indulge in a frolic or spree. Cf., Blow out; also
To go on the blow.

7. (Winchester School.)—To blush.

To bite the blow, phr. (old cant).—To steal goods; to Prig, which see
for synonyms.


Blow a Cloud, verbal phr. (colloquial).—To smoke a cigar or pipe;
Hotten says, ‘a phrase used two centuries ago’ but gives no authority,
and Murray’s earliest example only dates from 1855, but as will be seen
below, it occurs in Tom Crib in 1819.

    1819. Moore, Tom Crib’s Memorial to Congress, p. 39.

          ... His fame I need not tell,
        For that, my friends, all England’s loud with;
        But this I’ll say, a civiller Swell
          I’d never wish to blow a cloud with.

    1870. M. Twain, Innocents Abroad, ch. vii. And blowing suffocating
    ‘clouds’ and boisterously performing at dominoes in the
    smoking-room at night.

French Synonyms. Tubons en une (popular: ‘let’s blow a cloud’; tuber =
to smoke); piper; la fumerie (popular: smoking); faire du brouillard
(‘to produce or make a fog or mist’); en bourrer une; bouffarder. A
German Synonym is Esef schwächen, or schweihen.


Blow-Book, subs. (old).—A book containing indelicate or ‘smutty’
pictures.

    1708. Post Man, 8 June. Last Sunday a person did pennance in the
    Chapter-House of St. Paul’s, London, for publickly shewing in
    Bartholomew Fair a book called a blow-book, in which were many
    obscene and filthy pictures: the book was likewise burnt, and the
    person paid costs.


Blowed. To be blowed, verb (familiar).—Blowed is here a euphemism for
‘damned’; to all intents and purposes, it is frequently little more
than a thinly-veiled oath. Hotten says that Tom Hood used to tell the
following story:—‘I was once asked to contribute to a new journal, not
exactly gratuitously, but at a very small advance upon nothing—and
avowedly because the work had been planned according to that estimate.
However, I accepted the terms conditionally—that is to say, provided
the principle could be properly carried out. Accordingly, I wrote to my
butcher, baker, and other tradesmen, informing them that it was
necessary, for the sake of cheap literature and the interest of the
reading public, that they should furnish me with their several
commodities at a very trifling per-centage above cost price. It will be
sufficient to quote the answer of the butcher:—“Sir,—Respectin’ your
note, Cheap literater be blowed! Butchers must live as well as other
pepel—and if so be you or the readin’ publick wants to have meat at
prime cost, you must buy your own beastesses, and kill yourselves.—I
remain, etc., John Stokes.”’

Cf., Blow me!

    1835. Dickens, Sketches by Boz, p. 50. Others remonstrating with
    the said Thomas Sludberry, on the impropriety of his conduct, the
    said Thomas Sludberry repeated the aforesaid expression, ‘You be
    blowed.’

    1863. Jeaffreson, Live It Down, III., p. 249. (Cries of ‘Chair,
    Chair,’ and ‘Order, order.’) ‘Order be blowed!’ exclaimed the
    infuriated Mr. H.

    1864. Dickens, Our Mutual Friend, bk. II., ch. v. ‘Holiday be
    blowed!’ said Fledgely, entering, ‘What have you got to do with
    holidays?’

    1877. Five Years’ Penal Servitude, ch. iii., p. 244. ‘No,’ says
    she, ‘we’ve got some more besides that, and enough, too, to take us
    to France. Blowed, old man, if we don’t go to Paris, and there we
    can get £300 for them.’

    1879. Punch’s Almanac, p. 7. Seasonable Slang. For Spring.—You be
    blowed! For Summer.—I’ll warm yer! For Autumn.—Not so blooming
    green! For Winter.—An ice little game all round.

    1889. Ally Sloper’s H. H., Aug. 3, p. 242, col. 2. ‘Blowed if I’d
    have made her Mrs. Juggins, if I’d have known she wor going to make
    a footstool of me!’


Blowen or Blowing, subs. (old.)—This word appears to have passed
through a series of ups and downs in the course of its career.
Originally signifying a woman, without special reference to moral
character, it subsequently came to mean a showy courtesan, or a
prostitute. It still retains the latter meaning, but is frequently used
in a more complimentary sense than heretofore to signify a finely built
handsome girl. In America among the criminal classes it is only used to
designate a mistress. Its derivation is extremely uncertain, the two
most important suggestions being that it comes (1) from the reputation
having been ‘blown upon’; and (2) that in Wilts blowen signifies a
blossom—hence blowen a flower; a pet.

    1688. Shadwell, Sq. of Alsatia, I., in wks. (1720) IV., 17. What
    ogling there will be between thee and the blowings!

    1789. Geo. Parker, Life’s Painter, p. 143. Blowen, a woman.

    1812. J. H. Vaux, Flash Dict. Blowen, a prostitute: a woman who
    cohabits with a man without marriage.

    1847. Lytton, Lucretia, pt. II., ch. ii. ‘If she’s a good girl, and
    loves you, she’ll not let you spend your money on her.’ ‘I haint
    such a ninny as that,’ said Beck, with majestic contempt. ‘I
    ’spises the flat that is done brown by the blowens.’

    1848. C. Kingsley, Yeast, ch. xi. Why don’t they have a short
    simple service now and then, that might catch the ears of the
    roughs and the blowens, without tiring out the poor thoughtless
    creatures’ patience, as they do now?

For synonyms in the sense of prostitute, see Barrack-hack.


Blower, subs. (old).—1. A girl; a contemptuous name in opposition to
jomer (q.v.); given by Grose [1785].

2. (American and Colonial.)—A good talker; a boaster; a ‘gas-bag.’ Cf.,
Blow, verb, sense 1.

    1863. Manhattan, in Evening Standard, 10 Dec. General Grant ... is
    not one of the blower generals. [M.]

    1864. Spectator, 22 Oct., 1202, col. 1. Notorious among our bar and
    the public as a blower. [M.]

    1871. De Vere, Americanisms, p. 584. ‘You need not blow so, my
    friend. I don’t believe a word of what you say.’ Hence also the
    noun blower, a braggart, with special reference to his success in
    imitating Baron Munchausen.

3. A pipe. Cf., Blow a cloud.


Blow Great Guns, verbal phr. (popular).—To blow a hurricane; a violent
gale. Sometimes varied by to blow great guns and small arms.

    1839. Harrison Ainsworth, Jack Sheppard [1889], 23. ‘Curse me, if I
    don’t think all the world means to cross the Thames this fine
    night!’ observed Ben. ‘One’d think it rained fares as well as
    blowed great guns. Why, there’s another party on the stair-head
    inquiring arter scullers; and, by the mass! they appear in a
    greater hurry than any of us.’

    1854. H. Miller, Sch. and Schm. (1858), 14. It soon began to blow
    great guns. [M.]


Blowhard, subs. (American).—A Western term of revilement, the precise
meaning of which it would be difficult to explain, since a newcomer
may, in one and the same breath, be called a blarsted Britisher, a
Coyote, and a blowhard. If all these are synonymous, then indeed the
Englishman in America is in a bad way. Cf., Blower, sense 2.


Blow Hot and Cold, verbal phr. (familiar).—To be treacherous;
inconsistent; vacillating. There is an allusion in the expression to
one of Æsop’s fables.

    1577. W. Bullinger, Decades (1592), 176. One which out of one
    mouth, doeth blowe both hoat and colde. [M.]

    1756. The World, No. 185. This old fellow is of a most capricious,
    unequal temper, and, like the satyr in the fable, blows hot and
    cold in the same breath.

    1856. Motley, Dutch Rep., V., v., 750. Being constantly ordered ‘to
    blow hot and cold with the same breath.’


Blowing Up, subs. (colloquial).—A scolding; a severe reprimand; a
jobation.—See Blow up. The French equivalent is affres (fem. pl.),
i.e., ‘agonies.’

    1839. Haliburton, Letter-Bag Gt. West, IV., 42. I would give him a
    good blowing-up. [M.]

    1874. Mrs. H. Wood, Johnny Ludlow, 1 S., No. xxv., p. 448. The
    waves dashed over the pier, ducking the three or four venturesome
    spirits who went on there. I was one—and received a good blowing up
    from Mr. Brandon for my pains.


Blow in One’s Pipe, verbal phr. (American).—A transatlantic equivalent
of to blow or blew [one’s money]; i.e., to spend it.


Blow Me! Blow Me Up! Blow Me Tight! intj. phr. (popular).—Expressions
which, like blowed (q.v.), serve either as half-veiled oaths or as
merely big sounding but meaningless exclamations.

    1781. G. Parker, View of Society, I., 48. ‘Blow me up (says he) if
    I have had a fellow with such rum toggys cross my company these
    many a day.’

    1819. Moore, Tom Crib’s Memorial to Congress.

        Says Bill ‘there’s nothing like a Bull
        And blow me tight’—Bill Gibbons ne’er
        In all his days was known to swear,
        Except light oaths, to grace his speeches,
        Like ‘dash my wig’ or ‘burn my breeches,’
        ‘Blow me——’

    1876. C. Hindley, Life and Adventures of a Cheap Jack, p. 25. Here
    blow me, I’ll do such a thing I never did before, I’ll say
    thirty—yes, thirty shillings buys the lot, and I’ll have no more
    nor take no less.


Blow One’s Bazoo, verbal phr. (American).—To boast; to swagger; to
gasconade. [From the Dutch bazu, an abbreviation of bazuin, a trumpet;
hence an equivalent of the English ‘to blow one’s own trumpet’.]


Blow Oneself Out, verb (common).—To eat heartily; to gorge oneself.—See
Blow out.

    1837. Barham, I. L. (Babes in the Wood).

        In the dog-days, don’t be so absurd
        As to blow yourselves out with green-gages!


Blow Out, subs. (common).—A gluttonous feast, a heavy ‘feed,’ or
entertainment. Also called a Tuck in, which see for synonyms. Cf., Blow
oneself out.

    1825. Scott, St. Ronan’s Well, II., 264. ‘She sent me a card for
    her blow-out,’ said Mowbray, ‘and so I am resolved to go.’

    1847. Th. Hook, Man of Many Friends. The giving good feeds is, with
    many of these worthies, the grand criterion by which the virtues
    and talents of mankind are measured ... these persons call a
    similar favour either a ‘spread’ or a ‘blow-out.’

    1852. H. B. Stowe, Uncle Tom’s Cabin, ch. viii. ‘Get us hot water,
    and sugar, and cigars, and plenty of the real stuff, and we’ll have
    a blow-out.’

Verb (thieves’).—To steal. For synonyms, see prig.


Blowse, Blowsy, Blouze, Blowzy, subs. (old).—1. A beggar’s trull; a
wench.

2. A slatternly woman, especially one with dishevelled hair. Thought to
be of canting origin. In Grose’s time the term was humorously varied by
Blowsabella, in reference to the country girl in Gay’s pastoral poem,
‘The Shepherd’s Week,’ which depicts rural life in its character of
poverty and rudeness, rather than as clothed in the colours of romance.

        We, fair, fine ladies, who park out our lives
        From common sheep-paths, cannot help the crows,
        From flying over; we’re as natural still
        As Blousalinda.

    1557. Tusser, Husbandrie, ch. xvi., st. 37, p. 43 (E.D.S.). Whiles
    Gillet, his blouse, is a milking thy cow.

    1605. Chapman, All Fooles, Act iv., p. 68 (Plays, 1874).

        Wed without my advice, my love, my knowledge,
        Ay, and a beggar, too, a trull, a blowse!

    1638. Ford, Lady’s Trial, III., i. Wench is your trull, your
    blouze, your dowdie.

    1705. Ward, Hudibras Redivivus, vol. II., pt. VII., p. 20.

        So the old Babylonian Blouze,
        And her demure fanatick Spouse.

    1851. Thackeray, English Humorists, p. 167. Are not the Rosalindas
    of Britain as charming as the Blousalindas of the Hague?


Blow the Gab or Gaff, verbal phr. (common).—To reveal, or ‘let out’ a
secret; to peach. Cf., Gaff, Gag and Gab. For synonyms, see Peach.

    1785. Grose, Dictionary of the Vulgar Tongue. To blow the gab
    (cant), to confess, or impeach a confederate.

    1833. Marryat, Peter Simple, ch. xliii. ‘One of the French
    officers, after he was taken prisoner, axed me how we had managed
    to get the gun up there; but I wasn’t going to blow the gaff.’

    1877. Five Years’ Penal Servitude, ch. ii., p. 122. The prisoner,
    burning for revenge, quietly bides his time till the chief warder
    comes round, then asks to speak to him, and ‘blows the gaff.’


Blow the Grampuse, verbal phr. (nautical).—To throw cold water on a man
who has fallen asleep when on duty.


Blow the Groundsels, verbal phr. (old).—To have sexual commerce on the
ground.

    1785. Grose, Dictionary of the Vulgar Tongue. To blow the
    groundsils (cant), to lie with a woman on the floor.


Blow Together, verbal phr. (tailors’).—To make garments in a slovenly
manner.


Blow Up, subs. (colloquial).—A scolding; a ‘wigging’; a railing.

    1809. Sir W Gell, in C. K. Sharpe’s Correspondence (1883), I., 355.
    There won’t be any quarrel, so you need not fear. The only chance
    is Keppel making a blow up when she abuses me.

    1849. Thackeray, Pendennis, ch. lxviii. Morgan had had ‘a devil of
    a blow hup with his own guv’nor, and was going to retire from the
    business haltogether.’

    1855. Thackeray, Newcomes, ch. vii. ‘Mind the hice is here in time;
    or they’ll be a blow up with your governor.’

Verb (colloquial).—To scold.

    1809. Sir W. Gell, in C. K. Sharpe’s Correspondence (1888), I.,
    355. I have heard her daughter blow up Lady Salisbury when she had
    quarrelled with Lady Sefton.

    1883. G. A. S[ala], in Illust. L. News, June 16, p. 599, col. 1.
    That the ’aughty nobleman should blow up the clerk for presuming to
    take a seat in his presence.

To blow up sky-high, phr. (American).—The American, fond of doing
everything with unusual energy, likes to blow up sky-high, an addition
which lends colour to the supposition that probably the phrase is
originally a nautical one, and really borrowed from the blowing up of a
vessel, much as the meaning of the words must have evaporated before it
reached the present stage.


Blow upon (old).—To betray; to tell tales of; to discredit; to
defame.—See Blow, verb, sense 2. Used also with indirect passive.

    1402. [? T. Occleve], Letter of Cupid, in Arber’s Garner, vol. IV.,
    p. 61.

        Thus they despisèd be, on every side,
        Dislanderèd and blown upon full wide.

    1750. Fielding, Tom Jones, bk. X., ch. ii. ‘That the reputation of
    her house, which was never blown upon before, was utterly
    destroyed.’

    1843. Dickens, Martin Chuzzlewit, II., p. 239. It fortunately
    occurred to me, that if I gave it him myself, I could be of no
    farther use. I should have been blown upon immediately.

    1864. Dickens, Our Mutual Friend, bk. III., ch. xii. ‘The condition
    of our affairs is desperate, and may be blown upon at any moment.’

    1877. Five Years’ Penal Servitude, ch. i., p. 4. Both desisted from
    their own recriminations as to ‘rounding’ and ‘blowing’ on each
    other.

    1882. Jas. Payn, in Glow Worm Tales, p. 301. ‘An Improvement on a
    System.’ If Mr. Prince had caught me before his establishment had
    got ‘blown upon’ in the public prints, he might have persuaded me
    to become an inmate of the Agapemone. I hope I should not have
    approved of the manner of life in vogue at that institution, but I
    make no doubt that I should have fallen in with it without much
    resistance.


Blub.—See Blubber, verb.


Blubber, subs. (common).—1. The mouth. From the figurative use of the
word, especially of anything swollen or protruding, as of the lips. For
synonyms, see Potato-trap.

    1785. Grose, Dictionary of the Vulgar Tongue. I have stopped the
    cull’s blubber, I have stopped the fellow’s mouth.

2. A woman’s breasts.—See Sport blubber, and for synonyms, Dairies.

Verb (familiar).—To cry; to weep—used contemptuously. Also shortened
into blub.

    1400. Test. Love, II. (1560), 283, 1. Han women none other wrech
    ... but blober and wepe till hem list stint. [M.]

    1748. Smollett, Roderick Random, xliv. (1804), 202. He blubbered
    like a great school-boy who had been whipped.

    1826. Scott, Woodstock, IV. Phœbe Mayflower blubbered heartily for
    company. [M.]

To sport blubber, phr. (common).—To show one’s breasts, said of women,
especially those with large and prominent bosoms.


Blubber and Guts, subs. (common).—Obesity; a low term.


Blubber-Belly, subs. (common).—A fat person.


Blubber Head, subs. (common).—A foolish, empty-headed individual.—See
Apartments to let.


Blucher (ch. hard), subs. (Winchester College).—1. A College præfect in
half power. Their jurisdiction does not extend beyond ‘Seventh Chamber
passage,’ though their privileges are the same as those of other
præfects. They are eight in number.

    1864. Blackwood, p. 86. The remaining eight college præfects
    (called in Winchester tongue, bluchers) have a more limited
    authority, confined to Chambers and the Quadrangle.

    1870. Mansfield, School-Life at Winchester College, p. 30. The
    eight senior præfects were said to have ‘full power,’ and had some
    slight privileges not enjoyed by the remaining ten, who were
    generally called bluchers.

2. A non-privileged cab plying at railway stations. The origin of the
name and its application, as far as known, is given in the two
following quotations.

    1864. Soc. Sc. Review, I., p. 406. The railway companies recognise
    two other classes of cabs, called the ‘privileged’ ... and the
    ‘Bluchers,’ named after the Prussian Field-Marshal who arrived on
    the field of Waterloo only to do the work that chanced to be
    undone.

    1870. Athenæum, 5 March, p. 328. Non-privileged cabs, which are
    admitted to stations after all the privileged have been hired, are
    known as Bluchers.


Bludgeoner, subs. (harlotry).—A bully; pimp; ponce; a man attached to a
house of ill-fame for the purpose of terrorising victims, and rendering
easier the task of plunder. [From bludgeon, a stout stick or club, + er
or eer; i.e., one armed with the weapon in question.]

    1852. Blackwood’s Magazine, p. 224. Those brutal bludgeoneers ...
    go out ... in gangs to poach. [M.]

    1855. Trollope, Warden, xiv., p. 144. Old St. Dunstan with its
    smiting bludgeoneer has been removed.


Bludger, subs. (thieves’).—A low thief, who does not hesitate to use
violence; literally one who will use a bludgeon. Cf., Bludget.

    1856. H. Mayhew, Gt. World of London, p. 46. Those who plunder with
    violence; as ... bludgers or ‘stick slingers,’ who rob in company
    with low women.


Bludget, subs. (American).—This is given in the New York Slang
Dictionary [1881] as ‘a low female thief, who decoys her victims into
alley-ways, etc., to rob them.’ Cf., Bludger.


Blue.—Few words enter more largely into the composition of slang, and
colloquialisms bordering on slang, than does the word blue. Expressive
alike of the utmost contempt, as of all that men hold dearest and love
best, its manifold combinations, in ever varying shades of meaning,
greet the philologist at every turn. A very Proteus, it defies all
attempts to trace the why and wherefore of many of the turns of
expression of which it forms a part—why true blue should be synonymous
with faithful, staunch adherence to one’s faith and principles; or why,
on the other hand, to look blue should signify affected with fear,
dismayed, and low-spirited. Curiously enough, the historical method
helps but little to decide why in one case an exact reversal of meaning
should have taken place in the application of the word; for, as far as
the evidence is concerned, both the good and bad shades of meaning
appear to run contemporaneously. It is also noteworthy that the word
enters largely into the slang of nationalities other than our own;
indeed, one of the most curious, as well as one of the most interesting
facts connected with the comparative study of slang, is that which
reveals the oneness of the human race in its modes of thought and
speech, the Tower of Babel notwithstanding. This special feature of
slang will, to some extent, be found dealt with at the end of this
work; but the subject is too wide, and the field too vast, for one
student to have accomplished much single-handed. This, however, may be
said; that, comparing the slang of one nation with that of another, one
finds the same ideas cropping up, revealing, alas! the same follies and
foibles, but also showing, let it be said, in the few cases where slang
travels beyond the earthy and the sensual, the same aspirations, the
same endeavour, and the same hope.

Subs.—1. A policeman. [From the colour of the uniform.] This epithet
can be traced back to Elizabethan days [see Blue-bottle], and the
uniform seems to have been blue from time immemorial; indeed, this
colour appears from the earliest times to have been the badge of
servitude. Pliny tells us blue was the colour in which the Gauls
clothed their slaves; and, for many ages, blue coats were the liveries
of servants, apprentices, and those in humble stations of life—to wit,
the blue-clad beadles, the ‘varlets’ who wore the blue, the blue-coat
boys, and even harlots in a house of correction, who wore blue as a
dress of ignominy. The proverb quoted by Ray, ‘he’s in his better blue
clothes,’ i.e., ‘he thinks himself wondrous fine,’ has reference to the
livery of a servant. The police more recently have been known
collectively as blues, the men in blue, blue-boys, blue bottles,
blue-devils, royal regiment of foot-guards blue, all nicknames
referring to the colour of the uniform. For general synonyms, see Beak.

    1877. Five Years’ Penal Servitude, ch. iv., p. 257. He would
    chatter gaily and enter with great gusto into the details of some
    cleverly executed ‘bit of business,’ or ‘bilking the
    blues,’—evading the police.

    18(?). Hood, Row at the ‘Oxford Arms.’

        Well, that’s the row, and who can guess the upshot after all?
        Whether Harmony will ever make the ‘Arms’ her house of call;
        Or whether this here mobbing, as some longish heads fortell it,
        Will grow to such a riot that the Oxford blues must quell it.


2. A blue is known to licensed victuallers and their customers in
certain districts of Wales as a compromise between the half-pint and
the pint pot. It is not recognised as a legal measure by the
authorities on weights and measures, but it is approaching to something
like a status, as it deserves to do in the interests of temperance.
Although there is no Board of Trade standard of the blue, and
inspectors have no power to stamp measures of this denomination for use
in trade, the Board of Trade has pointed out to the local authorities
that there is nothing in the Weights and Measures Act to prevent the
use of the blue or to make its possessor liable to penalties, always
provided of course that the vessel is not used as a measure.

3. A scholar of Christ’s Hospital; a blue-coat boy. [This nickname is
also derived from the colour of the clothes—blue drugget gown or body
with ample skirts to it, a yellow vest underneath in winter time, small
clothes of Russia duck, worsted yellow stockings, a leathern girdle,
and a little black worsted cap, usually carried in the hand, being the
complete costume. This was the ordinary dress of children in humble
life during the reigns of the Tudors.]

    1834. W. Trollope (Title), Christ’s Hospital ... with memoirs of
    Eminent Blues.

    1877. W. H. Blanch, Blue-Coat Boys, p. 33. To some extent it holds
    also with regard to Civil Engineers, amongst whom, however, one
    well-known name is that of a blue.

4. Short for blue-stocking (q.v.); formerly a contemptuous term for a
woman having or affecting literary tastes.

    1788. Madame D’Arblay, Diary (1876), iv., 219. He was a little the
    more anxious not to be surprised to-night, but his being too tired
    for walking should be imputed to his literary preference of reading
    to a blue. At tea Miss Planta again joined us, and instantly behind
    him went the book; he was very right, for nobody would have thought
    it more odd or more blue.

    1823. Byron, Don Juan, ch. xi., st. 50. The Blues, that tender
    tribe, who sigh o’er sonnets.

    1845. Disraeli, Sybil, p. 76. ‘But she was very clever....’
    ‘Accomplished?’ ‘Oh, far beyond that....’ ‘A regular blue.’

    1853. Rev. E. Bradley (‘Cuthbert Bede’), Adventures of Verdant
    Green, I., p. 7. His Aunt Virginia was as learned a blue as her
    esteemed ancestress in the court of Elizabeth, the very Virgin
    Queen of Blues.

5. Female learning or pedantry.

    1824. Byron, Don Juan, xvi., 47. She also had a twilight tinge of
    blue. [M.]

6. (University.)—At Oxford and Cambridge a man is said to get his blue
when selected as a competitor in inter-university sports. The
University colours are, for Oxford, dark blue; and for Cambridge, light
blue. Cf., To get one’s silk, said of a barrister when made Queen’s
Counsel.

Adj.—1. A contemptuous epithet applied usually to women of literary
tastes.—See Blue-stocking. The French have elle est bleue celle-là; en
voilà une de bleue; je la trouve bleue.

    1788. Mad. D’Arblay, Diary (1842), iv., p. 219. Nobody would have
    thought it more odd or more blue.

    1834. Southey, The Doctor, ch. lxxxix. Les Dames des Roches, both
    mother and daughter were remarkable and exemplary women; and there
    was a time when Poictiers derived as much glory from those blue
    ladies as from the Black Prince.

    1839. Lever, Harry Lorrequer, ch. xi. She was a little, a very
    little blue—rather a babbler in the ‘ologies’ than a real disciple.

    1842. Dickens, American Notes, ch. iii., p. 33. Blue ladies there
    are, in Boston; but like philosophers of that colour and sex in
    most other latitudes, they rather desire to be thought superior
    than to be so.

    1852. F. E. Smedley, Lewis Arundel, ch. xxxiii. She had been
    growing decidedly blue. Not only had she, under Bray’s auspices,
    published a series of papers in Blunt’s Magazine, but she had
    positively written a child’s book.

    1864. Spectator, No. 1875, p. 660. A clever, sensible woman, rather
    blue.

2. Indecent; ‘smutty’; obscene. This may be derived from the blue dress
of harlots—see preceding, subs., 1.—although Hotten suggests it as
coming from the French Bibliothèque Bleu, a series of books of very
questionable character. Books or conversation of an entirely opposite
nature are said to be brown or Quakerish, i.e., serious, grave, decent.

3. Gloomy; fearful; depressed; low-spirited. Cf., To look blue, Blue
funk, and In the blues. Possibly an allusion to the blueness of cold.

    1857. A. Trollope, Three Clerks, ch. xxviii. Charley replied that
    neither had he any money at home. ‘That’s blue,’ said the man. ‘It
    is rather blue,’ said Charley.

    1862. Trollope, Orley Farm, I., p. 93. It’s blue; uncommon blue.

    1864. Yates, Broken to Harness, I., p. 60. ‘My dear Charlie,’ said
    the girl.... ‘That certainly is a blue look-out,’ she continued—for
    however earnest was her purpose she would not but express herself
    in her slang metaphor.

    1872. S. L. Clemens (‘Mark Twain’), Roughing It, ch. xl. I kept up
    my blue meditations.

    1874. S. L. Clemens (‘Mark Twain’), Gilded Age, ch. xxvii. I had
    forgotten dear, but when a body gets blue, a body forgets
    everything.... I am sorry I was blue, but it did seem as if
    everything had been going against me for whole ages.

Verb.—1. To blush. Cf., subs., sense 3.

    1709. Steele and Swift, Tatler, No. 71, p. 8. If a Virgin blushes,
    we no longer cry she blues. [M.]

2. To pawn; pledge; spend; actually to get rid of money quickly. Cf.,
Blew. There are two suggested derivations of the word when used in this
sense; (1) that it is connected with ‘blown,’ i.e., dissipated or
scattered; and (2) that money so squandered has disappeared as
effectually as if it had passed into the blue, i.e., the sky or the
deep sea. The German has ins blaue hinein, ‘away into the blue,’
equivalent to the French passer au bleu. Faire passer au bleu is to
dissipate, spend, or squander. For synonyms, in the sense of to pawn,
see Pop.

    1880. Punch’s Almanac, p. 2. This top coat?—would blue it.

    1887. Punch, 10 Sept., p. 111. I never minds blueing the pieces
    purvided I gets a good spree.

3. To miscalculate; ‘to make a “mess” of anything’; to mull.

4. (thieves’.)—To steal; to plunder. To be blued, to be robbed. For
synonyms, see Prig.

By all that’s blue, phr. (popular).—A euphemistic oath; probably
meaning ‘by Heaven.’ It may be compared with the French parbleu,
synonymous with par Dieu.

    1840. Marryat, Poor Jack, xxiii. ‘The black cat, by all that’s
    blue!’ cried the Captain.

Men in blue, phr. (popular).—The police.—See Blue, subs., sense 1.

    1882. Besant, All Sorts and Cond. of Men, ch. xliii. ‘You must now
    begin to think seriously about handcuffs and prison, and men in
    blue.’

    1886. G. A. Apperson, Graphic, 30 Jan., p. 137. The police in
    recent times have been known as the blues and the men in blue.

Till all is blue, phr. (popular).—1. To the utmost; to the end; for an
indefinite period. Smyth, in his Sailors’ Word Book, says this phrase
is borrowed from the idea of a vessel making out of port and getting
into deep water.

    1835. Haliburton, The Clockmaker, 2 S., ch. xix. [The land] could
    be made to carry wheat till all’s blue again. Ibid., 3 S., ch. xx.
    Your mother kickin’ and screamin’ till all was blue again.

    1850. Smedley, Frank Fairlegh, I., p. 184. I’ll have at her again,
    and dance till all’s blue before I give in.

2. When applied to drinking, till all is blue signifies exceeding
tipsy. As will be seen, this usage is somewhat ancient. It is an
allusion to the supposed effect of drinking on the eyesight. An
analogous French expression is avoir un coup d’bleu (to be slightly
tipsy).

    1616. R. C., Times’ Whis., v., 1835. They drink ... Vntil their
    adle heads doe make the ground Seeme blew vnto them.

    1638. Ford, Lady’s Trial, iv., 2. We can drink till all look blue.

    1837. Barham, I. L. (Lay of St. Dunstan).

                   ‘I have nothing to do:
        And ’fore George, I’ll sit here and I’ll drink till all’s
        blue!’

To look blue, phr. (popular).—To be confounded; surprised; astonished;
annoyed or disappointed. French equivalents are en rester tout bleu; en
être bleu; en bailler tout bleu; and baba from ébahi, astounded.

    c. 1600. Rob. Hood (‘Ritson’), II., xxxvi., 84. It made the sunne
    looke blue. [M.]

    1754. B. Martin, Eng. Dict. Blue, adj. ... 2, blank, or cast down;
    as, he looked blue upon it.

    1884. Cornhill Mag., Jan., p. 111. The prudent (and sagacious)
    officer looked blue. But he speedily recovered himself.

To make the air blue, phr. (popular).—To curse; to swear; to use
profane language. Cf., Blue, adj., sense 2.

True blue, phr. (colloquial).—Faithful; genuine; real; an allusion to
blue as the colour of constancy. A reference either to the deep blue of
the sky or sea suggestive of interminableness; or, it may be derived as
was ‘Coventry blue,’ from a dye that would neither change its colour
nor be discharged by washing; hence figuratively, to signify persons or
things of sterling character or quality. In neither case is the
argument clear or decisive; there is certainly no reason in nature why
the colour and cardinal virtue should be thus associated. Blue skies
and blue seas are proverbially deceitful, and on the other hand, the
expression seems too old a one to owe its origin to the dyer’s skill.

    1383. Chaucer, Squiere’s Tale.

        And by hire bedde’s hed she made a mew,
        And covered it with velouettes blew,
        In signe of trouthe that is in woman sene.

    Ibid, Court of Love, line 246.

        So you dir folke (quod she) that knele in blew,
        They were the colour ay and ever shal,
        In signe they were, and ever wil be true,
        Withoutin change.


Blue Apron, subs. (common).—A tradesman.

    1721. Amherst, Terræ Fil., xliii., 230. For if any saucy blue-apron
    dares to affront any venerable person ... all scholars are
    immediately forbid to have any dealing or commerce with him.

    1868. Brewer, Dictionary of Phrase and Fable, p. 98. A blue-apron
    statesman, a lay politician, a tradesman who interferes with the
    affairs of the nation. The reference is to the blue apron once worn
    by nearly all tradesmen, but now restricted to butchers,
    poulterers, fishmongers, and so on.


Bluebacks, subs.—1. The paper money of the Confederates. A cant name,
originating, as in the case of United States paper currency greenbacks,
in the colour of the printing on the reverse. A more pronounced slang
name, subsequently applied to bluebacks, was ‘shucks,’ from their
worthlessness after the war. ‘Shucks’ is an old English term for the
refuse of peas and similar products when shelled.

    1871. De Vere, Americanisms, p. 291. The confederate notes bore,
    for the same reason, the name of bluebacks, which was, however,
    soon exchanged for the slang term of shucks.

2. The Orange Free State paper money.

    1878. Trollope, South Africa, II., p. 206. Bluebacks, as they were
    called, were printed. Ibid, p. 222. The bluebacks as the Orange
    Free State banknotes were called.


Blue Bellies.—A nickname bestowed by Southerners, during the Civil War,
upon their opponents of the North, whose uniform was blue. They were
also called boys in blue, yanks, etc. The Southerners, on the other
hand, received such names as the secesh, rebs, and johnny rebs, the
latter being sometimes shortened to johnnies. The grey uniform of the
Confederates likewise caused them to be styled boys in grey and
greybacks, the latter epithet cutting two ways, as the Southern
soldiers not only wore grey uniforms, but ‘greyback’ in America as well
as England signifies a louse.

    1883. Daily Telegraph, Feb. 9, p. 5, col. 4. The Confederate armies
    during the great Civil War in America ... were known ... as
    ‘Greybacks,’ whereas their Federal opponents, from the light-azure
    gaberdines which they wore, were dubbed ‘blue-bellies.’


Blue Bills, subs. (Winchester College).—The tradesmen’s bills sent home
to the parents and guardians of students. [So called from the colour of
the envelopes generally used.]


Blue Billy, subs. (pugilistic).—1. A handkerchief (blue ground with
white spots) sometimes worn and used as a colour at prize-fights.—See
Billy, sense 1.

2. (mining.)—See quotation.

    1887. ‘Death of Blue Billy,’ in Chamb. Jour., Dec. 17, p. 812. Blue
    Billy is the technical name given to the lime rendered foul in the
    purification of the gas.


Blue Blanket, subs. (common).—1. The sky. This simile is an old one;
Defoe’s use of it may probably have been suggested by Shakspeare’s
‘blanket of the dark’ (Macbeth, I., v.).

    c. 1720. Defoe, Hist. of Devil, quoted in N. and Q., 7 S., ii.,
    289; see also 7 S., ii., 492. We must be content till we come on
    the other side the blue blanket, and then we shall know the whole
    story.

    1877. Greenwood, Under the Blue Blanket. The vagrant brotherhood
    have several slang terms for sleeping out in a field or meadow. It
    is called ‘snoozing in Hedge Square’; ‘dossing with the daisies’;
    and ‘lying under the blue blanket.’

The French say, ‘coucher à l’hotel de l’Etoile,’ i.e., ‘to sleep at the
Star Hotel’; while in the Fourbesque, or Italian cant, heaven or the
sky is termed copertore, a covering or blanket.

2. (common.)—A rough overcoat made of coarse pilot cloth.


Blue Blazes.—See Blazes.


Blue Boar, subs. (old).—A certain venereal disease.


Blue-Bottle, subs. (popular).—1. A policeman. This epithet, at one time
applied generally to all wearers of a dark blue uniform, is now
invariably understood to mean a guardian of the peace. It is one of the
oldest of the nicknames given to members of the force, and occurs as
far back as 1598.

Cf., Blue, sense 1, and see Beak for synonyms.

    1598. Shakspeare, 2 Henry IV., v., 4. Dall [addressing beadle] ...
    you blue-bottle rogue, you filthy famished correctioner.

    1852. F. E. Smedley, Lewis Arundel, ch. lxiv. ‘Police, indeed!’
    muttered Charley, ‘the General can’t remember that he is out of
    London.... These confounded sulky Austrian officials are rather
    different customers to deal with from our blue-bottles.—Messrs. Al
    and Co.’

    1864. Sala, in Daily Telegraph, Sept. 13. Caught in his own toils
    by the blue-bottles of Scotland Yard, [M.]

    1864. Blackwood’s Mag., p. 15. He who could summon to his aid every
    alphabetical blue-bottle that ever handled a truncheon.

    1888. Middleton, Michaelmas Term. And to be free from the
    interruption of blue beadles, and other bawdy officers.

2. A serving-man, blue having been the usual habit of servants. Cf.,
Blue-coat.

    1602. Honest Whore, O. Pl., iii., 389. You proud varlets, you need
    not be ashamed to wear blue, when your master is one of your
    fellows.

    1608. Dekker, Belman, sign E., 3. The others act their parts in
    blew coates, as (if) they were their serving-men.

Hence blue-bottle is sometimes a term of reproach for a servant. [Case
Altered, i., 2. O. Pl., v., 6.] And a serving-man, in B. Jonson, says,
‘Ever since I was of the blue order.’

About 1608, when Middleton’s Comedy of A Trick to catch the Old One was
produced, the blue-coats of servants appear to have been changed for
cloaks, such as were worn by the upper classes also at that time. Thus,
in that comedy [Act ii., Anc. Drama, v., p. 151]:—There’s more true
honesty in such a country serving man, than in a hundred of our cloak
companions. I may well call ’em companions, for since blue coats have
been turned into cloaks, one can scarce know the man from the master.
B. Jonson [Mask of Christmas] introduces New Yeares Gift, In a blew
coat, serving-man like, with an orange, etc.

    1845. G. P. R. James, Arrah Neil, p. 325. The personage to whom he
    addressed himself, was one of the serving-men of that day, known by
    the general term of blue-bottles.

    1822. Scott, Fortunes of Nigel, ch. x. (I., p. 173). I fancy you
    would love to move to court like him, followed by a round score of
    old blue-bottles. Ibid, ch. xi. My lord, my father ... has
    blue-bottles enough to wait on him.


Blue Boy, subs. (common).—A bubo; a tumour or abscess with
inflammation. Specially applied to that kind which is a result of
venereal disease.


Blue-Boys, subs. (popular).—The police. The expression is generally
used in the plural. Cf., Blue, sense 1, and Beak, sense 1.

    1880. Jas. Greenwood, Help Myself Society, in Odd People in Odd
    Places, p. 68. The ‘Help Yourselves’ are especially strong in
    instrumental music. They have a friend in Colonel Fraser, the head
    of the City police, and the excellent band of that branch of the
    force is at their service, and Sir E. Henderson shows himself to be
    at heart a ‘Help Yourself,’ by permitting the instrumental blue
    boys belonging to several metropolitan divisions to spend a
    Saturday night there. Besides these, they have the Polytechnic
    orchestral band when it is required, and an excellent grand piano
    with a skilled player and accompanyist.


Blue Butter, subs. (common).—Mercurial ointment, used for the
destruction of parasites.


Blue-Coat, subs.—A constable; a guardian of public order. This, like
many of its congeners, has been applied to serving-men, beadles,
tailors, and others wearing a uniform of a dark blue colour. Like blue,
blue-bottle, etc., its application to a policeman is of some antiquity.
Cf., Blue, sense 1, and Beak, sense 1.

    1610. Rowlands, Martin Mark-all, p. 19 (H. Club’s Repr., 1874). And
    being so taken, haue beene carried to places of correction, there
    wofully tormented by blew-coates, cowardly fellowes, that ... haue
    so scourged vs, that flesh and blood could hardly endure it.

    1851–61. H. Mayhew, London Lab. and Lon. Poor, vol. II., p. 417. ‘I
    thinks them Chartists are a weak-minded set ... a hundred o’ them
    would run away from one blue-coat.’


Blued or Blewed, ppl. adj. (common).—Tipsy; drunk. For synonyms, see
Screwed.


Blue Dahlia, subs. (common).—A colloquialism for something rare or
seldom seen; a rara avis.


Blue Devils, subs. (popular).—1. Dejection; lowness of spirits;
hypochondria.

    1786. Cowper, Letters, No. 219, vol. II., p. 143 (ed. 1834). I have
    not that which commonly is a symptom of such a case belonging to
    me,—I mean extraordinary elevation in the absence of Mr. Blue
    devil. When I am in the best health, my tide of animal
    sprightliness flows with great equality.

    1790. W. B. Rhodes, Bombastes Furioso, Sc. 1.

        Or, dropping poisons in the cup of joy,
        Do the blue devils your repose annoy?

    1871. Planché, King Christmas. There are blue devils which defy
    blue pills.

    1880. G. R. Sims, Three Brass Balls, pledge iii. He got
    discontented and had fits of blue devils.

Two French equivalents for feeling out of sorts are s’emboucaner, and
s’éncoliflucheter.

2. (popular.)—Delirium tremens. From the apparitions drunkards often
suppose they see. In both this and the foregoing sense blue devils is
contracted into blues.

    1818–9. Cobbett, Resid. U.S., 42. It was just the weather to give
    drunkards the blue devils.

    1831. Scott, Demonology, i., 18. They, by a continued series of
    intoxication, became subject to what is popularly called the blue
    devils.

Hence such derivatives as blue devilage; blue devilry; blue devilism;
and an adjectival form blue devilly.

    1871. Lockhart, Fair to See, I., p. 208. On the lower hills the
    pine-trees loomed through stagnant mists with a dejected and
    blue-devilly aspect.


Blue Fear, subs. (popular).—Extreme fright. [From the ‘blue’ or pallid
cast of countenance which fear is supposed to induce. The same as blue
funk (q.v.), which is more general.]

    1883. R. L. Stevenson, The Treasure of Franchard, in Longman’s
    Mag., April, p. 683. Anastasie had saved the remainder of his
    fortune by keeping him strictly in the country. The very name of
    Paris put her in a blue fear.


Blue Flag, subs. (common).—A blue apron (q.v.). Worn by butchers,
publicans, and other tradesmen.

    1785. Grose, Dictionary of the Vulgar Tongue. He has hoisted the
    blue flag, he has commenced publican, or taken a public house,
    alluding to the blue aprons worn by publicans.


Blue Funk, subs. (popular).—Extreme fright, nervousness, or dread.
[Funk is ‘to stink through fear’; Wedgwood connects it with the Walloon
funker, ‘to smoke.’]

    1856. Thomas Hughes, Tom Brown’s School-days, p. 196. If I was
    going to be flogged next minute, I should be in a blue funk.

    1861. Macmillan’s Magazine, p. 211. I was in a real blue funk.

    1861. Saturday Review, Nov. 23, 534. We encounter ... the miserable
    Dr. Blandling in what is called a blue funk. [M.]

    1871. Maxwell, in Life (1882), xvi., 382. Certainly χλωρὸν θέος is
    the Homeric for a blue funk.


Blue Hen’s Chickens, subs. (American).—A slang name for the inhabitants
of Delaware. The nickname arose thus: Captain Caldwell, an officer of
the first Delaware regiment in the American War of Independence, was
noted for his love of cock-fighting. Being personally popular, and his
regiment becoming famous for their valour, they were soon known as
‘game-cocks’; and as Caldwell maintained that no cock was truly game
unless its mother was a blue hen, his regiment, and subsequently
Delawareans generally, became known as blue hen’s chickens, and
Delaware as the Blue Hen State for the same reason. A boaster is also
often brought to book by the sarcasm, ‘Your mother was a blue hen no
doubt.’


Blue Horse, subs. (military).—The Fourth Dragoon Horse, from its
facings.


Blue Lightning, subs. (American).—One of the grimly facetious names
with which Texans have christened revolvers. At times a dispute has
literally been a word, a flash of blue lightning and—certain death. For
synonyms, see Barker.


Blue Monday, subs. (workmen’s).—A Monday spent in dissipation and
absence from work. One often hears the phrase ‘to feel Mondayish.’ The
German has der blaue Montag. Cf., Black Saturday.

    1885. Harper’s Magazine, p. 873, col. 1. The workman getting sober
    after his usual blue Monday. [M.]


Blue Moon. Once in a blue moon, phr. (popular).—Extremely seldom; an
unlimited time; a rarely recurring period. An old phrase, first used in
the sense of something absurd. A blue moon, like the Greek Kalends, is
something which does not exist. A variant is ‘when two Sundays come in
a week.’ As regards origin nothing is known; barring the extract from
Roy and Barlow, authorities give no examples earlier than 1876—a
curious fact.

    1526. Roy and Barlowe, Rede me and be not wroth, p. 114 [ed. Arber,
    1871].

        Yf they saye the mone is belewe,
        We must beleve that it is true,
          Admittynge their interpretacion.

    1860. F. W. Robinson, Grandmother’s Money, I., p. 144. If he talked
    till a blue moon, etc.

    1876. Miss Braddon, Joshua Haggard’s Daughter, ch. xxiv. Why should
    she stint as to one or two puddings a week ... and a fruit pasty
    once in a blue moon.

    1884. R. E. Francillon, Ropes of Sand, ch. xxi. ‘I’ve made bold to
    take the chance of your being at home for once in a blue moon, Mr.
    Carew,’ said she.


Blue Murder or Blue Murders, subs. (common).—A term used to describe
cries of terror or alarm; a great noise; an unusual racket. Cf., French
morbleu.

    1887. J. S. Winter, Eng. Ill. Mag., Dec., p. 179. The dingy person
    dropped his victim and howled what the half-dozen officers ...
    graphically described as blue murder.


Blueness, subs. (common).—Indecency. Smutty talk is described as blue,
sense 2 (q.v.).

    1840. Carlyle, Diderot, Ess., 240. The occasional blueness of both
    [writings] shall not altogether affright us.

French Synonyms. Les horreurs; les bêtises; les gueulées. To talk blue
is rendered by décravater ses propos.


Blue Noses, subs. (American).—The natives of Nova Scotia. A nickname
given them by the Yankees in allusion, it is said, to a potato of that
name which Nova Scotians claim to be the best in the world. Proctor,
however, thinks differently, and says he would wager that the Nova
Scotians were called blue noses before the potato which they rear was
so named, and hazards the suggestion that the nickname refers to the
blueness of nose resulting from intense cold.

    1837–40. Haliburton (‘Sam Slick’). Do you know the reason monkeys
    are no good? Because they chatter all day long,—as do the
    niggers,—and so do the blue noses of Nova Scotia.

    18(?). Sir George Simpson, Overland Journey, vol. I., p. 19. After
    a run [in the steamer] of fourteen days, we entered the harbour of
    Halifax, amid the hearty cheers of a large number of blue noses.


Blue [or Blew] One’s Screw, verbal phr. (common).—To waste or squander
one’s salary. [From blue or blew (q.v.) + screw (q.v.).]


Blue Peter, subs. (card-players’).—The signal or call for trumps at
whist. [Properly a blue flag with white square in centre, hoisted as a
signal for immediate sailing.]

    1875. Beeton, Handy Book of Games, p. 358. Since the introduction
    of Blue Peter, the necessity of leading through your adversary’s
    hand has become less and less.


Blue Pigeon, subs. (thieves’).—Lead used for roofing purposes. Cf.,
Bluey and Blue pigeon flyer. Of doubtful origin, but possibly a punning
allusion. Lead has long been known as ‘bluey,’ and pigeons frequently
find a resting-place on house-tops.

    1887. Judy, 27 April, p. 200. A burglar whose particular ‘lay’ was
    flying the blue pigeon, i.e., stealing lead.

(Nautical.)—The sounding lead.


Blue Pigeon Flyer, subs. phr. (thieves’).—A thief who steals lead from
the roofs of buildings. Hotten thus explains the modus operandi.
Sometimes a journeyman plumber, glazier, or other workman, who, when
repairing houses, strips off the lead, and makes away with it. This
performance is, though, by no means confined to workmen. An empty house
is often entered and the whole of the roof in its vicinity stripped,
the only notice given to the folks below being received by them on the
occasion of a heavy downfall of rain. The term flyer has, indeed, of
late years been more peculiarly applied to the man who steals the lead
in pursuance of his vocation as a thief, than to him who takes it
because it comes in the way of his work.

    1789. Geo. Parker, Life’s Painter, p. 165. Blue pigeon flying.
    Fellows who steal lead off houses, or cut pipes away.

French equivalents are un limousineur; un gras-doublier; un
mastaroufleur.

To fly the blue pigeon, verbal phr. (thieves’).—To steal lead from the
roofs of houses.—See Blue pigeon. French equivalents are faire la
mastar au gras-double; ratisser du gras double.

    1872. J. Doran, in Notes and Queries, 4 S., x., 308. Even at the
    present day, no rascal would stoop to strip lead from the roof of a
    house. At least, what honest men would call by that name, he would
    prettily designate as ‘flying the blue pigeon.’


Blue Pill, subs. (popular).—A bullet; also called blue plum and blue
whistler. For synonyms, see Pill.

    1861. N. Y. Tribune (Let. from Missouri), Nov. 10. Between blue
    pills, halters, and the penitentiary, we shall soon work off this
    element of rascaldom and horse-thieves.


Blue Plum, subs. (thieves’).—A bullet. Cf., Blue pill and Blue
whistler.

    1785. Grose, Dictionary of the Vulgar Tongue. Surfeited with a blue
    plumb, wounded with a bullet; a sortment of George R——’s blue
    plumbs, a volley of ball, shot from soldier’s firelocks.

    1834. Harrison Ainsworth, Rookwood (1884), p. 95.

        Believe me, there is not a game, my brave boys,
        To compare with the game of high toby;
        No rapture can equal the toby man’s joys,
        To blue devils, blue plumbs give the go by.


Blue Ruin, subs. (common).—Gin, generally of inferior quality. For
synonyms, see Drinks.

    c. 1817. Keats, A Portrait. He sipped no olden Tom or ruin blue, or
    Nantz or cherry brandy.

    1819. Moore, Tom Crib’s Memorial to Congress, p. 39.

        A few short words I first must spare,
        To him, the Hero, that sits there,
        Swigging Blue ruin, in that chair.

    1821. W. T. Moncrieff, Tom and Jerry, Act iii., Sc. 3. Log. Here,
    Landlord, more Blue Ruin, my boy! Sal. Massa Bob, you find me no
    such bad partner; many de good vill and de power me get from de
    Jack Tar.

    1847. Lytton, Lucretia, pt. II., ch. xx. ‘The littel un ... had
    been abrought up upon spoon-meat, with a dash o’ blue-ruin to make
    him slim and ginteel.’

    1859. Sala, Gaslight and Daylight, ch. xxiii. The stuff itself,
    which in the western gin-shops goes generally by the name of
    blue-ruin or ‘short.’


Blues, subs. (popular).—1. Despondency; hypochondria; depression of
spirits. [A shortened form of blue devils (q.v.).] A French synonym is
se faire des plumes or paumer ses plumes.

    1807. Washington Irving, Salmagundi (1824), p. 96. In a fit of the
    blues. [M.]

    1856. Whyte Melville, Kate Coventry, ch. viii. The moat alone is
    enough to give one the blues.

    1889. John Strange Winter, That Imp, p. 10. ‘Miss Aurora,’ he said
    suddenly, one evening after dinner, ‘it’s awfully dull at Drive
    now; does it never strike you so?’ ‘Very often, my dear,’ answered
    Miss Aurora promptly. ‘It’s as dull as—’ ‘Ditch-water,’ supplied
    Driver, finding she paused for a word which would express dulness
    enough. ‘I wonder you and Betty don’t die of the blues.’

2. The police.—See Blue, sense 1.

3. (military.)—The Royal Horse Guards Blue are popularly so known from
the blue facings on the scarlet uniform. The corps first obtained the
name of ‘Oxford Blues’ in 1690, to distinguish it from a Dutch regiment
of Horse Guards dressed in blue, commanded by the Earl of Portland, the
former being commanded by the Earl of Oxford. Subsequently the regiment
was, during the campaign in Flanders [1742–45], known as the ‘Blue
Guards.’


Blue Skin, subs. (old).—1. Formerly a contemptuous term for a
Presbyterian. Butler, in Hudibras [I., p. 26], says:—


          ‘’twas Presbyterian true blue,
    For he was of the stubborn crew
    Of errant saints, whom all men grant
    To be the true Church Militant.’


Blue is still the Presbyterian colour, and is used as an adjective by
them in describing books and people.

2. (West Indian.)—A half-breed—the child of a black woman by a white
man.


Blue Squadron, subs. (colonial).—One of mixed blood; properly one with
a Hindoo strain. Eurasians belong to the blue squadron. Cf., Touch of
the tar brush.


Blue Stocking, subs.—A literary lady: applied usually with the
imputation of pedantry. The generally received explanation is that the
term is derived from the name given to certain meetings held by ladies
in the days of Dr. Johnson for conversation with distinguished literary
men. One of the most eminent of these literati was a Mr. Benjamin
Stillingfleet, who always wore blue stockings, and whose conversation
at these meetings was so much prized, that his absence at any time was
felt to be a great loss, so that the remark became common, ‘We can do
nothing without the blue stockings,’ hence these meetings were
sportively called blue-stocking clubs, and the ladies who attended them
blue-stockings. It is stated that the name specially arose in this way.
A foreigner of rank refused to accompany a friend to one of these
parties on the plea of being in his travelling costume, to which there
was the reply, ‘Oh! we never mind dress on these occasions; you may
come in bas bleus or blue stockings,’ with allusion to Stillingfleet’s
stockings, when the foreigner, fancying that bas bleus were part of the
necessary costume, called the meeting ever after the Bas-bleu Society.
In modern slang the term blue-stocking is abbreviated into blue.
Derivatives are blue-stockingism, blue-stockinger, etc.

    b. 1738, d. 1819. Wolcot (‘P. Pindar’), Benevolent Epistle, in wks.
    (Dublin, 1795), vol. II., p. 125.

        I see the band of blue-stockings arise,
          Historic, critic, and poetic dames!

    1780. Mad. D’Arblay, Diary, i., 326. Who would not be a
    blue-stockinger at this rate?

    1784. Walpole, Letters, iv., 381. [Walpole, writing to Hannah More,
    playfully makes it a verb = to put on blue stockings.] When will
    you blue-stocking yourself, and come amongst us?

    1877. Macmillan’s Mag., May, p. 50. On the airs and graces of the
    gushing blue stockings who were in vogue in that day ... she had no
    mercy.

    1877. Miss Martineau, Autob., vol. I., p. 100. Young ladies (at
    least in provincial towns) were expected to sit down in the parlour
    to sew,—during which reading aloud was permitted,—or to practice
    their music; but so as to fit to receive callers, without any signs
    of blue-stockingism which could be reported abroad.


Blue Stone, subs. (common).—Gin or whiskey of so bad a quality that it
can only be compared to vitriol, of which bluestone is also a nickname
in the north of England and Scotland. For all synonyms, see Drinks.

    1880. Blackwood’s Mag., June, p. 786. The bar was still thronged,
    and the effects of the mixture of spirits of wine, bluestone, and
    tobacco-juice, were to be seen on a miserable wretch who lay
    stretched in the courtyard.

    1882. W. G. Black, in Notes and Queries, 6 S., v., p. 348. A
    witness was asked in the Northern Police Court, Glasgow, a few
    weeks ago, a question relative to the quality of certain whiskey
    said to have been supplied to him. ‘It wasn’t whiskey,’ he said,
    ‘it was nothing but bluestone.’ ‘But what?’ inquired the
    magistrate. ‘Bluestone, your honour,’ was the answer—‘poison.’ I
    heard the question and answer, and there can be no doubt that the
    word was used as a familiar one.


Blue Tape, subs. (old).—One of the many cant terms for gin. For
synonyms, see Drinks.


Blue Whistler, subs. (American).—A bullet. For synonyms, see Pill.

    1888. New York Herald, Nov. 4. It was Mr. Barbour’s rifle shot
    which had hit him in the head and caused him to stagger. The pellet
    of lead passed deep into the brain. The second shot was from the
    Atlanta drummer, and his thirteen blue whistlers tore the brute’s
    liver into shreds and made a great hole in his side. Ibid. After a
    few moments of reflection, being nearest to the quarry, I lifted my
    double-barrelled shotgun and let drive a volley of blue whistlers
    straight at bruin’s yawning jaws.


Bluey, subs. (thieves’).—1. Lead.—See also Blue pigeon. [Supposed to be
an allusion to the colour.]

French Synonyms. Du doussin; du noir (noir = black); du saucisson. ‘To
dispose of bluey at the fence,’ i.e., the receiver of stolen
goods—porter du gras-double au moulin.

2. (Australian.)—A bushman’s bundle, the outside wrapper of which is
generally a blue blanket—hence the name. This is also called his swag
(q.v.); likewise a drum (q.v.).


Bluey-Hunter, subs. (thieves’).—A thief who steals lead, as described
under blue pigeon flyer (q.v.), of which bluey-hunter is a synonym.
Cf., Billy-hunter.

    1851–61. H. Mayhew, Lon. Lab. and Lon. Poor, IV., 26.
    Bluey-hunters, or those who purloin lead from the tops of houses.

    1856. H. Mayhew, Gt. World of London, p. 46. Bluey-hunters, who
    take lead from the tops of houses.


Bluff, subs. (vagrants’ and common).—An excuse; a pretence; that which
is intended to hoodwink or ‘to blind.’ Probably a transferred usage of
the American sense.

    1851–61. H. Mayhew, London Lab. and Lon. Poor, vol. I., p. 231.
    [List of patterer’s words.] Bluff, an excuse.

    1879. Bret Harte, Gabriel Conroy, ch. xxxix. There is a strong
    suspicion among men whose heads are level that this Minstrel
    Variety Performance is a bluff of the ‘Messenger’ to keep from the
    public the real motives of the murder.

    1884. Boston (U.S.) Journal, Sept. 25. The oiler was only a bluff.

Verb (common).—To turn aside; to stop; to hoodwink; to blind as to
one’s real intention. Properly, to brag; to conceal one’s weakness;
from the American game of poker.—See subs.

    1871. De Vere, Americanisms, p. 327. Like its near cousin,
    suggestively called bluff, poker is a mere hazard game, with which,
    however, is combined great skill in bragging to a purpose. One man
    offers a bet on his hand; another doubles the bet and ‘goes one
    better’; then the first tries to bluff him off by a still higher
    bet, and thus the stake rises rapidly to often enormous sums.

    1883. Echo, April 20, p. 3, col. 5. Subsequently a prominent
    bookmaker attempted to bluff Captain Machell by laying him 2,000 to
    1,000 on Goggles against Sweetbread—a merry little bit of financial
    diplomacy, which was promptly followed by Goggles being struck out.

    1885. Bret Harte, Ship of ’49, ch. v. ‘Far from bluffing, Sleight,
    I am throwing my cards on the table. Consider that I’ve passed out.
    Let some other man take my hand.’

It may be remarked that Ray [1674–91] gives bluff as to blindfold, and
Bailey [1721] as to hoodwink. The German has blüffen; the Dutch
blaffen, ‘to bark at,’ and verblüffen, ‘to put out of countenance.’

So also bluffing in a similar sense.

    1889. Answers, July 20, p. 121, col. 2. The youths evidently
    disagreed as to the nature of my business: one, as far as I could
    gather, assumed that I was a ‘nark,’ and that I was bluffing
    (making an excuse), and ‘flamming’ (lying).


Bluffer, subs. (old).—An innkeeper.—Grose. Bailey [1721] also gives the
term with the same meaning, and American thieves still retain the word
in a similar sense.

2. (nautical).—A bo’sun.


Blunderbuss, subs. (old).—A stupid blundering fellow.—Grose.


Blunt, subs. (popular).—Money, especially ready money. For a long list
of synonyms, see Actual. [There are several suggested derivations; (1)
that it is from the French blond, sandy or golden colour, and that a
parallel may be found in brown or browns, the slang for halfpence.
Far-fetched as this etymology seems, say Hotten, it may be correct, as
it is borne out by the analogy of similar expressions. Cf., Blanquillo,
a word used in Morocco and Southern Spain for a small Moorish coin. The
‘asper’ (ἄσπρόν) of Constantinople is called by the Turks akcheh, i.e.,
‘little white’; (2) that it received its name in allusion to the blunt
rim of coins. A third is that it received the name from Mr. John Blunt,
the chairman of South Sea Bubble.]

    1714. Memoirs of John Hall (4 ed.), p. 11. [List of cant words.]
    Blunt, money.

    1821. W. T. Moncrieff, Tom and Jerry, Act ii., Sc. 3. (Holding out
    his right hand for the money, and keeping the porter away with the
    other.) Bob. That’s your sort; give us hold on it. (Takes Mace’s
    empty hand.) Vy, vhere? Mace. (Keeping the porter back.) Vy, here.
    Bob. Oh, you are afeard of the blunt, are you? Mace. No, it ain’t
    that; only I’m no schollard—so I alvays takes the blunt vith von
    hand, and gives the pot vith t’other. It saves chalk and prewents
    mistakes, you know.

    1837. Dickens, Oliver Twist, ch. xxxix. ‘It’s all very well,’ said
    Mr. Sikes; ‘but I must have some blunt from you to-night.’ ‘I
    haven’t a piece of coin about me,’ replied the Jew.

    1878. Notes and Queries, 5 S., x., p. 315. Blunt ... is also a
    well-known slang term for money.

    1882. Punch, vol. LXXXII., p. 147, col. 2. ‘The New Almacks.’ ‘It
    appears, my dear Jerry,’ said the Corinthian, ‘that anybody can
    enter here who chooses to “sport his blunt”’—that is, to pay.


Blunted, ppl. adj. (old).—Possessed of money.

    18(?). English Spy, p. 255. Most noble cracks, and worthy cousin
    trumps,—permit me to introduce a brother of the togati, fresh as a
    new-blown rose, and innocent as the lilies of St. Clements. Be unto
    him ever ready to promote his wishes, whether for spree or sport,
    in term and out of term,—against the Inquisition and their
    bull-dogs—the town-raff and the bargees—well-blunted or
    stiver-cramped—against dun or don—nob or big wig—so may you never
    want a bumper of bishop.


Blush like a Black or Blue Dog, verbal phr. (old).—Not to blush at all.

    1579. Gosson, Apologie of School of Abuse, p. 75. If it bee my
    fortune too meete with the learned woorkes of this London Sabinus,
    that can not playe the part without a prompter, nor utter a wise
    worde without a piper, you shall see we will make him to blush like
    a blacke dogge, when he is graveled.

    ed. 1634. Withal, Dictionary, p. 557. Faciem perfricuit. Hee
    blusheth like a blacke dogge, hee hath a brazen face.

    1738. Swift, Polite Conversation (conv. i.).

    Lord Sp. (to the Maid). Mrs. Betty, how does your body politick?

    Col. Fye, my lord, you’ll make Mrs. Betty blush.

    Lady Sm. Blush! Ay, blush like a blue dog.

    1828. C. K. Sharpe to a lady, in C. K. S.’s Correspondence (1888),
    II., 421. I send you a pair of blue stockings of my own knitting. I
    blush like a blue dog about the workmanship, for I fear they are
    too short.


B.N.C., abbreviation (University).—For Brasenose; initials of Brasen
Nose College. In spite of the nose over the gate, the probability is
that the real name was Brasinium. It is still famous for its beer.

    1885. Daily News, March 13, p. 5, col. 1. As when Corpus bumped
    b.n.c. years ago, and went head of the river, whereon a spirit of
    wrath entered into the b.n.c. men, and next night they bumped
    Corpus back again.


Board, verb (military).—1. To borrow.

2. (nautical.)—To accost; ask of; make a demand; i.e., to come to close
quarters. The allusion is to boarding a ship for a hand-to-hand
conflict; originally in a forcible or hostile sense, but now used in a
modified form for to ‘make up to,’ to ‘make advances to.’ The figure of
speech is a very old one, as will be seen from the following examples.

    1547. Earl Surrey, Æneid, IV., 395. At length her self bordeth
    Aeneas thus. [M.]

    1596. Shakspeare, Hamlet, ii., 2. [Enter Hamlet, reading.] Queen.
    But look, where sadly the poor wretch comes reading. Pol. ... I’ll
    board him presently:—O, give me leave.

    1672–1726. Vanbrugh, False Friend, I., i., 97. What do you expect
    from boarding a woman ... already heart and soul engaged to
    another.

    1867. Smyth, Sailors’ Word Book. Board him, a colloquialism for
    I’ll ask, demand, or accost him.

To board in the smoke, phr. (nautical).—To take one unawares, or by
surprise. In the midst of a naval fight boarding operations were often
successfully carried out under cover of the smoke from a broadside.

On the board, phr. (tailors’).—Enjoying all the privileges and
emoluments of a competent workman. When an apprentice becomes a regular
journeyman he goes ‘on the board.’ Tailors usually work squatting on a
low raised platform—hence possibly the expression.

    1877. Five Years’ Penal Servitude, ch. iii., p. 146. During the
    term of his imprisonment he became an excellent working tailor, and
    was on the board, as it is termed, among those who are efficient
    hands.

To keep one’s name on the board, phr. (Cambridge Univ.).—To remain a
member of a College.


Boarding House or School, subs. (old).—A nickname given by thieves in
London to Newgate, but it is equally applicable to any gaol. New York
thieves apply it to the Tombs. [From that sense of Boarding School = an
establishment where persons are boarded and taught, convicts being
likened to scholars.] French thieves call such an institution un
collège. For synonyms, see Cage.

    1785. Grose, Dictionary of the Vulgar Tongue. Boarding School.
    Bridewell, Newgate, or any other prison or house of correction.


Boardman, subs. (vagrants’).—A standing patterer; explained by
quotation. Sometimes called a ‘sandwich man.’

    1851. H. Mayhew, London Labour and London Poor, I., p. 251. I have
    no doubt that there are always at least twenty standing
    patterers—sometimes they are called boardmen—at work in London.
    Ibid, p. 248. They endeavour to attract attention to their papers,
    or, more commonly, pamphlets ... by means of a board with coloured
    pictures upon it, illustrative of the contents of what they
    sell.... (This) is what is usually denominated in street technology
    ‘board work.’


Board of Green Cloth, subs. (familiar).—A card or billiard table. [From
board, a table, + green cloth, from the colour of the cloth with which
the table is covered.]

    1771. P. Parsons, New Newmarket, II., 24. That board of green
    cloth, the billiard table.

    1850. Smedley, Frank Fairlegh, p. 23. ‘I am going down to F——’ ‘As
    usual, the board of green cloth, eh? you will go there once too
    often, if you don’t mind, old fellow.’ ‘That’s my look out,’
    replied Cumberland.

    1853. Whyte Melville, Digby Grand, ch. vi. Often have I seen him
    rise from the board of green cloth, and turning his chair thrice,
    from right to left, reseat himself at the play-table, confident
    that success would follow the mystical manœuvre.

    1886. Miss Braddon, Mohawks, ch. viii. The soft seductive sound of
    the dice sliding gently on to the board of green cloth.


Boat, subs. (old).—Formerly applied to the hulks; latterly to any
prison. [The derivation is obvious, old dismasted ships having long
served as places of detention for convicts.] For synonyms, see Cage.

    1856. H. Mayhew, Great World of London, p. 82, note. [List of
    thieves’ names of prisons.] The Hulks, or any Public Works—The
    Boat.

Verb (old).—1. Originally to transport; the term is now applied to
penal servitude. To ‘get the boat,’ or to ‘be boated,’ is to be
sentenced to a long term of imprisonment, equivalent to transportation
under the old system. Cf., Boat, subs., and for synonyms, see Cop.

2. (American thieves’.)—To join as partner; evidently a corruption of
‘to be in the same boat,’ i.e., to be in the same position or
circumstances.

To bail one’s own boat, phr. (American).—To be self-reliant. A variant
is ‘to paddle one’s own canoe.’—See Canoe.


Bob, subs. (popular).—1. A shilling. [The derivation is obscure, but
there are several suggested explanations. Murray points out that there
was an old French coin called a bobe, but he thinks its survival in
English slang is very unlikely. Others think it a corruption of
‘baubee’ or ‘bawbee,’ a debased Scotch coin, issued in the reign of
James VI. of Scotland, equal in value to a halfpenny. A more likely
origin than either of the foregoing is from bob, a grub used as bait
for fish, the allusion being to money as a bribe.] The old cant had
bobstick (q.v.) as a synonym, and a spurious plural is sometimes formed
of bob, thus bobber—two bobber = a two-shilling piece. Cf., Blow for
synonyms.

    1812. J. H. Vaux, Flash Dictionary. Bob or bobstick, a shilling.

    1821. W. T. Moncrieff, Tom and Jerry, Act iii., Sc. 3. Tom. Now
    then, what’s to pay, landlord? Mace. All out, vill be fourteen bob
    and a kick, your honour. Tom. Well, there’s a flimsy for you; serve
    the change out in max to the covies. (Gives money.)

    1837. Barham, I. L. (Misadventures at Margate). I changed a
    shilling—(which in town the people call a bob).

    1882. Punch, vol. LXXXII., p. 74, col. 1. Accommodation. Swell.
    ‘Haw—no small change about me.’ Minstrel. ‘Oh, don’t mention ’t
    sar. A bob will do sar, and if you’ll call at my club tomorrow,
    sar, the hall portar will give you sixpence back, sar. My kyard,
    sar, etc.!!’

2. (old.)—A shoplifter’s assistant; one who receives and carries off
stolen goods. In French he is called un nonne or un noune.

3. (old.)—Gin.—See quotations in Bobstick, and Drinks for synonyms.

    1749. ‘Honours of the Fleet,’ quoted in Ashton’s The Fleet, p. 286.
    H’ had strain’d his credit for a Dram of Bob.

4. (military.)—An infantry soldier; generally light-bob, i.e., a
soldier of the light infantry. [This is probably an allusion to their
being enlisted with the Queen’s shilling or bob.] For synonyms, see
Mudcrusher.

    1844. W. H. Maxwell, Sports and Adventures in Scotland, xxxv., 282.
    Me, that never ... listened to a light-bob.

    1848. Thackeray, Vanity Fair, ch. xxiv. Mr. Stubble, as may be
    supposed from his size and slenderness, was of the light-bobs.

5. (Winchester College).—A large white jug containing about a gallon in
measure, and used for beer.

    1870. Mansfield, School-Life at Winchester College, p. 85. Each end
    and Præfect’s mess had their beer served up in a large white jug,
    or ‘bob.’ The vessel used for the same purpose in Commoners’ was
    called a ‘Joram.’

    1888. T. A. Trollope, What I Remember. Only those ‘Juniors’
    attended whose office it was to bring away the portions of bread
    and cheese and bobs of beer for consumption in the afternoon.

Adj. (old).—Lively; nice; in good spirits.

    1721. Cibber, Refusal, I., sp. 109. Yesterday at Marybone, they had
    me all Bob as a Robin. [M.]

    1864. Miss Yonge, Trial, I., 113. ‘That’s a nice girl’.... ‘Bobber
    than bobtail.’ [M.]

Verb (old).—To cheat; to trick; to disappoint. Also to bob out of.

    1605. Tryall Chev., I., in Bullen’s O. Plays, iii., 273. I had
    rather dye in a ditch than be bobd of my fayre Thomasin.

    1748. T. Dyche, Dictionary (5 ed.). Bob (v.), to jog, touch, or
    give notice by some such like sign; also a cant word for to trick
    or cheat.

Intj. (familiar).—Stop! That’s enough!

    1889. Modern Society, June 6. ‘Say when,’ said Bonko, taking up a
    flagon of whiskey and commencing to pour out the spirit into my
    glass. ‘Bob!’ replied I.

Dry bob, phr. (old).—Fruitless coition.

Dry bob, Wet bob, subs. (Eton College).—The first-named is one who
devotes himself to cricket or football and other land sports; the
latter one who goes in for rowing and aquatics generally. The origin of
the term is doubtful.—See Dry bob and Wet bob.

    1844. Disraeli, Coningsby, p. 42. ‘It is settled, the match
    to-morrow shall be between Aquatics and Dry bobs,’ said a senior
    boy.

    1874. Saturday Review, Aug., p. 212. The friendly rivalry between
    England and America led some while ago to a contest between the wet
    bobs, to use an Eton phrase, of either country, and it was only
    fair that the dry bobs should show what they could do.

All is bob, phr. (old).—All’s safe; ‘serene’; ‘gay.’ For synonyms, see
O.K.

    1785. Grose, Dictionary of the Vulgar Tongue. [All’s bob is defined
    as foregoing.]

    1839. Harrison Ainsworth, Jack Sheppard, p. 12. A moment
    afterwards, the street was illumined by a blaze of torchlight, and
    a tumultuous uproar announced the arrival of the first detachment
    of Minters. Mr. Wood rushed instantly to meet them. ‘Hurrah!’
    shouted he, waving his hat triumphantly over his head. ‘Saved!’
    ‘Ay, ay, it’s all bob, my covey! You’re safe enough, that’s
    certain!’ responded the Minters.

Bear a bob! phr. (common).—Be brisk! look sharp!

Bob a nod, phr. (common.)—A shilling a head. [From bob, slang for
shilling, + nod, the head.]

To give the bob, phr. (old).—To give the door. An old term used by
Massinger—‘It can be no other but to give me the bob.’

S’help me bob, phr. (low).—A street oath, equivalent to ‘So help me
God’; a corrupted form of the legal oath. ‘So help’ is pronounced
swelp. There are several variants, such as s’help the cat—my greens—the
taturs, etc.

    1837. Barham, I. L. (Dead Drummer).

        For his jaw-work would never, I’m sure, s’elp me bob,
        Have come for to go for to do sich a job!

    1880. Jas. Payn, Confid. Agent, ch. xix. ‘Not another word will I
    say, s’help me bob.’ And John rolled over in his bed like an
    indignant porpoise.

To shift one’s bob, phr. (common).—To go away. Cf., Bobbing around, ‘to
go expeditiously from place to place.’


Bobber, subs. (common).—1. A fellow-workman; mate; or ‘chum’ (q.v. for
synonyms).

    1860. W. White, Round Wrekin, 34. Bobber being the equivalent of
    chum. [M.]

    1871. Daily News, May 19. As he sells these, the buyers or their
    bobbers carry them off. [M.]

2. A spurious plural of bob (q.v.) = a shilling.


Bobbery, subs. (popular).—A noise; squabble; disturbance; or ‘racket.’
[An Anglo-Indian representation of Bāp re! O father! a common
exclamation of surprise or grief.—Yule. Murray thinks the evidence for
its origination in India is decisive, other plausible derivations to
the contrary notwithstanding.] The first of the following quotations
shows an earlier use by thirteen years than that given by the New
English Dictionary.

    1803. Kenney, Raising the Wind, II., i. If I don’t go back, and
    kick up such a bobbery—

    1833. Marryat, Peter Simple, ch. ii. I’ll bet a wager there’ll be a
    bobbery in the pigsty before long, for they are ripe for mischief.

    1836. Marryat, Midshipman Easy, ch. xix. ‘I can do nothing but
    there’s a bobbery at the bottom of it.’

    1879. Punch, 17 May, 227. I might in quiet hold my own, And not go
    kicking up a bobbery. [M.]


Bobbish, adj. (common).—Frequently pretty bobbish, i.e., hearty; in
good health and spirits; clever; spruce. Cf., Bob, adj. So also
bobbishly, adv.

    1819. Scott, in Lockhart, xliv. (1842), 394. I trust you will find
    me pretty bobbish. [M.]

    1857. Dickens, The Detective Police, in Reprinted Pieces, p. 247.
    ‘Halloa, Butcher! is that you?’ ‘Yes, it’s me, How do you find
    yourself?’ ‘Bobbish,’ he says.

    1860. Dickens, Great Expectations, ch. iv., p. 13. Every Christmas
    Day, he retorted, as he now retorted, ‘It’s no more than your
    merits. And now are you all bobbish, and how’s sixpennorth of
    halfpence?’ meaning me.

    1881. W. D. Howells, Dr. Breen’s Practice, ch. vii. ‘I didn’t know
    that I mustn’t look downcast. I didn’t suppose it would be very
    polite, under the circumstances, to go round looking as bobbish as
    I feel.’


Bobbles, subs. (common).—The testicles—a corrupted form of bawbells.
For synonyms, see Cods.


Bobby, subs. (popular).—A policeman. This nickname, though possibly not
derived from, was certainly popularised by the fact that the
Metropolitan Police Act of 1828 was mainly the work of Mr., afterwards
Sir Robert Peel. Long before that statesman remodelled the police,
however, the term ‘bobby the beadle’ was in use to signify a guardian
of a public square or other open space. There seems, however, a lack of
evidence, and examples of its literary use prior to 1851 have not been
discovered. For synonyms, see Beak, sense 1.

At the Universities the Proctors are or used to be called bobbies.

    1851. H. Mayhew, London Labour and London Poor, I., p. 16. It is
    often said in admiration of such a man that he could muzzle half a
    dozen bobbies before breakfast!

    1880. Punch, No. 2038. Going round a corner and crying, Bobby!
    bobby! bobby! when he saw a Proctor.

    1884. Punch, July 26, p. 41, col. 2.

        But oh, for the grip of the ‘Bobby’s’ hand
          Upon his neck that day.

    1889. The Mirror, Aug. 26, p. 7, col. 2. On the back seat was
    perched the perfidious Amelia Ann, the lust of conquest clearly
    written upon her sinful and perspiring face. She had put her cat in
    the birdcage, its former occupant being, I presume, inside the
    cat.... In this order the ghastly procession moved off, to the
    evident amusement of a ‘bobby,’ whose beat seems to include nothing
    beyond the area-railings of the opposite house.


Bobby-Twister, subs. (thieves’).—A burglar or thief, who, when
resisting pursuit or capture, uses violence. Of obvious derivation.—See
Thieves.


Bob-Cull, subs. (thieves’).—A good fellow; a pleasant companion. [From
bob (adj.) = nice, lively + cull, old cant for a man.]


Bob My Pal, subs. (rhyming slang).—A girl, i.e., ‘gal.’


Bobstick, subs. (old).—A shilling’s worth. Cf., Bob, sense 1.

    1789. Geo. Parker, Life’s Painter, p. 162. Bobstick of rum slim.
    That is, a shilling’s worth of punch.

    1821. W. T. Moncrieff, Tom and Jerry, Act ii., Sc. 5. Tom. Allons
    donc—Waiter, bring some wine. Log. Hang cards! bring me a bobstick
    of rum slim, or a glass of Barsac—stay, on second thoughts, I’ll
    have a sniker of green tea punch.


Bob Tail, subs. (old).—1. A lewd woman. For synonyms, see Barrack-hack.

2. An impotent man or eunuch.

Tag, rag, and bobtail; a mob of all sorts of low people; the common
herd; the rabble.

    1659–60. Pepys, Diary, Mar. 6. The dining-room ... was full of tag,
    rag, and bobtail, dancing, singing, and drinking. [M.]

    1785. Wolcot (‘P. Pindar’), Ode to R. A.’s, ii., wks. (1812) I.,
    80. Tag-rags and Bobtails of the sacred Brush. [M.]

    1820. Byron, Blues, ii., 23. The rag, tag, and bobtail of those
    they call ‘Blues.’ [M.]

    1841. Dickens, Barnaby Rudge, xxxv. ‘We don’t take in no tagrag and
    bobtail at our house.’ [M.]


Boco, subs. (originally pugilistic, now common).—1. The nose. [Probably
from beak, sense 3.] The form employed by American thieves is boke. For
synonyms, see Conk.

    1880. Besant and Rice, Seamy Side, ch. i. ‘A common keeper, who was
    in the lot, got a heavy oner on the boko for his share.’ ‘Boys,’
    said Mr. Hamblin, ‘who use slang come to the gallows. Boko is—’
    ‘Conk or boko,’ said Nicolas the vulgar. ‘It’s all the same.’

    1889. Ally Sloper’s Half Holiday, July 6. Dear Old Blistered
    Boko,—I trust you will allow me to thank you and your Graphologist
    for my character I received this morning. My friends say it is
    correct. I am saving up my pocket-money for a bottle of nose
    bloomer. I can see your boko blushing at the prospect.

    1889. Sporting Times, July 6. The Gnat, with the Cunning peculiar
    to the Wicked flew up the Lion’s boko and Stung him so Badly, that
    the Great Beast rent himself to Death with his Own Claws.

2. Nonsense; ‘bosh.’ [Of unknown derivation, and it seems to have no
connection with sense 1.]

    1886. Punch, 25 Sept., p. 145. Lop-sided Free Trade is all boko.


Bodier, subs. (pugilistic).—A blow on the side of the body.—See
Rib-roaster.


Bodkin, subs. (sporting).—Amongst sporting men, a person who takes his
turn between the sheets on alternate nights, when an hotel has twice as
many visitors as it can comfortably lodge; as, for instance, during a
race-week. A transferred sense from

To ride or sit bodkin, phr. (common).—To take a place and be wedged in
between other persons when the accommodation is intended for two only.

    1638. Ford, Fancies, IV., i. (1811), 186. Where but two lie in a
    bed, you must be—bodkin, bitch-baby—must ye? [M.]

    1798. Loves of the Triangles, 182. While the pressed bodkin,
    punched and squeezed to death, Sweats in the mid-most place.

    1848. Thackeray, Book of Snobs, ch. xxxiv. The writer supposes
    Aubrey to come to town in post-chaise and pair, sitting bodkin
    probably between his wife and sister.


Body-Cover, subs. (American thieves’).—A coat. One is almost tempted to
ask whether this is the only garment known to the criminal classes.
Cf., Wrap-rascal.


Body of Divinity Bound in Black Calf, phr. (old).—A parson. So quoted
in the Lexicon Balatronicum [1811]. For synonyms, see Devil-dodger.


Body-Slangs, subs. (thieves’).—Fetters. [From slang (q.v.), a
chain.]—See quot. and for synonyms, Darbies.

    1819. Vaux, Memoirs. Body-slangs are of two kinds. Each consists of
    a heavy iron ring to go round the waist, to which are attached in
    one case two bars or heavy chains, connected with the fetters round
    the ankles, in the other case a link at each side attached to a
    handcuff. Into these the wrists are locked, and thus held down to
    the prisoner’s sides. The latter are now only to be found in
    museums.


Body-Snatcher, subs. (old).—1. A bailiff or runner. [The snatch was the
trick by which the bailiff captured the delinquent.] These terms are
now obsolete, so far as the pursuits mentioned are concerned. They are
mentioned by Parker [1781] in his View of Society, II., 70.

2. A policeman. For synonyms, see Beak, sense 1.

    1858. A. Mayhew, Paved with Gold, bk. III., ch. i., p. 254. ‘Now,
    if you or I was to do such a dodge as that, we should have the
    body-snatchers (police officers) after us.’

3. (American.)—A generally objectionable individual. This variety is
especially known as a mean body-snatcher (q.v.).

4. (popular.)—A violator of graves; a ‘resurrectionist.’

    1833. Sir F. Head, Bubbles from the Brunnen, 126. Any one of our
    body-snatchers would have rubbed his rough hands. [M.]

    1863. Reader, Aug. 22. At that time (1827–28) ... body-snatching
    became a trade.

5. (common.)—An undertaker. For synonyms, see Cold cook.


Bog, subs. (prison).—1. The works at Dartmoor, on which convicts
labour; during recent years a large quantity of land has been reclaimed
in this way.

    1877. Five Years’ Penal Servitude, ch. iii., p. 158. These were the
    men destined for outdoor work, the bogs, as the places where the
    different outside gangs worked were called [at Dartmoor].

2. (low.)—An abbreviated form of bog-house (q.v.), or bog-shop.

Verb.—To ease oneself; to evacuate.—See Bury a Quaker.


Bogey.—See Bogy.


Boggle-De-Botch, Boggledy-Botch, subs. (colloquial).—A bungle; ‘mess’;
‘hash.’ [From boggle, ‘to fumble,’ ‘to bungle,’ + botch, ‘to bungle’ or
‘to construct clumsily.’] Boggle by itself is more frequently employed.

    1834. Miss Edgeworth, Helen, ch. xxvi. A fine boggle-de-botch I
    have made of it.... I am aware it is not a canonical
    word,—classical, I mean; nor in nor out of any dictionary
    perhaps—but when people are warm, they cannot stand picking terms.


Bog-House, Bog-Shop, subs. (low).—A privy; a necessary house. The term,
as will be seen, is an old one. [The derivation is probably from bog, a
morass of decaying matter; a soft, spongy place.] For synonyms, see
Bury a Quaker and Mrs. Jones.

    1671. R. Head, English Rogue, pt. I., ch. xii., p. 123 (1874).
    Fearing I should catch cold, they out of pity covered me warm in a
    bogg-house.

    1703. Ward, London Spy, pt. III., p. 47. Its walls being adorn’d
    with as many unsavoury Finger-dabs as an Inns of Court Bog-house.

    1754. B. Martin, Eng. Dict., 2 ed. Bog-house, a privy, or
    necessary-house.


Boglander, subs. (old).—An Irishman. [From the boggy and marshy
character of a considerable portion of the Emerald Isle.] Cf.,
Bog-trotter.

    1698–1700. Ward, London Spy, pt. XVI., p. 383. [Boglander is the
    name applied to an Irishman in this work.]

    1785. Grose, Dictionary of the Vulgar Tongue. Bog Lander, an
    Irishman. Ireland being famous for its large bogs which furnish the
    chief fuel in many parts of that kingdom.

    1811. Lexicon Balatronicum. [The same definition given as in
    Grose.]


Bog Latin, subs. (Irish).—A spurious mode of speech simulating the
Latin in construction.—See Dog Latin.


Bog-Oranges, subs. (popular).—Potatoes. The phrase is an allusion to
the vegetable in question forming a very substantial food staple of the
Irish peasantry, with whom, in the popular mind, potatoes are largely
associated. Hence probably the nickname. Cf., Murphy. [Oranges, from
the shape, + bog = Irish, Bogland being a humorous nick-name for the
Emerald Isle.]


Bog-trotter, subs. (familiar).—A satirical name for an Irishman.
Camden, however [c. 1605], speaking of the ‘debateable land’ on the
borders of England and Scotland, says, ‘both these dales breed notable
bog-trotters.’ From this the original sense would appear to have been
one accustomed to walk across bogs. As a nickname for an Irishman, it
dates at least from 1671.

    1671. R. Head, English Rogue, pt. I., ch. xxvii. (Repr. 1874), p.
    232. [Irishmen are spoken of as bog-trotters in this work.]

    1859. Sala, Gaslight and Daylight, ch. xxix. Gaunt reapers and
    bog-trotters in those traditional blue body-coats, leathern smalls,
    and bell-crowned hats, that seem to be manufactured nowhere save in
    Ireland.


Bog-trotting, adj. (familiar).—A contemptuous epithet applied to one
living among bogs; e.g., a bog-trotting Irishman.

    1758–65. Goldsmith, On Quack Doctors (Essays and Poems, 1836), p.
    127. Rock advises the world to beware of bog-trotting quacks.

    1849. Thackeray, Pendennis, I., p. 169. The impudent, bog-trotting
    scamp dare not threaten me!

    1876. C. Hindley, Adventures of a Cheap Jack, p. 191. ‘What do you
    mean by calling me Irish? it is you that are Irish, you——.’ ‘Ha!
    ha! ha! ha!’ jerked out Fagan. ‘There, I tould you so. He can’t
    stand to be called by his true name; the bog-trotting rascal denies
    his Ould Ireland for a mother.’


Bogus, adj. (American, now common).—Spurious: fictitious; a term
applied to anything sham, or to that which is not what it professes to
be. Various accounts, some of them of a circumstantial character, are
given as to the genesis of this word. One thing only seems certain; and
that is its American origin. The generally received derivation,
hitherto, has been that given by the Boston Courier (12 June, 1857) to
the effect that the word is a vile corruption of the Italian name
Borghese, a notorious swindler, who about the year 1837 literally
flooded the Western and South-western States with fictitious cheques,
notes, and bills of exchange and similar securities to an enormous
amount. It is said that the name was gradually corrupted first to
borges and then to bogus, and the man Borghese being associated in the
popular mind with doubtful money transactions, his name so corrupted
into bogus became applied to fraudulent papers and practices, and
latterly to any spurious or counterfeit object, as bogus money, hair,
diamonds, accusations, etc. Yet another suggestion is one put forward
by Mr. Jas. Russell Lowell. He thinks it has descended in a corrupted
form from the French Bagasse, the refuse of the sugar cane after the
juice has been expressed. This worthless product has, it is suggested,
given the name to other worthless things having travelled from
Louisiana up the Mississippi, and thence throughout the Union, finally
spreading itself over the English speaking world. A few, however,
affect to regard it as a corruption of [hocus] pocus, and say that it
refers to the German ‘Hocus Pocus Imperatus, wer nicht sieht ist
blind.’

The latest light upon the history of the word is thrown, as usual, by
the indefatigable Dr. Murray, who, while slily satirising the ‘bogus
derivations circumstantially given,’ makes another attempt to solve the
riddle. He says: ‘Dr. S. Willard, of Chicago, in a letter to the editor
of this Dictionary, quotes from the Painesville (Ohio) Telegraph of
July 6 and Nov. 2, 1827, the word bogus as a subs., applied to an
apparatus for coining false money. Mr. Eber D. Howe, who was then
editor of that paper, describes in his Autobiography (1878) the
discovery of such a piece of mechanism in the hands of a gang of
coiners at Painesville, in May, 1827; it was a mysterious looking
object, and some one in the crowd styled it a bogus, a designation
adopted in the succeeding numbers of the paper. Dr. Willard considers
this to have been short for tantrabogus, a word familiar to him from
his childhood, and which in his father’s time was commonly applied in
Vermont to any ill-looking object; he points out that tantarabobs is
given in Halliwell as a Devonshire word for the devil.’ [Bogus seems
thus to be related to bogy, etc.]

    1825. Hughes, in J. Ludlow’s Hist. U.S., 338. This precious house
    of representatives—the bogus legislature as it was at once called.

    1869. S. L. Clemens (‘Mark Twain’) Innocents at Home, ch. xvii.
    Nobody had ever received his bogus history as gospel before; its
    genuineness had always been called in question either by words or
    looks; but here was a man that not only swallowed it all down, but
    was grateful for the dose.

    1874. M. Collins, Frances, ch. xxxv. ‘They’ve got some good money,
    as well as bogus notes.’

    1883. Saturday Review, March 31, p. 399, col. 2. M. Soleirol had
    probably a number of forged autographs of Molière; his whole
    collection was a bogus assortment of frauds.


Bogy, Bogey, subs. (common).—A landlord. An attributive usage of the
more familiar meanings—(1) the devil; (2) a person much dreaded. The
transition from sense 2 to that which signifies a landlord is easy. A
French equivalent is Monsieur Vautour; vautour = a vulture; and the
term is applied to a hard-hearted landlord. In passing, it may perhaps
be mentioned (having in view the uncertainty which Murray confesses
hangs round the history of this word in its primary meanings) that ask
Bogy, as a reply to a question, occurs in Grose [1785]. It is true it
is there associated with a vulgarism which, however, on the face of it,
appears to have had little to do with the expression, except perhaps in
the not over clean mind of the burly bon-vivant who compiled the
dictionary in question. It seems to have been used much as the modern
‘God knows’! or ‘Bramah knows’ under similar circumstances. This, at
any rate, would carry it back, in very much its present form, much
earlier than 1825, Murray’s earliest trace of it. Grose says it was
‘sea wit,’ whatever that may mean.

Adj. (studios’).—Sombre, or dark in tint. Said of a painting exhibiting
these characteristics.


Bohn, subs. (American College).—A translation; a pony (q.v.). The
volumes of Bohn’s Classical Library are in such general use among
undergraduates in American Colleges, that Bohn has come to be a common
name for a translation.

    1855. Songs, Biennial Jubilee, Yale College. ’Twas plenty of skin
    with a good deal of bohn.


Boil, verb (old).—To betray; ‘to Peach,’ which see for synonyms.

    1602. Rowlands, Greene’s Coney Catchers, 16. His cloyer or follower
    fortwith boyles him, that is, bewrayes him. [M.]

    1611. Middleton and Dekker, Roaring Girle, wks., 1873, III., 220.
    Wee are smoakt ... wee are boyl’d, pox on her! [M.]


Boil Down, verb (popular).—To reduce in bulk by condensing or
epitomizing. When a literary work is reduced to smaller compass by the
presentation only of the main or salient features, it is said to be
boiled down. [The expression is a figurative use (quite recent
by-the-bye) of boiling down in the sense of lessening the bulk by
boiling.]

    1880. Sat. Review, No. 1288, 28. It is surprising to see how much
    research Mr. S. has sometimes contrived to boil down into a single
    line. [M.]

    1885. G. Dolly, Dickens as I Knew Him, p. 125. The newspaper and
    political elements having been consulted, and their opinions having
    been boiled down.

    1887. H. Frederic, in Scribn. Mag., I., 479. ‘To boil down’ columns
    of narrative into a few lines of bald, cold statement.

    1888. Polytechnic Mag., 25 Oct., p. 258.

        Whatever you have to say, my friend,
          Whether witty, or grave, or gay—
        Condense as much as ever you can,
          And say in the readiest way;
        And whether you write on rural affairs,
          Or particular things in town,
        Just a word of friendly advice—boil it down.


Boiled Shirt, Biled Shirt or Boiled Rag, subs. (American).—In the West,
biled shirt is the odd name given to a shirt of white linen, and it is
not difficult to see the line of reasoning from which the term derives
its significance. In the active stirring life of the West little count
is taken of the convenances of civilization, and only on Sundays and
festive occasions would the woollen undergarment be discarded for the
white linen article. Indeed, in many cases, the former would be worn
until it literally dropped to pieces. Now white shirts are facetiously
known as biled shirts all over the States, and only recently (May,
1888) a question in dispute between the employés of the Chicago Tramway
Companies and the managers of the same was whether the former should
wear, when on duty, coloured or biled shirts. Cf., Bald-faced shirt.

    1854. McClure, Rocky Mountains, p. 412. In order to attend the
    Governor’s reception, I borrowed a boiled shirt, and plunged in
    with a Byron collar, and polished boots, and also the other
    necessary apparel.

    1869. S. L. Clemens (‘Mark Twain’), Innocents at Home, ch. xii. But
    they were rough in those times! ... if a man wanted a fight on his
    hands without any annoying delay, all he had to do was to appear in
    public in a white shirt or a stove-pipe hat, and he would be
    accommodated. For those people hated aristocrats. They had a
    particular and malignant animosity toward what they called a biled
    shirt.

    1872. Dublin Univ. Mag., Feb., p. 219. Every man arrays himself in
    ‘store-clothes’ and boiled shirts.

    1888. New York World, 13 May. Is it possible that the Chicagoans
    never heard of white shirts before this spring? May be the
    street-railway presidents never saw a starched shirt (I must
    deplore the use of the word biled as applied to shirts) until this
    year.


Boiler, subs. (Winchester College).—1. A plain coffee-pot used for
heating water. Called fourpenny and sixpenny boilers, not from their
price, but from the quantity of milk they will hold: τὸ παν boilers
were large tin saucepan-like vessels in which water for hot bidets
(q.v.) was heated.

2. See Pot boiler.


Boiler-Plated, adj. (American).—Imperturbable; stolid; stoical. [The
simile is akin to that contained in expressions like iron-clad,
copper-bottomed, etc., drawn mainly from marine phraseology.]


Boilers or Brompton Boilers, subs. (popular).—1. A name originally
given to the new Kensington Museum and School of Art, in allusion to
the peculiar form of the buildings, and the fact of their being mainly
composed of, and covered with, sheet iron. This has been changed since
the extensive alterations in the building, or rather pile of buildings,
and the term boilers is now applied to the Bethnal Green Museum.—See
Pepper-boxes.

    1885. Daily News, July 9, p. 5, col. 1. The building is merely a
    fragment of the old ‘Brompton boilers,’ set up originally for the
    South Kensington Museum.

2. (Royal Military Academy.)—Boiled potatoes. Fried potatoes are called
greasers.


Boiling or Biling. Whole boiling or biling, subs. phr. (common).—The
whole lot; entire quantity. [A figurative usage, from a quantity boiled
at one time.] Variants are the whole gridiron (q.v.) and all the shoot.

    1835. Haliburton (‘Sam Slick’), Clockmaker, 3 S., ch. xviii. The
    last mile, he said, tho’ the shortest one of the whole bilin’, took
    the longest [time] to do it by a jug full.

    1837. Marryat, Dog Fiend, xiii. [He] may ... whip the whole boiling
    of us off to the Ingees.

    1852. Dickens, Bleak House, ch. lix., p. 496. ‘And the whole
    bileing of people was mixed up in the same business, and no other.’

    1874. E. L. Linton, Patricia Kemball, ch. xxii. ‘He have Dora? No,
    not if he licked my foot for her, and I broke the whole boiling of
    them—as I will!’


Boil One’s Lobster, verbal phr. (old).—To enter the army after having
been in the church. [From lobster, a slang term for a soldier, the
allusion being to the change in colour which lobsters undergo in the
process of boiling, turning from a bluish black to red.] Cf., Black
coat and Red coat.


Boke, subs. (American thieves’).—The nose. [This may either be derived
directly from beak, sense 3, or indirectly from boko (q.v.).] For
synonyms, see Conk.


Bold as Brass, adv. phr. (popular).—Audaciously forward; presumptuous;
without shame. The simile, or at least the general idea, seems to be an
old one. Shakspeare (see quot.) uses the expression ‘a face of brass,’
and even to this day brass, sense 1 (q.v.), is synonymous with
impudence or ‘cheek.’

    1594. Shakspeare, Love’s Labour Lost, v., 2.

        Biron. Thus pour the stars down plagues for perjury.
        Can any face of brass hold longer out?——

    1846. Thackeray, Vanity Fair, II., p. 12. He came in as bold as
    brass.

    1854. Thackeray, Lovel the Widower, p. 195. ‘A nursery governess at
    the wages of a housemaid’ I continued, bold as Corinthian brass.

    c. 1882. Broadside Ballad, ‘Timothy Titus.’

        The name belongs to brave men, and I’m as bold as brass,
        I do not wear the lion’s skin and show myself an ass;
        I’m full of pluck and can defy, like Ajax, anything,
        And if you put me to the test, a proof I soon can bring.


Boler, also Bowler, subs. (popular).—A stiff felt hat. For synonyms,
see Cady.

    1861. Sat. Review, Sept. 21, 297. We are informed that he ... wore,
    or rather carried in his hand, a white bowler hat.

    1882. Pebody, Eng. Journalism, xxi., 158. The ministers, in bowlers
    and pea-jackets, are to be found upon the shore of highland locks.

    1889. Answers, June 8, p. 24. Most of the men were clothed in loud
    and greasy suits of tweed, and wore what are known as bowler hats,
    many of them much the worse for wear. The ladies affected fine and
    smart costumes, but as the greater part of their dresses had seen
    long months of service, the smartness was somewhat of the
    bedraggled order.


Bolly, subs. (Marlborough College).—Pudding.


Bolt, subs. (old).—The throat. [This curious term would seem to be
derived from bolt = to gulp down.]

    1821. W. T. Moncrieff, Tom and Jerry, Act iii., Sc. 3. Tom. Here,
    Dusty, my prince, now then, sluice your bolt. (Gives Bob gin.) Bob.
    Vell, your honours, here’s luck. (Bolts gin.) That’s a regular
    kwortern, I knows by my mouth.

Verb (at one period slang, now recognised).—1. To escape; to leave
suddenly. Bolt is an instance of a word which once orthodox,
subsequently fell into disrepute, but which, after having for
generations served as a mere slang term, is now nearly as respectable
as when Dryden wrote: ‘I have reflected on those who, from time to
time, have shot into the world, some bolting out on the stage with vast
applause, and others hissed off.’ The following are a few examples of
its use. For synonyms, see Amputate.

    1668. Etherege, She Would if She Could, I., i. (1704), p. 94. Is he
    gone? Court. Ay, ay! you may venture to bolt now.

    1712. Arbuthnot, Hist. of John Bull, pt. IV., ch. vi. Then, of a
    sudden, bolting into the room, he began to tell....

    1752. Fielding, Amelia, bk. XI., ch. vii. In his way home, Booth
    was met by a lady in a chair, who immediately upon seeing him ...
    bolted out of it.

    1821. W. T. Moncrieff, Tom and Jerry, Act i., Sc, 7. Log. Come
    along, then. Now, Jerry, chivey! Jerry. Chivey? Log. Mizzle? Jerry.
    Mizzle? Log. Tip your rags a gallop! Jerry. Tip my rags a gallop?
    Log. Walk your trotters! Jerry. Walk my trotters? Log. Bolt! Jerry.
    Bolt? oh, aye! I’m fly now. You mean go.

    1837. Barham, I. L. (M. of Venice). Jessy ransack’d the house,
    popp’d her breeks on, and when so Disguis’d, bolted off with her
    beau—one Lorenzo.

    1843. Dickens, Martin Chuzzlewit, ch. ix., p. 90. He was more
    strongly tempted ... to make excursive bolts into the neighbouring
    alleys when he answered the door.

2. (American).—The usage in the United States indicates the right of
the independently minded to revolt against partisan rule, as ‘He bolted
the party nominations.’ Also substantively, as ‘He has organized a
bolt.’ The word derived this meaning from its sporting application to a
horse when it becomes unmanageable on the race-course. Cf., Bolter. It
is rarely used with its dictionary meaning in political connections;
and, when so used, is generally misunderstood by the average reader.

    1871. St. Louis Democrat, 3 April. ‘Several of our contemporaries
    have announced it as a well-established fact, that Carl Schurz has
    bolted from the Republican party. We have the very best authority
    for denying the report.’

    1888. Daily Inter-Ocean, 3 Feb. What the Register does object to
    are the fellows who bolt the ticket and support the opposition
    candidate when they can not control nominations.

3. (colloquial.)—To eat hurriedly without chewing; to swallow whole; to
gulp down. Wolcot in a note to the first quotation hereunder appended,
explains bolt as a Hampshire word. ‘A rapid deglutition of bacon,
without the sober ceremony of mastication.’

    1794. Wolcot (‘P. Pindar’), Ode to Tyrants, in wks. (Dublin, 1795),
    vol. II., p. 527.

        Bold push’d the Emp’ror on, with stride so noble,
        Bolting his subjects with majestic gobble.

    1843. Dickens, Martin Chuzzlewit, ch. xvi., p. 171. Dyspeptic
    individuals bolted their food in wedges.

    1857. Dickens, Dorrit, bk. I., ch. xiii., 101. ‘Give me as short a
    time as you like to bolt my meals in, and keep me at it.’

    1883. Daily Telegraph, Jan. 10, p. 5, col. 3. The dangerous habit
    of bolting a light luncheon in two or three minutes.

Getting the bolt, phr. (thieves’).—Being sentenced to penal servitude.
Cf., Boat.

To turn the corner of Bolt Street, phr. (popular).—A humorous
expression for running away. Cf., Bolt, sense 1, also Queer Street, and
for synonyms, see Amputate.


Bolter, subs. (old).—1. Explained by quotation. The privileged places
referred to were such as Whitefriars, the Mint, Higher and Lower
Alsatia, etc.

    1748. T. Dyche, Dictionary (5 ed.). Bolter (s.), a cant name for
    one who hides himself in his own house, or some privileged place,
    and dares only peep, but not go out of his retreat.

2. One who ‘bolts’; especially applied to horses, but figuratively to
persons in the sense of one given to throwing off restraint; in
American parlance one who ‘kicks’ (q.v.).

    1840. Thackeray, Paris Sk. Bk. (1872), 244. The engine may explode
    ... or be a bolter. [M.]

    1850. F. E. Smedley, Frank Fairlegh, ch. xiii. ‘Three of the horses
    had never been in harness before, and the fourth was a bolter.’

    1852. Dickens, Bleak House, ch. lviii., p. 483. This sparkling
    sally is to the effect that, although he always knew she was the
    best-groomed woman in the stud, he had no idea she was a bolter. It
    is immensely received in turf-circles.

    1881. C. J. Dunphie, The Chameleon, p. 17. It is better to ride a
    steady old plodder than to trust your neck to a bolter.

3. (American.)—One who exercises the right of abstention in regard to
his political party. See Bolt, verb, sense 2.

    1883. Atlantic Monthly, LII., 327. To whom a ‘scratcher’ or a
    bolter is more hateful than the Beast. [M.]

    1884. American, VIII., 100. To denounce the twenty-seven as bolters
    from their party.


Bolt-in-Tun, phr. (London thieves’).—Bolted; run away.

    1819. J. H. Vaux, Memoirs. A term founded on the cant word ‘bolt,’
    and merely a fanciful variation very common among flash persons,
    there being in London a famous inn so called. It is customary when
    a man has run away from his lodgings, broken out of jail, or made
    any other sudden movement, to say ‘the Bolt-in-tun is concerned,’
    or ‘he’s gone to the Bolt-in-tun’ instead of simply saying, ‘he has
    bolted,’ etc.


Boltsprit, Boltspreet, Bowsprit, subs. (common).—An old and humorous
term for the nose. [The analogy is between the spar or boom extending
beyond the stem of a vessel and the nose as a prominent and projecting
feature of the face.] For synonyms, see Conk.

    1690. Shadwell, Amorous Bigot, Act v. As thou lovest thy ears, or
    nose, that bolt-sprit of thy face. [M.]

    1691. Shadwell, Scowerers, Act v. They do not consider the
    tenderness of my bolt-sprit. [M.]

    1748. T. Dyche, Dictionary (5 ed.). Boltsprit (s.), a cant name for
    the nose.


Bolt the Moon, verbal phr.—To remove one’s goods and chattels under
cover of night with a view of evading the payment of rent. A variant of
shoot the moon (q.v.); the act itself is called a moonlight flitting
(q.v.).


Bolus, subs. (common).—An apothecary; a doctor. [From bolus, a large
pill frequently prescribed by physicians.]

    1878. Hatton, Cruel London, bk. VI., ch. ii. ‘The doctor, up from
    the Indian bar, came and said I was wanted in London’ ... ‘good for
    old Bolus,’ said Kernan; ‘and I believe him.’


Boman, subs. (old).—A gallant fellow. This is mentioned by Nares, who,
however, could find no example illustrating its use.


Bombay Ducks, subs. (old).—1. The Bombay regiments of the East India
Company’s army were so called.

2. A well known delicacy, the exact nature of which is explained by G.
A. Sala in the second quotation.

    1865. G. A. Sala, in Daily Telegraph, 14 August, 5, 4. His cuisine
    was, with the occasional interpolation of a not entirely
    objectionable curry, accompanied by Bombay ducks, exclusively
    old-fashioned English.

    1886. G. A. Sala, in Ill. Lon. News, 7 August, 138, 2. The Bombay
    duck is the Anglo-Indian relation of the Digby chick. Alive, it is
    a fish called the bummelo; dead and dried, it becomes a duck.


Bombo, Bumbo, subs. (common).—A nickname given to various mixtures, but
chiefly to cold punch. Smollett, in a note in Roderick Random, speaks
of it as ‘a liquor composed of rum, sugar, water, and nutmeg.’

    1748. Smollett, Roderick Random, ch. xxxiv. A table well stored
    with bumbo and wine.

    1867. Smyth, Sailors’ Word Book. Bombo, weak cold punch.

    a. 1886. Northumb. Song, in N. and Q., 6 March, 195. The pitmen and
    the keelman ... drink bumbo made of gin.


Bona, subs. (popular).—A girl; young woman; a belle.

    c. 18(?). Broadside Ballad, ‘Oh, Fred, don’t be so frivolous.’

        Girls are in vulgar called donas,
          Some are called Miss and some Mrs.,
        The best of them all are called bonas,
          The whole jolly lot’s fond of kisses.
        I kiss pretty lips, and I squeeze finger tips,
          No matter what I have to pay,

        If I meet a dear maid who is somewhat afraid,
          She’ll blush like a virgin and say, ‘Oh my.’

                                                Chorus.

Adj. (theatrical).—Good. [From the Latin.]—See Rumbo.


Bonanza, subs. (American).—A happy hit; a stroke of fortune; success.
[From the Spanish, a fair wind, fine weather, prosperous voyage.]
Bonanza was originally the name of a mine in Nevada, which once, quite
unexpectedly, turned out to be a big thing, and of enormous value; now
applied to any lucky hit or successful enterprise.

    1875. Scribner’s Mag., July, p. 272. But a bonanza with millions in
    it is not struck every week.

    1888. San Francisco News Letter, 4 Feb. The mines along the veins
    running north and south, of which North Belle Isle is the center,
    are all stayers, and in the east and west ledge Grand Prize has
    entered a body of ore which may develop into a bonanza as big as
    the one which paid millions in dividends in years gone by.


Bona-Roba, subs. (old).—A courtesan; a showy prostitute. [From Italian
buona, good, + roba = a robe or dress.] The term was much in use among
the older dramatists. Ben Jonson speaks of a bouncing bona-roba; and
Cowley seems to have considered it as implying a fine, tall figure.
Bona in modern times is frequently employed to signify a girl or young
woman, without reference to morals.

    1598. Shakspeare, 2 Henry IV., iii., 2. We knew where the
    bona-robas were; and had the best of them all at commandment.

    b. 1618, d. 1667. Cowley, Essay on Greatness (quoted by Nares). I
    would neither wish that my mistress nor my fortune should be a
    bona-roba;—but as Lucretius says, Parvula, pumilio, tota merum sal.

    1822. Scott, Nigel, xvi. Your lordship is for a frolic into
    Alsatia? ... there are bona-robas to be found there. [M.]

    1839. Harrison Ainsworth, Jack Sheppard [1889], p. 69. The other
    bona-roba, known amongst her companions as Mistress Poll Maggot,
    was a beauty on a much larger scale—in fact, a perfect Amazon.


Bonce, subs. (popular).—1. The head; [probably a derivative of sense 2,
from the analogy between them.] For synonyms, see Crumpet.

2. A large marble [origin unknown, but see Alley].


Bone, subs. (American).—When a traveller, in passing his luggage
through the Custom House, tips the officer in the expectation that the
latter’s examination of his impedimenta will be more or less
superficial, the fee thus given is termed a bone. The practice, is, of
course, contrary to all regulations; but, human nature being human
nature all the world over, it is believed that similar expedients for
evading the law are not altogether unknown in England.

Adj. (thieves’).—Good; excellent; ◇ is the vagabonds’ hieroglyphic for
bone, or good, chalked by them on houses and street corners as a hint
to succeeding beggars. [Probably from French bon, good. Cf., Boon.]

    1851–61. H. Mayhew, London Lab. and Lon. Poor, vol. I., p. 232. He
    [beggar] mostly chalks a signal on or near the door. I give one or
    two instances. ◇ ‘Bone,’ meaning good.

    1883. G. A. S[ala], in Ill. L. News, Nov. 10, p. 451, col. 3. It is
    well known that the lozenge-shaped diagram chalked by beggars and
    tramps on doors and walls in ‘promising’ neighbourhoods stands for
    ‘bone,’ a corruption of the French ‘bon,’ as a hint to succeeding
    vagabonds that they will find the happiest of hunting-grounds in
    the locality.

Verb (popular).—1. To filch; to steal; to make off with; to take into
custody. [There are two suggested derivations:—(1) that the figure of
speech is drawn from the manner in which a dog makes off with a bone;
(2) that bone is a corruption of ‘bonnet’ (a gambling cheat who
‘sharks’ one’s money slyly).] For synonyms in sense of to steal, see
Prig; in sense of to apprehend, see Nab.

    1748. T. Dyche, Dictionary (5 ed.). Bone (v.), a cant word to seize
    or arrest; also to cheat or strip a person of his money or goods.

    1819. J. H. Vaux, Memoirs, II., 157. Tell us how you was boned,
    signifies tell us the story of your apprehension, a common request
    among fellow-prisoners in a jail, which is readily complied with as
    a rule; and the various circumstances therein related afford
    present amusement, and also useful hints for regulating their
    future operations, so as to avoid the like misfortune.

    1838. Dickens, Nich. Nickleby, ch. lvii., p. 467. ‘And why you were
    living so quiet here, and what you had boned, and who you had boned
    it from, wasn’t it?’

    1861. Miss Braddon, Trail of the Serpent, bk. II., ch. ii. ‘I’m
    blest if he hasn’t been and boned my mug. I hope it’ll do him more
    good than it’s done me.’

    1871. Chambers’ Journal, Dec. 9, A Double Event, p. 774. It would
    be a breach of confidence to tell you how it was arranged, but,
    after some haggling, it was arranged that, on the understanding
    that I gave up the securities, I was to bone the reward which the
    detectives had missed.

2. (American.)—To bribe; to ‘grease the palm.’—See Bone, subs.

3.(American cadets’.)—To study hard. [From bohn (q.v.).]

To have a bone in the leg—arm—throat, etc., phr. (common).—A humorous
reason for declining to use the member spoken of; a feigned obstacle.

    1542. Nicholas Udall, Erasmus’s Apophthegmes (1877, Reprint of ed.
    1562). p. 375. He refused to speake, allegeing that he had a bone
    in his throte, and he could not speake.

    1738. Swift, Polite Conversation (conv. iii.). Nev. Miss, come, be
    kind for once, and order me a dish of coffee. Miss. Pray go
    yourself; let us wear out the oldest first; besides, I can’t go,
    for I have a bone in my leg.


Bone-Ache, subs. (old).—The lues venerea. [The allusion is obvious.]

    1592. Nashe, Pierce Penilesse. But cucullus non facit monachum—’tis
    not their newe bonnets will keepe them from the old boan-ack.

    1606. Shakspeare, Tro. and C., ii., 3. After this the vengeance on
    the whole camp! or rather the bone-ache! for that, methinks, is the
    curse dependent on those that war for a placket.


Bone-Box, subs. (common).—The mouth. [The teeth are here represented as
the ‘bones.’ The latter are now more commonly called ‘ivories.’] For
synonyms, see Potato-trap, and compare with Bone-house.

    1785. Grose, Dictionary of the Vulgar Tongue. Shut your bone-box;
    shut your mouth.


Bone-Crusher, subs. (sporting).—A heavy bore rifle used for killing big
game. [Literally that which crushes or breaks bones by force. Cf.,
Bone-shaker.]

    1872. H. M. Stanley, How I Found Livingstone (2 ed.), p. 63.
    African game require bone-crushers; for any ordinary carbine
    possesses sufficient penetrative qualities, yet has not the
    disabling qualities which a gun must possess to be useful in the
    hands of an African explorer. Ibid, p. 342. What is wanted for this
    country is a heavy bore—No. 10 or 12 is the real bone-crusher, that
    will drop every animal shot.


Boned.—See Bone, verb, sense 1.


Bone-Grubber, subs. (common).—One who lives by collecting bones from
heaps of refuse, selling his spoils at the marine stores or to bone
grinders. [From bone + grub, to seek by burrowing, + er.] Also called
bone-picker (q.v.), and tot-pickers (q.v.). See first quotation and cf.
bone-picker form. The French term is un biffin, which also signifies a
foot-soldier, his knapsack being compared to a rag or bone-picker’s
basket; also un chifferton or un chiffortin; un cupidon (an ironical
allusion to his hook and basket); un graffin. For other synonyms, see
Tot-picker.

    c. 1750. ‘The Hunter’s Wedding,’ quoted in J. Ashton’s The Fleet,
    1888, p. 366.

        Sam the grubber, he having had warning,
          His wallet and broom down did lay.

    1851–61. H. Mayhew, Lon. Lab. and Lon. Poor, vol. II., p. 155. The
    bone-grubber generally seeks out the narrow back streets, where
    dust and refuse are cast, or where any dust-bins are accessible.
    The articles for which he chiefly searches are rags and bones,—rags
    he prefers,—but waste metal, such as bits of lead, pewter, copper,
    brass, or old iron, he prizes above all.

    1862. Mayhew, Crim. Prisons, 40. A black-chinned and lanthorn-jawed
    bone-grubber.

2. A resurrectionist; a violator of graves. Cobbett was therefore
called ‘a bone-grubber,’ because he brought the remains of Tom Paine
from America. Cf., Bone-house. Latterly, from the quotation which
follows, the term seems to have been extended to all having to do with
funerals.

    1863. G. A. Sala, Breakfast in Bed, essay vii., p. 181 (1864). The
    crowd in Cheapside declared that I was a mute. They called me
    bone-grubber.


Bone-House, subs. (familiar).—1. The human body—an obvious allusion.

    1870. Emerson, Soc. and Sol., vi., 119. This wonderful bone-house
    which is called man. [M.]

2. A coffin. The term is also used to signify a charnel-house, and
Americans generally call a cemetery a ‘bone-yard.’

    1836. Dickens, Pickwick Papers, II., p. 207. Nothing soon—lie in
    bed—starve—die—Inquest—little bone-house—poor prisoner.

    1846. Walbran, Guide Ripon. The celebrated bone-house no longer
    exists.

    1848. Forster, Life and Times of Oliver Goldsmith, II., p. 165 (bk.
    IV., ch. viii.). The body [of a man who had poisoned himself] was
    taken to the bone-house of St. Andrew’s, but no one came to claim
    it.


Bone Muscle, verbal phr. (American college).—To practice gymnastics.
Cf., Bone, verb, sense 3.


Bone-Picker, subs. (common).—1. A footman. [Evidently a contemptuous
allusion to sense 2, a footman’s duties being to pick up and set in
order after his employer.] The French term is un larbin.

2. (common.)—A collector of bones, rags, and other refuse from the
streets and places where rubbish is placed, for the purpose of sale to
marine dealers and bone crushers. The same as bone-grubber, sense 1
(q.v.).

    1866. Ruskin, Crown of Wild Olives, p. 25. The deceased was a
    bone-picker. he was in the lowest stage of poverty, etc.


Boner, subs. (Winchester College).—A sharp blow on the spine.


Bones, subs. (common).—1. Dice, which are also called St. Hugh’s bones
(q.v.). [So called because made of bone or ivory.] ‘To rattle the
bones,’ i.e., ‘to play at dice.’ The term is a very old one, as also
seem to be games played with the little cubes in question.

    c. 1386. Chaucer, Pard. T., 328. This fruyt cometh of the bicched
    bones two, fforsweryng, Ire, falsnesse, Homycide.

    a. 1529. Skelton, wks. (ed. Dyce) I., 52. On the borde he whyrled a
    payre of bones.

    1608. Dekker, Belman of London, in wks. (Grosart) III., 123. Who
    being left by his parents rich in money and possessions, hath to
    the musicke of square ratling bones danced so long, that hee hath
    danced himselfe into the company of beggers.

    1698. Dryden, Persius, III., 96.

        But then my study was to cog the dice,
        And dexterously to throw the lucky sice:
        To shun ames-ace, that swept my stakes away;
        And watch the box, for fear they should convey
        False bones, and put upon me in the play.

    1772. Foote, Nabob, Act ii. When your chance is low, as tray, ace,
    or two deuces, the best method is to dribble out the bones from the
    box.

    1849. Thackeray, Pendennis, ch. xviii. ‘I saw you sit down to
    écarté last week at Trumpington’s, and taking your turn with the
    bones after Ringwood’s supper.’

    1861. Whyte Melville, Good for Nothing, ch. xxviii. ‘What with
    speculations failing, and consols dropping all at once, not to
    mention a continual run of ill-luck with the bones, I saw no way
    out of it but to bolt.’

2. (common.)—Pieces of bones held between the fingers and played
Spanish castanet fashion. Generally used as an accompaniment to banjo
and other ‘negro’ minstrel music.

    1592. Shakspeare, Midsummer Night’s Dream, iv., 1, line 27. Tita.
    What, wilt thou hear some music, my sweet love? Bot. I have a
    reasonable good ear in music: let us have the tongs and the bones.

    1851. Mayhew, London Labour and London Poor, III., p. 195. Peter
    rolling about in his chair like a serenader playing the bones, and
    the young Othello laughing as if he was being tickled. Ibid, p.
    201. The bones, we’ve real bones, rib-of-beef bones, but some have
    ebony bones, which sound better than rib-bones—they tell best, etc.

    1865. Times, 17 July. Amateur negro melodists ... thumped the banjo
    and rattled the bones. [M.]

3. (common.)—A member of a ‘negro’ minstrel troupe; generally applied
to one of the ‘end’ men who plays the bones (sense 2).

    1851. Mayhew, London Labour and London Poor, III. First of all we
    formed a school of three—two banjos and a tambourine, and after
    that we added a bones and a fiddle.

    1867. Rhoda Broughton, Cometh up as a Flower, p. 236. The band
    clashes out; big fiddle and little fiddle, harp and bones, off they
    go.

    1884. Sat. Review, June 7,740, col. 1. A single row of negro
    minstrels seated on chairs ... while at the end are Bones and
    Sambo. [M.]

4. (general.)—The bones of the human body, but more generally applied
to the teeth. French thieves call these les piloches (f); and les
osselots (m). Cf., Bone-box and Bone-house, and for synonyms, see
Grinders.

5. (common.)—A surgeon; generally sawbones (q.v.). A list of curious
nicknames for the medical profession will also be found under Squirt.

    1887. Chamb. Journal, Jan. 8, p. 30. ‘I have sent for the village
    bones, and if he can but patch me up, it may not yet be too late.’

6. (Stock Exchange.)—(1) The shares of Wickens, Pease and Co.; (2)
North British 4% 1st Preference Shares, the 4% 2nd Preference Stock
being nicknamed Bonettas.

As dry or hard as a bone, phr. (common), i.e., as free from moisture as
a bone after it has been picked and cleaned, as by a dog.

    1833. Marryat, Peter Simple, i. It’s as dry as a bone.

    1837. R. Nicoll, Poems (1843), 83. Dubs were hard as ony bane.

One end is pretty sure to be bone, phr. (American).—An old time saying
equivalent to an admission that ‘all is not gold that glitters’; that
the realization of one’s hopes never comes up to the ideal formed of
them.

    1888. The World, 13 May. People here (in the west) have to get up
    and get in order to make both ends meet, and even then one end is
    pretty sure to be bone.

To be upon the bones, phr. (vulgar).—To attack.

    b. 1616, d. 1704. Sir R. L’Estrange (in Annandale). Puss had a
    month’s mind to be upon the bones of him, but was not willing to
    pick a quarrel.

To feel a thing in one’s bones.—A simile signifying assurance;
conviction.

    1887. Scribner’s Magazine. I ain’t a-goin’ to mention no names but
    I kin feel it in my bones that things ain’t on the square here,
    there’s a nigger in the fence.

    1888. Missouri Republican, 22 Feb. Nat. M. Shelton, of Lancaster,
    said: ‘I am in the race of attorney-general, and I feel it in my
    bones that I will get the nomination.’

To make no bones, phr. (familiar).—To make no scruple; to show no
hesitation; to commence and finish a work without difficulty—now
restricted to colloquial use; it was formerly current literary coin,
and is frequently to be met with in our older literature. Its earlier
form was, ‘to find bones in,’ which clearly shows the phrase to have
originated in a reference to bones in soup, or similar food, regarded
as obstacles to swallowing. In this sense it is found as early as the
middle of the fifteenth century, in the Paston Letters. It does not
occur in its present shape to make bones until a century later; but,
from this period on to the end of the seventeenth century it was in
constant use.

    1459. Paston Lett., 331, I., 444. And fond that tyme no bonys in
    the matere. [M.]

    1542. Udall, Apoph. of Erasmus, p. 133 (1877). Yea, and rather then
    faill, both whole mainor places, and also whole Lordships, the
    ‘make no bones, ne sticke not, quite and cleue to swallow doune the
    narrow lane, and the same to spue up again.’

    1565. Shacklock, Hatchet of Heresies. And instede of that whiche he
    saide, This is my body, they haue made no bones at it, to say, this
    is my brede.

    1590. Greene, Francesco’s Fortune, in wks. VIII., 189. Tricke thy
    selfe vp in thy best reparrell, and make no bones at it but on a
    woing [wooing].

    1596. Nashe, Saffron Walden, in wks. III., 112. He ... would make
    no bones to take the wall of Sir Philip Sidney.

    1677. Wycherley, Plain Dealer, Act iii. Man. How could I refrain? A
    lawyer talked peremptorily and saucily to me, and as good as gave
    me the lie. Free. They do it so often to one another at the bar,
    that they make no bones on’t elsewhere.

    1849. Thackeray, Pendennis, ch. lxiv. Do you think that the
    Government or the Opposition would make any bones about accepting
    the seat if it be offered to them?

To pick a bone or bones with one, phr. (colloquial).—To have an
unpleasant matter to settle with one; also, a difficulty to solve; ‘a
nut to crack.’

    1565. Colfhill, Answ. Treat. Cron. (1846), 277. A bone for you to
    pick on. [M.]

    1783. Ainsworth, Lat. Dict. (Morell), 1, s.v. Pick, To give one a
    bone to pick, scrupulum alicui injicere.

    1850–68. H. Rogers, Ess., II., ii. (1874), 103. Many a bone in
    these lectures which a keen metaphysician would be disposed to pick
    with the author.


Bonesetter, subs. (old).—A hard riding horse; a ricketty conveyance;
properly one whose occupation is to set broken and dislocated bones.
The sarcastic, punning reference is of course to the dire effects which
naturally follow the use of an animal of such a description. The odd
way in which slang is often derived, strikes one at times as very
curious. Not only are words frequently coined which resemble genuine
words, such as ‘solemncholy’ for ‘melancholy,’ and ‘it don’t much
magnify’ for ‘it don’t much signify,’ but the meaning of such
factitious words is, in many cases, either subtly reversed or endowed
with an extremely cynical tinge of humour and sarcasm. The present
instance is a case in point. A more modern term is boneshaker (q.v.),
which is less subtle in its meaning, bone-setter being certainly far
more brutally cynical in its suggestiveness. See second quotation for
some curious synonyms formerly in use.

    1785. Grose, Dictionary of the Vulgar Tongue. Bone Setter, a hard
    trotting horse.

    1821. W. T. Moncrieff, Tom and Jerry, Act i., Sc. 7. Jerry. I long
    to be there,—let’s hasten to dress at once. Log. Aye; call a
    rattler. Jerry. A rattler! I’m at fault again. Log. A rattler is a
    rumbler, otherwise a jarvy! better known perhaps by the name of a
    hack; handy enough in a wet day, or a hurry. Jerry. A hack! If it’s
    the thing we rattled over the stones in to-day, It might more
    properly be called a bone-setter. Tom. Or bone-breaker.—But if you
    dislike going in a hack, we’ll get you a mab. Jerry. A mab! I’m at
    fault again—never shall get properly broken in. Tom. A mab is a
    jingling jarvy!—a cabriolet, Jerry.—But we must mind our flash
    doesn’t peep out at Almack’s. ’Tis classic ground there.


Bone-Shake, verb (popular).—To ride a bone-shaker (q.v.), i.e., a heavy
bicycle of a very old type.

    1889. Answers, Feb. 23, p. 195, col. 1. Among those who learnt to
    boneshake was Charles Dickens, who, had he lived, would have been a
    devoted cyclist.


Bone-Shaker, subs. (old).—1. A hard trotting horse.—See Bone-setter.

2. (popular.)—An old type of bicycle in use prior to the introduction
of india-rubber tires and other manifold improvements. The first
bicycle propelled by cranks and pedals was ridden in Paris in 1864. It
created enormous excitement. On being introduced into England people
went bicycle mad, and the number of persons who suffered in consequence
of riding the old bone-shakers was considerable. Among those who learnt
to ‘bone-shake’ was Charles Dickens, who, had he lived, would have been
a devoted cyclist, for he regarded the sport as a grand one, and
prophesied a big future for it. In 1868 Mr. Charles Spencer rode to
Brighton on a bone-shaker in 14 hours from London. The papers were full
of what was then considered an extraordinary feat, but on Aug. 10,
1889, four riders of the Polytechnic Cycling Club covered the distance
to Brighton and back, 108 miles, in 7 hours 50 minutes, which is better
time than a most perfectly-appointed modern four-in-hand can be driven
over the same course by the aid of unlimited relays of horses kept in
readiness to be changed at a moment’s notice. Only one machine was used
throughout the trial, viz., a safety roadster, weighing 36 lbs.

    1874. A. Howard, Bicycle, 10. In 1870 and 1871, the low, long
    bone-shaker began to fall in public esteem. [M.]

    1884. G. L. Hillier, in Longman’s Mag., March, p. 487. The
    bone-shaker, as the ribald cyclist of the present day designates
    the ancestor of his present bicycle.

    1885. Nineteenth Century, Jan., p. 92. In the Field’s report of the
    performance of the Cambridge Town Bicycle Club we find this entry:
    ‘Half Mile Race on bone-shakers, not exceeding 36 in.’


Bone Standing, verbal phr. (American college).—To study hard.
[Evidently an allusion to the alertness implied by a standing
position.]


Bonettas, subs. (Stock Exchange.)—The 4% 2nd North British 2nd
Preference Stock.—See Bones, subs., sense 6, § 2.


Bong.—See Boung.


Boniface, subs. (popular).—The landlord of a tavern or inn. [Derived
from Farquhar’s play.]

    1707. Farquhar, Beaux Stratagem. [Boniface is here given as the
    name of landlord of the inn.]

    1803. Bristed, Pedest. Tour, I., 120. To give the characteristic
    features and to stamp the peculiar traits of honest Boniface.

    1854. Whyte Melville, General Bounce, ch. xvi. The landlord either
    could not, or would not, give them any actual information as to his
    guests.... So the blue-coated myrmidons of Scotland Yard got but
    little information from Boniface.


Boning Adjutant, verbal phr. (American cadets’).—Aping a military
bearing. [From bone, to study, to imitate.] So also boning muscle
(q.v.) is going in largely for gymnastics. To bone standing, to study
hard. Boning demerit, giving no cause for complaint as regards one’s
conduct. All West Point cadet slang.


Bonk, subs. (travelling showmens’).—A short, steep hill. [Possibly only
a provincialism, or an obsolete form of ‘bank.’]

    1876. Hindley, Adventures of a Cheap Jack, p. 302. In Lancashire,
    Yorkshire, Derbyshire, and Staffordshire, the approaches to some of
    the large works are either up or down some steep, short hill,
    usually termed bonk, and the drivers of heavily laden carts with
    two horses have the breeching on the leading chain-horse, as well
    as the horse in the shafts, so that when they are going down one of
    these steep bonks, the horse is as useful as a help in drawing up.


Bonnet, subs. (old).—1. A gambling cheat; a decoy at auctions.
[So-called because they bonnet or blind the eyes of the victims.—See
Bonnet, verb, sense 1.] Hotten says sometimes called a bearer-up. The
bonnet plays as though he were a member of the general public, and by
his good luck, or by the force of his example, induces others to
venture their stakes. Bonneting is often done in much better society
than that to be found in the ordinary gaming-rooms. A man who persuades
another to buy an article on which he receives commission or
percentage, is said to bonnet or bear-up for the seller. Also called a
bonneter. The French has bonneteur for one profuse in compliments and
bows.

    1812. J. H. Vaux, Flash Dictionary. Bonnet, a concealment.

    1841. Comic Almanack, October. Or a man at a hell, Playing the part
    of a bonnetter well.

    1853. Whyte Melville, Digby Grand, ch. xxi. I began to think my
    military friend was ‘a bonnet,’—one of those harpies employed by
    gambling-house keepers to enhance temptation by the influence of
    example, and generally selected for their respectable and innocent
    appearance.

(?) 1868. Times (quoted by Brewer, Phrase and Fable, p. 104). A man who
sits at a gaming-table, and appears to be playing against the table;
when a stranger appears, the bonnet generally wins.

    1876. Hindley, Life and Adventures of a Cheap Jack, p. 217. We bid
    or praised up his goods: in fact, often acted as ‘puffers’ or
    bonnets, to give him a leg up.

    1885. Morning Post, Sept. 5, p. 7, col. 3. There was no distinct
    evidence to connect him with a conspiracy to defraud.... He might
    have been used as a sort of bonnet to conceal the utter
    worthlessness of propositions made by the others.

2. (old.)—A pretext; pretence; or ‘make believe.’

3. A woman. [This sense is analogous to ‘petticoat,’ the names of
articles of feminine attire being transferred to the wearer.]

    1880. Punch’s Almanac, p. 3. Then comes Easter, Got some coin in
    hand, Trot a bonnet out and do the grand.

Verb (common).—1. To act as a bonnet (q.v.); to cheat; to puff; to
‘bear up’ (q.v.).

    1871. ‘Hawk’s-Eye,’ Budget of Turf Notes, p. 2. I could point out
    now what horses he is bonneting for the 2,000 Guineas and Derby of
    this year, and the horses whose pretensions he is trying to
    discredit.

    1887. Referee, 15 May, p. 1, col. 3. Nobody can suppose that I am
    anxious to bonnet for the Times newspaper.

2. (popular.)—To crush a man’s hat down over his eyes.

    1835. Dickens, Sketches by Boz, p. 229. Two young men, who, now and
    then, varied their amusements by bonneting the proprietor of this
    itinerant coffee-house.

    1836. Dickens, Pickwick, II., p. 216. You are a dutiful and
    affectionate little boy to come a bonnetin’ your father in his old
    age.

    1843. Dickens, Christmas Carol in Prose, p. 22. Scrooge reverently
    disclaimed ... any knowledge of having wilfully bonneted the Spirit
    at any period of his life.

    1882. Saturday Review, LIV., p. 629. The students hustled and
    ‘bonnetted’ a new professor.

To have a green bonnet, phr. (common).—To fail in business. [From the
green cloth cap formerly worn by bankrupts.]


Bonnet-Builder, subs. (popular).—A milliner. [The derivation is
clear.]—See Build.

    1839. Song in The Little Melodist, quoted in J. Ashton’s The Fleet,
    p. 93. Will you go to Bagnigge Wells, Bonnet builder, O!

    1868. Brewer, Phrase and Fable, s.v. ‘Build.’ A milliner is
    jestingly called a ‘bonnet-builder.’


Bonneter.—1. See Bonnet, subs., sense 1.

2. (common.)—A crushing blow on the hat.—See Bonnet, verb, sense 2.


Bonnets So Blue, subs. (rhyming slang).—Irish stew.—See Rhyming slang.


Bono, adj. (circus and thieves’).—Good. [From the Latin.]


Booby Hutch, subs. (thieves’).—A police station; so called no doubt
from the light in which the criminal classes regard those who are
foolish enough or unfortunate enough to get ‘landed’ in such places.
[Booby = a fool + hutch, a box or confined space.]


Booby-Trap, subs. (schoolboys’).—An arrangement of books, wet sponges,
vessels of water, etc., so arranged on the top of a door set ajar that
when the intended victim enters the room, the whole falls upon him.

    1850. Smedley, Frank Fairlegh, ch. iii., p. 28. He had devoted it
    to the construction of what he called a ‘booby-trap,’ which
    ingenious piece of mechanism was arranged in the following manner:
    The victim’s room-door was placed ajar, and upon the top thereof a
    Greek Lexicon, or any other equally ponderous volume, was carefully
    balanced, and upon this was set in its turn a jug of water. If all
    these were properly adjusted, the catastrophe above described was
    certain to ensue when the door was opened.

    1882. F. Anstey, Vice Versâ, ch. xiv. ‘I made a first-rate
    booby-trap, though, one day for an old yellow buffer who came in to
    see you.’

    1883. Sat. Review, Nov. 3, p. 566, col. 2. On his way down to
    dinner he is suddenly drenched from head to foot by a booby-trap—a
    sponge soaked in water placed above a half-open door.


Boodle, subs. (American).—1. A crowd; a company; the ‘whole boiling’
(q.v.). With this meaning the form often appears as caboodle (q.v.).
[As regards derivation, which is obscure, Murray, speaking of both
senses as here treated, says the U.S. boodle, in sense 1, must be the
same as Markham’s ‘buddle’ (see quotation given below from New English
Dictionary); sense 2 (also only in U.S.) may be a different word.
Boodle suggests a Dutch origin from boedel pronounced boodle, and in
its primary sense means ‘household stuff,’ and refers to property left
by a testator. It is curious to note that bodle was a Scotch coin of
the value of one-sixth of a penny.]

    1625. F. Markham, Bk. Honour, IV., ii. Men curiously and carefully
    chosen out (from all the buddle and masse of great ones) for their
    approoued wisedome. [M.]

    1857. O. W. Holmes, Autocrat, p. 139. He would like to have the
    whole boodle of them (I remonstrated against this word, but the
    professor said it was a diabolish good word ...) with their wives
    and children shipwrecked on a remote island.

    1865. Bacon, Handbook of America, p. 361. Boodle, ‘the whole boodle
    of them,’ i.e., all, the whole. [List of Americanisms.]

    1884. E. E. Hale, Xmas. in Narragansett, ch. ix., p. 272. At eleven
    o’clock the ‘whole boodle of them,’ as Uncle Nahum called the
    caravan ... had to boot and spur for church. [M.]

2. (American.)—In its second signification this curious word seems to
have come into prominent use in politics during the past five years.
Its meaning and usage is thus explained in Americanisms—Old and New.
Some elections cannot be conducted without boodle first and last.
Boodle does not mean the capital or stock-in-trade, except the business
or trade be something secret, peculiar and illegal. Boodle always means
money; but money has not always been boodle (see sense 4). Money
honestly received and spent, money that circulates in regular and
honest channels, that appears in cash-book and ledger and expense
account, is never boodle; but when a sum—a thousand dollars, more or
less—is given to some one to use in influencing a third party, given
perhaps in silence and certainly without requiring any writing of
acknowledgment or obligation—that is boodle. Boodle is money used for
purposes of bribery and corruption; and the same word is employed to
indicate the money that comes as spoils, the result of some secret
deal, the profits of which are silently divided. The term is likewise
used to cover the ill-gotten gains of the bank robber, or the
absconding cashier. ‘He carried away so much boodle.’ In elections the
primaries have to be ‘fixed,’ a great many men have to be ‘seen’; in
short, the amount of money that it seems necessary in some cases to use
to elect a few honest public servants is a thing to wonder at. And when
these men are elected, it appears that they often lose the power of
distinguishing between ‘straight money’ and boodle. The word seems
destined to take its permanent place in the language.—See also
Boodlers.

    1884. Boston (Mass.) Globe, Oct. 7. ‘Sinews of war,’ and ‘living
    issues,’ ‘soap,’ and other synonyms for campaign boodle are
    familiar. [M.]

    1888. Philadelphia Bulletin, 24 Feb. The best man in the world
    cannot make an honest living by being a City Councilman. The office
    is an unsalaried one, and any money that is made out of it is
    boodle. This is the new term for plunder, fraud and every form of
    stealing that can be practised by office-holders, who, in the
    practice, add the crime of perjury. It is an easy business for men
    of easy virtue.

    1888. Puck’s Library, May, p. 3.

        In the evening, up the street,
          As you see him passing by,
        You’re convinced his mind’s replete
          With the legal science high;
        That he ponders of divorce,
          Or, of boodle cases great;
        That he spends all day, of course,
          Fighting counsel for the State.

3. (American thieves’.)—Amongst the thieving fraternity boodle is used
to denote money that is actually spurious or counterfeit, and not
merely money used for nefarious purposes, but which as currency is
genuine enough.

4. (American general.)—Money. This is the latest sense imported into
the word. The transition by which it has come to be synonymous with
‘dust,’ ‘pieces,’ ‘rhino,’ ‘oof,’ etc., is an easy one.—See Actual.

    1888. Puck’s Library, Jan., p. 4.

        Shakey, take a fader’s plessing,
          Take it, for you ket it sheap;
        Go in hot for making money,
          Go in for to make a heap.
        Don’ you do no dings vot’s grooked,
          Don’ you do no dings vot’s mean—
        Aber rake right in dot boodle,
          Qviet, calm, and all serene.

To carry boodle is to utter base coinage.—See Boodler.

Fake-boodle, subs. (American thieves’).—A roll of paper over which,
after folding, a dollar bill is pasted, and another bill being loosely
wrapped round this it looks as if the whole roll is made up of a large
sum of money in bills.


Boodler, subs. (American political).—1. One who bribes or corrupts.—See
Boodle, sense 2.

    1888. Omaha World. American. ‘As you are a native of Canada I
    suppose you think that country is all right, but for my part I
    should hate most awfully to be a subject of a queen.’ Canadian.
    ‘The queen is a mere figure-head; there is no difference at all
    between Canada and the United States.’ ‘Come to think, I believe
    you do have elections there.’ ‘I should say we did. We have
    elections and campaigns, and political parties, and bosses, and
    ringsters, and boodlers, and——.’ ‘Boodlers?’ ‘Plenty of ’em.’
    ‘Well, well! Why, you are freemen just like us.’

2. (American thieves’.)—Boodlers and shovers are the men who issue
false money (see Boodle, sense 3). Swindlers of this type generally
hunt in couples; one carrying the bulk of the counterfeit money, and
receiving the good change as obtained by his companion, who utters the
boodle piece by piece. The game is generally worked so that at the
slightest alarm the boodle carrier vanishes and leaves nothing to
criminate his confederate.


Booget, subs. (old cant).—A travelling tinker’s basket. Quoted by
Harman [1567].


Book, subs. (sporting).—1. In betting, more especially in connection
with horse racing, an arrangement of bets made against certain horses,
and so calculated that the bookmaker (q.v.) has a strong chance of
winning something whatever the result.

    1836. Dickens, Pickwick, I., p. 400. And Wilkins Flasher, Esquire,
    entered it (the bet) in a little book with a gold pencil-case; and
    the other gentleman entered it also, in another little book with
    another gold pencil-case.

    1837. Disraeli, Henrietta Temple, p. 260. Am I to be branded
    because I have made half a million by a good book?

    1852. F. E. Smedley, Lewis Arundel, ch. liii. ‘He has backed the
    Dodona colt for the Derby, and has got a heavier book on the race
    than he likes.’

    1869. Gent. Mag., July, p. 231. He wins your money with a smile,
    will accommodate his book to suit what bets you may choose to make.

    1879. Jas. Payn, High Spirits (Change of Views). He had a
    knowledge, too, of practical mathematics, which enabled him to make
    a book upon every great racing event of the year.

    1889. Pall Mall Gazette, Oct. 21, p. 6, col. 1. Every sporting man
    is flattered if termed a sportsman, but it would be almost an
    insult to speak to a sportsman as a sporting man. Wherein does the
    distinction lie? it may be asked. The one is a lover of sport for
    the sake of the thing itself. The other is a lover of it for what
    he can get out of the business. The former may bet, but he does not
    look at sport through the glasses of a book; the latter always
    bets, and in fact would not care about it at all if he could not
    take or give odds.

2. (card-players’.)—The first six tricks at whist.

3. (general.)—The copy of words to which music is set; the words of a
play; formerly only applied to the libretto of an opera.

    1768. Sterne, Sentimental Journey, I., 180. A small pamphlet, it
    might be the book of the opera.

    1889. Answers, 8 June, p. 24. The prompter had a little table on
    the ‘prompt’ side; that is, the right-hand side looking from the
    house, and his ‘book’ was one mass of directions, the margins being
    covered with little pictures and diagrams of the stage, showing the
    positions of the leading actors in every scene.

To know one’s book, phr. (popular).—To have made up one’s mind; to know
what is best for one’s interest.

    c. 1879. Broadside Ballad, ‘Ain’t you glad you didn’t.’

        Ain’t you glad sometimes to know,
          A second thought you took,
        About a subject upon which
          You thought you knew your book;
        Now first of all you think you will,
          And then you think you won’t,
        While someone says ‘Go in and win!’
          And someone else says ‘Don’t.’

To suit one’s book, phr. (common).—To suit one’s arrangements. Cf.,
Book, subs., sense 1, the allusion being to betting books, in which
bets are formally entered.

    1852. F. E. Smedley, Lewis Arundel, ch. vi. ‘By which time he
    expects to be so hard up that he must marry somebody, and as there
    will be plenty of the needful, she will suit his book as well as
    any other.’


Booked, ppl. adj. (common).—Caught; fixed; disposed of; destined, etc.
From the book-keeping term—entered in a book, or registered.

    1840. Hood, Up the Rhine, p. 6. I am booked for a much longer
    journey.

    1857. Snowden, Mag. Assistant, 3 ed., p. 446. Booked, caught,
    taken, or disposed of.

    1881. Jas. Payn, Grape from a Thorn, ch. xxiii. ‘I don’t remember
    anyone having given me an “engaged ring” before; and it’s not leap
    year, neither. However, the lady’s booked, which is a great
    relief.’

French thieves use être planché for ‘to be booked’; also être mort
(i.e., ‘to be dead’); the adjective is rendered by faitré, and the
person booked is un gerbable.


Book-Form, subs. (sporting).—The relative powers of speed or endurance
of race-horses as set down in the Racing Calendar or ‘book.’


Bookie or Booky, subs. (sporting).—An abbreviated form of bookmaker
(q.v.).

    1885. Eng. Ill. Mag., April, p. 509. No rowdy ring, but a few quiet
    and well-known bookies, who were ready enough to lay the odds to a
    modest fiver.

    1889. Sporting Times, 29 June.

        He now had occasion to speedily hie
          To the bookie who laid him the bet,
        Who was one of the small and particular fry,
          That at times, when convenient, forget.


Bookmaker, subs. (sporting).—The English Encyclopædia says:—In betting
there are two parties—one called ‘layers,’ as the bookmakers are
termed, and the other ‘backers,’ in which class may be included owners
of horses as well as the public. The backer takes the odds which the
bookmaker lays against a horse, the former speculating upon the success
of the animal, the latter upon its defeat; and taking the case of
Cremorne for the Derby of 1872, just before the race, the bookmaker
would have laid 3 to 1, or perhaps £1000 to £300 against him, by which
transaction, if the horse won, as he did, the backer would win £1000
for risking £300, and the bookmaker lose the £1000 which he risked to
win the smaller sum. At first sight this may appear an act of very
questionable policy on the part of the bookmaker; but really it is not
so, because so far from running a greater risk than the backer, he runs
less, inasmuch as it is his plan to lay the same amount (£1000) against
every horse in the race, and as there can be but one winner, he would
in all probability receive more than enough money from the many losers
to pay the stated sum of £1000 which the chances are he has laid
against the one winner, whichever it is.—See also Book, subs., sense 1,
and Bookie.

    1862. London Review, Aug. 30, p. 188. Betting there seemed to be
    none ... we could not perceive a single book or bookmaker.

    1880. W. Day, Racehorse in Training, ch. xxiv., p. 245. Bookmakers
    pursue a legitimate and lucrative trade by laying against all
    horses as they appear in the market.

    1883. Hawley Smart, Hard Lines, ch. iii. Finding ... that the
    bookmaker whom for once they have landed for ‘a thousand to thirty’
    is hopelessly insolvent.


Bookmaker’s Pocket, subs. (sporting).—A breast-pocket made inside the
waistcoat, for notes of large amount.—Hotten.—See Bookmaker.


Books, subs. (card-players’).—1. A pack of cards. A term used mainly by
professional card-players. Also called devil’s books; book of broads;
book of briefs. The French equivalent is un juge de paix; while une
cartouchière à portées is a prepared pack used by sharpers.

    1706. Mrs. Centlivre, Basset Table, IV., ii., wks. (1872) I., 245.

    L. Revel. Clean cards here.

    Mrs. Sago. Burn this book, ’t has an unlucky air [tears them].
    Bring some more books.

2. (Winchester College.)—(a.) The prizes formerly presented by Lord Say
and Sele, now given by the governing body, to the ‘Senior’ in each
division at the end of ‘Half.’

(b.) The school is thus divided:—Sixth Book—Senior and Junior Division;
the whole of the rest of the School is in Fifth Book—Senior Part,
Middle Part, Junior Part, each part being divided into so many
divisions, Senior, Middle and Junior, or Senior, 2nd, 3rd and Junior,
as the case may require. Formerly there was also ‘Fourth Book,’ but it
ceased to exist about twenty-five years ago.

    1876. Mansfield, School-Life at Winchester College, p. 104. The
    school was divided into three classes, or books, as they were
    called. Of these, the Præfects formed one, Sixth Book; Fifth Book
    was sub-divided into three parts, called respectively, ‘Senior,
    Middle, and Junior part of the Fifth’; in speaking of them, the
    words, ‘of the Fifth’ were generally omitted. The rest of the boys
    made up ‘Fourth Book.’

(c.) Up at books.—In class; repeating lessons; now called Up to books.

    1876. Mansfield, School-Life at Winchester College, p. 101. At each
    end of school are three tiers of benches rising gradually one above
    the other,—that on the ground being called ‘Senior Row,’ and the
    others  ‘Middle,’ and ‘Junior Row’ respectively. On these the
    Classes sit when ‘up at books,’ i.e., when repeating lessons.

(d.) Books chambers.—Explained by quotation.

    1876. Mansfield, School-Life at Winchester College, p. 103. On
    Remedies (a kind of whole holiday), we also went into School in the
    morning and afternoon for an hour or two without masters; this was
    called books chambers; and on Sundays, from four till a quarter to
    five.

(e) To get or make books.—To make the highest score at anything. Cf.,
Books, sense 2a.


Bookwork, subs. (University).—Mathematics that can be learned verbatim
from books—all that are not problems.


Boom.—This word is a comparatively recent production in its slang
sense; and is variously used as a substantive or as a verb. Before
particularizing its special usages, it may be interesting to note how,
within a few years, it has made its appearance in a variety of
combinations; as, ‘the whole State is booming for Smith,’ or ‘the boys
have whooped up the State to boom for Smith,’ or ‘the Smith boom is
ahead in this State,’ etc., etc. Stocks and money are said to be
booming when active; and any particular spot within a flourishing
district is regarded as within the boom-belt. A successful team or
party is said to be a booming squad, and we even read of boomlets to
express progress of a lesser degree. [Its origin is largely a matter of
conjecture, but the most probable derivation is from the nautical
phrase ‘boom-out,’ signifying a vessel running rapidly before the wind;
but Murray points out that as various associations are probable, and as
the actual use of the word has not been regulated by any distinct
etymological feeling, it is not likely that any derivation will account
for all its applications.]

Subs.—Commercial activity; rapid advance in prices; a flourishing state
of affairs—in all its applications it is synonymous with extreme vigour
and effectiveness. The first quotation carries its use back a few years
beyond the earliest date given in the New English Dictionary.

    1875. Scribner’s Mag., July, p. 277. Another boom in prices is to
    be looked for.

    1883. Referee, May 6, p. 3, col. 2. ‘The Merry Duchess’ is a big
    boom, and I understand that money is being turned away nightly.

    1883. M. Twain, Life on the Mississippi, ch. lvii., p. 499. I lived
    here in 1857—an extraordinary year there in real-estate matters.
    The boom was something wonderful. Everybody bought, everybody sold
    ... anything in the semblance of a town lot, no matter how
    situated, was saleable.

    1888. Boston Daily Globe. After the Sheridan reception, of course
    John Sherman must come to Boston. The Ohio statesman knows where
    all the real live booms start. If Mr. Blaine is wise he also will
    come to the ‘Hub’ without delay.

    1888. Missouri Republican, 16 Feb. ‘Jim, they say thar is a big bum
    up at Rome.’ ‘What’s that?’ said Jim. ‘It’s a kind of new tradin’
    business what swells and shrinks, and the sweller and shrinker
    stays down in a celler and works the machine. They trade in stock.’
    ‘Horses and mules?’ said Jim. ‘No, hit’s all on paper, and nobody
    can see what he’s buyin’. You put your money in and wait for a
    swell. If it comes you are all right, but if a shrink comes you are
    busted, and you feel so ashamed that you don’t say anything about
    it, and it never gets into the papers—nothing but the swells gits
    into the papers.

Verb, intr.—To go off with a boom.—See subs. To make rapid and vigorous
progress; to advance by leaps and bounds; trans. to push; to puff; to
bring into prominence with a rush.

    1874. S. L. Clemens (‘Mark Twain’), Gilded Age, ch. xxvii. There’s
    200,000 dollars coming, and that will set things booming again.

    1875. Scribner’s Mag., July, p. 272. Stocks may boom to-day, but
    droop to-morrow, and with the crash come remorse and repentance.
    Ibid, p. 277. When stocks are active they are said to be booming.

    1884. M. Twain, Huckleberry Finn, xiii., 3. We boomed along down
    the river, watching for lights and watching for our raft.

    1888. Chicago Daily Inter-Ocean. The city of Paris is said to be
    diminishing instead of increasing in population. They don’t know
    how to boom a town over there.

As already stated, boom enters into many combinations; boomer (q.v.),
boom-belt, booming-squad, etc.

    1888. New Orleans Picayune. A boom in North Carolina is not the
    kind of phenomenon to which we are accustomed here. Sales of land
    at from 2 dols. to 10 dols. an acre in a boom belt are not of
    record hereabout.

    1888. Chicago Herald. Ben Butterworth, of Ohio, one of the
    mainstays of John Sherman’s booming squad, has just had the title
    of boss Republican tariff debater conferred upon him by the culture
    of Boston.

To top one’s boom off, phr. (nautical).—To be off, or to start in a
certain direction.

    1871. G. Meredith, Harry Richmond, ch. xxxviii., p. 346 (1886).
    ‘And now top your boom, and to bed here.’


Boomer, subs. (American).—1. One who booms or causes an enterprise to
become flourishing, active or notorious. [From boom, subs., + er.]

    1888. Times, Sept. 26, p. 8. [He] is a North-Western boomer of
    great earnestness. [M.]

    1885. Boston (Mass.) Journal, Aug. 19, p. 2, col. 4. The Oklahoma
    boomers. [M.]

2. Attributively applied to anybody or anything considerably above the
average. Thus, what English people would call a bouncing lie, an
American, if given to slang, would call a boomer; so also a fine woman,
a horse with extra good points, etc., etc.


Boomerang, subs. (American).—Figuratively used to signify acts or
words, the results of which recoil upon the person from whom they
originate. The boomerang is properly an Australian missile weapon
which, when thrown, can be made to return to the thrower; or which,
likewise, can be caused to take an opposite direction to that in which
it is first thrown.

    1845. Holmes, Modest Request, Poems (1884), 42. Like the strange
    weapon, which the Australian throws, Your verbal boomerang slaps
    you on the nose. [M.]

    1870. Lowell, Among My Books, 1 S. (1873), 219. The boomerang of
    argument, which one throws in the opposite direction of what he
    means to hit. [M.]


Booming, ppl. adj. (American).—Flourishing; active; in good form;
large; astonishing.—See Boom and Boomer in all senses.


Boom-Passenger, subs. (nautical).—A sailor’s slang term for a convict
on board ship. Derived from the circumstance that prisoners on board
convict ships were chained to, or were made to crawl along or stand on
the booms for exercise or punishment.—Hotten.


Boon-Companion, subs. (colloquial).—A comrade in a drinking bout; a
good fellow. [Boon is evidently a corruption of the French bon.]

    1566. Drant, Med. Morall, A. v. He is my bone companion, it’s he
    that cheares up me. [M.]

    1592. Greene, Quip, in wks. XI., 220. To seeke good consortes and
    boone companions to passe away the day withall.

    1594. Nashe, Terrors of the Night, in wks. III., 228. Our Poets or
    boone companions they are out of question.

    1600. W. Kemp, Nine Days’ Wonder, in Arber’s English Garner, vol.
    VII., p. 27. And coming to my inn, where the host was a very boon
    companion, I desired to see him.

    1712. Arbuthnot, History of John Bull, pt. I., ch. v. This was
    occasioned by his being a boon companion, loving his bottle and his
    diversion.

    1825. Scott, St. Ronan’s Well, ch. xxiii. The morning after a
    debauch is usually one of reflection, even to the most customary
    boon companion.

    1827. Lytton, Pelham, ch. lxvii. We went downstairs to our dinner,
    as charmed with each other as boon companions always should be.


Boon-Companionship, subs. (colloquial).—Jollity; conviviality.—See
Boon-companion.

    1592. Nashe, Strange Newes, in wks. II., 176. Thinke not, though
    vnder correction Of your boone-companionship, I am disposd to be a
    little pleasant, I condemne you of anie immoderation, either in
    eating or drinking.

    1849. Lytton, Caxtons, pt. XII., ch. iv. A little society, and
    boon-companionship ... would take Roland out of those gloomy
    reveries.


Boong.—See Bung.


Boorde.—See Bord.


Boost, subs. (American).—A hoisting; a ‘shove’; a ‘lift’; a ‘push up’—a
New England vulgarism.

    1858. Dow, Sermons. Office seekers ask you to give them a boost
    into the tree of office. [M.]

    1866. T. A. Richards, Rice Fields of the South. [A negro-preacher
    in South Carolina, loq.] ‘For, my bredderen, little Zaccheus was
    bound to see the Lord for once, dough he had to climb up de tree to
    do it. And how did he get up der tree? Ah, how did he get up der
    tree, my bredderen? Did he wait for some lazy nigger to bring him a
    ladder? Ah, no, my bredderen. Did he wait to be boosted? Ah, no, my
    bredderen. Not a boost! He climbed right straight up der tree
    hisself, like de possum, by his own hands and feet and de grace of
    God!’

    1888. Puck’s Library, May, p. 11. A genius took hold of the
    business, and gave it a little boost. He was a man of the times,
    and he applied his reasoning faculties to the problem presented to
    him. ‘What,’ he asked, ‘is the chief means of success?’

Verb.—To hoist; to lift up; to shove.—See subs.

    1848–64. J. R. Lowell, Biglow Papers, II., 106. Whereas ole Abram
    ’d sink afore he’d let a darkie boost him.

    1872. S. L. Clemens (‘Mark Twain’), Roughing It, ch. vii. You ought
    to have seen that spider-legged old skeleton go! and you ought to
    have seen the bull cut out after him, too—head down, tongue out,
    tail up, bellowing like everything, and actually mowing down the
    weeds, and tearing up the earth, and boosting up the sand like a
    whirlwind!

    1884. Harper’s Magazine, Aug., p. 481, col. 1. To boost a jurist of
    so much helpless avoirdupois in through the carriage door.


Boosy.—See Boozy.


Boot, verb (military).—To beat; to punish with a strap. The punishment
is irregular and unconventional, being inflicted by soldiers on a
comrade discovered guilty of some serious breach of the unwritten law
of comradeship, such as theft, etc. The beating was formerly inflicted
with a bootjack—hence the name.


Booth, subs. (thieves’).—A house; ‘to heave a booth,’ i.e., ‘to rob a
house.’


Booth-Burster, subs. (theatrical).—A loud and noisy actor. A variant of
barn-stormer (q.v.).


Booting, subs. (military).—A punishment administered with a strap. Cf.,
Colting.


Boot-Joe, subs. (military).—Musketry drill.


Boot-Leg Plan.—See On the boot-leg plan.


Bootlick, subs. (American).—A flunkey; hanger-on; or doer of dirty
work. [In England such a one is called a ‘bootlicker,’ of which
bootlick is probably an abbreviated form.]

Verb.—To toady; to hang on; to undertake ‘dirty’ work.


Boots, subs. (colloquial).—1. The servant at hotels and places of a
kindred character who cleans the boots of visitors. Formerly called
boot-catchers, because in the old riding and coaching days part of
their duty was to divest travellers of their footgear.

2. (military.)—The youngest officer in a regimental mess.

Like old boots—beans—bricks—blazes, etc., phr. (common).—Thoroughly;
vigorously. A simile as general in its application as it is irrelevant.
It may mean anything, everything, and nothing. Why old boots and not
new boots is beyond comprehension.

    1868. Miss Braddon, Sir Jasper, ch. xxvii., p. 282. I’ll stick to
    you like old boots.

    1874. Saturday Review, Jan., p. 55. An Oxford man, nay even a
    Balliol man ... introduced in the story a pleasing change by such a
    phrase as jawing away like old boots.

To buy old boots, phr. (old).—To marry or keep the cast-off mistress of
another man.

To die in one’s boots (q.v.).


Boots and Leathers.—See Commoner peal.


Booty. To play booty, phr. (old).—To play falsely; dishonestly; or
unfairly; this with the object of not winning, a previous arrangement
having been made with a confederate to share the spoils resulting from
the bogus play. Sometimes it takes the form of permitting the victim to
win small stakes in order to encourage him to hazard larger sums which,
naturally, he is not allowed to win.—See quotation from Dyche.

    1575. Frat. of Vacabondes, p. 13. They wil make as much as they
    can, and consent as though they wil play booty againt him.

    1608. Dekker, Belman of London, in wks. (Grosart) III., 133. They
    ... haue still an eare how the layes [bets] are made, and according
    to that leuell doe they throw their bowles, so that be sure the
    bowlers play booty.

    1742. Fielding, Joseph Andrews, bk. I., ch. ii. The best gamesters,
    before they laid their money, always inquired which horse little
    Joey was to ride; and the bets were rather proportioned by the
    rider than by the horse himself; especially after he had scornfully
    refused a considerable bribe to play booty on such an occasion.

    1748. T. Dyche, Dictionary (5 ed.). Booty (s.), plunder, spoil,
    prize; also a cant word signifying a pretence to one thing, and at
    the same time intends and does the contrary, in order to cheat,
    impose upon, and draw in a person to lay wagers, play at some game,
    etc.

    1776. Colman, The Spleen, in wks. (1777) IV., 276. Jubilee started
    and stumbled but, by-the-bye, I believe his rider played
    booty—Duenna won the stakes, and the knowing ones were all taken
    in.

    1817. Scott, Rob Roy, ch. vii. ‘Were he caught playing booty, he
    would be disarmed, and probably dismounted.’

    1831. Disraeli, Young Duke. One thing remained to be lost—what he
    called his honour, which was already on the scent to play booty.

So also booty = playing booty, and booty-fellow, a sharer in the
plunder.


Booze, subs. (popular).—1. Drink; a draught. The older forms are bouse
or bouze (q.v.), but booze in its present form appears as early as
1714. For synonyms, see Drinks.

    1714. Memoirs of John Hall (4 ed.), p. 11. Booze, Drink. [List of
    cant words.]

    1821. W. T. Moncrieff, Tom and Jerry, Act ii., Sc. 6. Jemmy.
    Gemmen, have you ordered the peck and booze for the evening? Sold.
    Suke. Aye, aye, I’ve taken care of that—shoulder of veal and
    garnish—Turkey and appendleges—Parmesan—Filberds—Port and Madery.

    1889. Sporting Times, 6 July. Kid. The Music Hall Sports are at
    Alexandra Park on the 23rd, and there will be rare doings on that
    occasion. Master and Shifter both give prizes, and there will be
    booze in our drag.

2. A drinking bout; a tipsy frolic. Murray’s first quote for this form
and sense is dated 1864; but, from the following, it will be seen to be
at least thirty years older. For synonyms, see Jamboree.

    1834. H. Ainsworth, Rookwood, bk. III., ch. v. ‘We’ll have a jolly
    boose when all’s over.’

    1884. St. James’s Gazette, 19 Dec., p. 4, col. 1. There was a great
    booze on board.

Verb (common).—To drink heavily; to tipple; to guzzle. An old term
employed in some sense of ‘to drink’ as early as 1300. Also booze
(q.v.). For synonyms, see Swill.

    1567. Harman, Caveat (1814), p. 5. The buriall was tourned to
    bousing and belly cheere.

    1592. Nashe, Pierce Penilesse, in wks. II., 91. They should haue
    all the companie that resort to them, bye bowzing and beere-bathing
    in their bouses every after-noone.

    1777. Colman, Epilogue to Sheridan’s School for Scandal. While good
    Sir Peter boozes with the squire.

    1853. Thackeray, Barry Lyndon, ch. xiii., p. 173. ‘I wonder, Sir
    Charles Lyndon, a gentleman who has been the King’s ambassador, can
    demean himself by gambling and boozing with low Irish black-legs!’

So also boozed (ppl. adj.), drunk, fuddled; boozy (adj.), drunken,
‘screwed’; boozing (verbal subs.), the act of drinking hard; and boozer
(subs.), a drunkard, a tippler—examples of which respectively will be
found hereunder in sections.

    b. 1529. Skelton, Elynoor Rommin, in Hart. Misc. (ed. Park), I.,
    416.

        Droupy and drowsie,
        Scurvy and lousie
        Her face all bowsie.

    1592. Greene, Quip, in wks. XI., 253. To marke the bowsie drunkard
    to dye of the dropsy.

    1611. Cotgrave, Piailleur: m ... a tipler, bowser.

    1616. Jonson, Devil’s an Ass, V., 4. And in the meantime, to be
    greasy, and bouzy.

    1671. R. Head, English Rogue, pt. I., ch. iv., p. 36 (1874). Most
    part of the night we spent in boozing, pecking rumly ... that is
    drinking, eating.

    1693. Dryden, Juvenal, x., 288. Which in his cups the bowsy poet
    sings.

    1705. Ward, Hudibras Redivivus, vol. II., pt. IV., p. 14. Amongst a
    Crowd of Sots, half boozy.

    c. 1819. Wolcot, P. Pindar, p. 303, ed. 1830.

        This landlord was a boozer stout,
        A snuff-taker and smoker. [d.]

    1848. Thackeray, Book of Snobs, ch. xxiii. The boozy unshorn wretch
    is seen hovering round quays as packets arrive, and tippling drams
    in inn bars where he gets credit.

    1848. Thackeray, Book of Snobs, ch. xxxiii. The quantity of
    brandy-and-water that Jack took showed what a regular boozer he
    was.

    1850. P. Crook, War of Hats, 50. Boozed in their tavern dens, The
    scurril press drove all their dirty pens.

    1866. G. Eliot, Felix Holt, ch. xi. ‘Till they can show there’s
    something they love better than swilling themselves with ale,
    entension of the suffrage can never mean anything for them but
    entension of boozing.’

    1889. Ally Sloper’s Half Holiday, Aug. 24, p. 267, col. 2.

        In Canton gardens I have boozed;
        Beneath the palm-trees I have snoozed;
        I’ve seen the alligator smile,
        And peppered at the crocodile.


Boozing Cheat, subs. (thieves’).—A bottle. [From booze (q.v.), drink, +
cheat, from A.S. ceat, a thing.]


Boozing-Ken, subs. (old).—A drinking den. [From booze (q.v.), drink, +
ken, a place.] A term of long standing. A French equivalent is une
bibine, but for general synonyms, see Lush crib.

    1567. Harman, Caveat (1814), p. 65. A bowsing-ken, a ale house.

    1610. Rowlands, Martin Mark-all, p. 37 (H. Club’s Repr., 1874).
    Bowsing-ken, an Ale-house.

    1622. Fletcher, Beggar’s Bush, II., i.

        When last in conference at the boozing-ken,
        This other day we sat about our dead prince.

    1714. Memoirs of John Hall (4 ed.), p. 11. Boozing-ken, an
    Ale-house. [List of cant words in.]

    1834. H. Ainsworth, Rookwood, bk. III., ch. v. The hovel which they
    termed their boozing-ken.


Boozington, subs. (Australian thieves’).—A drunkard. [Apparently a
formation from booze (q.v.), to drink, on the model of lushington
(q.v.), an English equivalent.] For synonyms, see Elbow crooker.


Borachio, subs. (old).—A nickname for a drunkard; formerly a skin for
holding wine. For synonyms, see Elbow crooker.


Borak. To poke borak, verbal phr. (colonial).—To pour fictitious news
into credulous ears; to ‘stuff’; to ‘kid.’

    1587. Notes and Queries, 7 S., iii., 476. Poke borak, applied in
    Colonial conversation to the operations of a person who pours
    fictitious information into the ears of a credulous listener.


Bord, Borde, Boorde, subs. (old cant).—A shilling. The origin is
unknown. For synonyms, see Blow.

    1567. Harman, Caveat, p. 85. Roge, but bouse there a bord, i.e.,
    but drink there a shilling.

    1610. Rowlands, Martin Mark-all, p. 37 (H. Club’s Repr., 1874).
    Boord, a shilling; Halfe a Boord, sixepence.

    1611. Dekker, Roaring Girle, wks. (1873) III., 219. My Lord Noland
    ... bestowes vpon you two, two boordes and a half.

    1671. R. Head, English Rogue, pt. I., ch. v., p. 47 (1874). Borde,
    a shilling.

    1785. Grose, Dictionary of the Vulgar Tongue. [The same
    definition.]


Bordeaux, subs. (pugilistic).—Blood [an allusion to the colour of the
wine. Cf. Claret and Badminton]. For synonyms, see Claret.


Bord You! phr. (nautical).—An expression used to claim the next turn in
drinking.


Bore, subs. and verb (old slang, but now recognised).—Anybody or
anything wearisome or annoying; to weary or to be wearied. [The
derivation is unknown, and the word does not appear in English
literature prior to 1750. Hotten’s reference to Shakspeare, King Henry
VIII., i., 1,


                      At this instant
        He bores me with some trick,


is a misreading, ‘bore’ in this instance signifying ‘to stab,’ as the
context clearly shows.]

Verb (sporting).—To push or thrust out of the course; and boring,
subs., the practice of ‘boring.’ Amongst pugilists it signifies to
drive an opponent on to the ropes of the ring by sheer weight, whilst
amongst rowing men it denotes the action of a coxswain in so steering a
boat as to force his opponent into the shore, or into still water, thus
obtaining an unfair advantage; also analogously applied to
horse-racing. The term, as so used, is a very old one, and is derived
from the persistency of motion of a boring tool.

    1672. Vanbrugh, Lover’s Quarrels, 317 in Hazl. E. P., pt. II., 266.
    He bor’d him out of the saddle fair.

    1819. Moore, Tom Crib’s Memorial to Congress. M—rl—y, that very
    great Count, stood deploring, He hadn’t taught Georgy his new modes
    of boring.

    1821. The Fancy, vol. I., p. 255. Evans bored in, and upset his man
    in the first round.

    1870. Dickens, Edwin Drood, ch. xvii., p. 129. Their fighting code
    stood in great need of revision, as empowering them not only to
    bore their man to the ropes, but ... also to hit him when he was
    down.


Born Days. All One’s Born Days, phr. (colloquial).—One’s lifetime.

    1740. Richarsdon, Pamela, III., 383. He never was so delighted in
    his born days.

    1758. Richardson, Grandison, I., 103. There was one Miss Byron, a
    Northamptonshire lady, whom I never saw before in my born days.

    1809. Miss Edgeworth, Ennui, ch. ix. Craiglethorpe will know just
    as much of the lower Irish as the Cockney who has never been out of
    London, and who has never in all his born days seen an Irishman but
    on the English stage.


Born Weak, phr. (nautical).—Said of a vessel feebly built.—Clark
Russell’s Sailors’ Language.


Bosh, subs. (common).—Nonsense; rubbish; ‘stuff’; ‘rot’—anything
beneath contempt. [The derivation is uncertain. Murray says the word
became current in England from its frequent occurrence in Morier’s
Persian novels, Ayesha [1834], etc., most of them extremely popular
productions. Its source has been suggested in the Turkish bosh lakerdi,
‘empty talk’; in the German bosh or bossch, an equivalent of ‘swipes’;
and in the Gypsy bosh, ‘a noise,’ ‘a fiddle,’ from which latter it has
been thought that there may be some connection between the exclamation
bosh! and fiddle-de-dee (q.v.).]

    1834. Morier, Ayesha, I., 219. This firman is bosh—nothing, [M.]

    1857. C. Kingsley, Two Years Ago, ch. x. I always like to read old
    Darwin’s Loves of the Plants, bosh as it is in a scientific point
    of view.

    1880. Punch, 10 Jan., p. 9, col. 2. ‘Prophet,’ said I, ‘of things
    evil!’ ‘Things are going to the devil’ Is the formula of fogies, I
    have heard that bosh before.

Verb.—To humbug; to spoil; to mar.

    1870. Macmillan’s Magazine, XXI, 71. You bosh his joke [a man’s] by
    refusing to laugh at it; you bosh his chance of sleep by playing on
    the cornet all night in the room next to him. [M.]

    1883. Miss Braddon, Golden Calf, ch. xiv. ‘And wouldn’t he make a
    jolly schoolmaster?’ exclaimed Reginald. ‘Boys would get on
    capitally with Jardine. They’d never try to bosh him.’

Intj.—Nonsense! Rubbish! It’s all my eye!—See All my eye.

    1852. Dickens, Bleak House, ch. xxi. Bosh! It’s all correct.

    1889. Pall Mall Gazette, October 30, p. 3, col. 1. ‘You always
    learn in front of the looking-glass, do you not, Mr.
    Brandram?’—‘Bosh!’ was the laughing reply. ‘I generally learn my
    plays and recitations whilst I am dressing; but you don’t think I
    deliberately stand and make monkey-faces in the looking-glass.’


Bosh Faker, subs. (vagrants’).—A violin player. [From Gypsy bosh, a
violin, + faker, a performer or player.]

    1876. Hindley, Life and Adventures of a Cheap Jack, p. 231.

        Can you rocker Romanie
          Can you patter flash,
        Can you rocker Romanie
          Can you fake a bosh.


Boshing, subs. (American thieves’).—A flogging. [Apparently a corrupted
form of bashing.]—See Bash.


Boshy, adj. (common).—Trumpery; nonsensical.—See Bosh.

    1882. F. Anstey, Vice Versâ, ch. iv. ‘There was no dancing, only
    boshy games and a conjuror.’


Bos-Ken, subs. (vagrants’).—A farmhouse. An old canting term. [From L.
bos = ox + ken, a house.] Cf., Ken.

    1851–61. H. Mayhew, London Lab. and Lon. Poor, vol. I., p. 472. ‘Up
    at a bosken (farm-house) they’ll get among the servant girls.’


Boskiness, subs. (popular).—The quality of being fuddled with drink;
bemused; a state of drunkenness.

    1887. Judy, 31 August, p. 101. The Town Councillor had a squabble
    with his parent ... and accused him of boskiness.


Bosky, adj. (popular).—Drunk; tipsy; fuddled. [Derivation uncertain;
bosky = ‘wooded,’ or ‘bushy,’ and there may be an allusion to the
obscurity and overshadowing, peculiar to a wooded country. Bailey
[1728] has also bosky = swelled, but does not give the slang sense of
the word, although it appears in the editions 1730–6. It may,
therefore, be a figuratively humorous reading of ‘swelled,’ i.e.,
‘tight.’] For synonyms, see Screwed.

    1748. T. Dyche, Dictionary (5 ed.). Bosky (a.), fuddled, half or
    quite drunk.

    1824. Blackw. Mag., XVI., 573. He may be tipsy, bosky, cut, or
    anything but drunk.

    1886. Punch, 17 April, p. 185. I got a bit bosky last night. Has
    the ’eadache got into my rhymes?


Bosman, subs. (vagrants’).—A farmer. [From the Dutch bosch-man, one who
lives in the woods; otherwise Boschje-man, or bushman.] Cf., Bosken.

    1851–61. H. Mayhew, London Lab. and Lon. Poor, vol. I., p. 471.
    ‘I’ve seen the swell bosmen (farmers) buy the pills to give the
    people standing about.’


Boss, subs. (American and English).—1. A master; a head man; one who
directs. [From the Dutch baas, a master.] Few words have acquired a
greater hold on American life than this term, and the primitive meaning
of master, overseer, or superior of any kind, though in a large measure
retained to this day, has been widened out in every direction. The
political boss is the leader whose word is law to his henchman. Boss
Tweed, of New York, is believed to have been the first to bear the
title in a semi-official way. The phrase boss rule is said to have been
invented by Mr. Wayne MacVeagh, and employed by him in political
speeches in Chicago. It is now in common use in this sense. In the two
first quotations the word appears to be used much as in the modern
sense. For synonyms, see Governor.

    1590. Marlowe, Tamburlaine, pt. I., Act iii., Sc. 3. Zab. Base
    concubine, must thou be placed by me, That am the empress of the
    mighty Turk? Zen. Disdainful Turkess and unreverend boss!

    1679. M. Philipse, Early Voyage to New Netherlands (quoted by De
    Vere). Here they had their first interview with the female boss or
    supercargo of the vessel.

    1848. Bartlett, Americanisms. I have never known a second wife but
    what was boss of the situation.

    1850. New York Herald, May 24. The Eternal City is in a very
    curious position. The Pope has returned to his ancestral home; but
    he has nothing in his pocket, and Rothschild refuses to let him
    have any more money. A thousand years ago, and the boot would have
    been on t’other leg.... To-day it is very different. The Father of
    Holiness is the dependent of the Jew, and Rothschild is the real
    Pope and boss of all Europe.

    1888. New York Herald, Jan. 12. Alderman Campbell—I move an
    amendment to make Hamline the general superintendent and chief boss
    of this whole gas business.

2. (popular.)—A short-sighted person; also one who squints. Cf.,
Boss-eyed and Boss, verb, sense 2.

3. (popular.)—A miss; a blunder. Cf., Boss, verb, sense 2.

Adj.—Pleasant; first rate; chief.

    1884. Echo, March 3, p. 1, col. 4. The Americans are acknowledged
    to be the boss artificers in wood.

    1888. Brooklyn Daily Eagle, March 18. Take it all together, with
    scarcity of food and little sleep, we had a hard but a boss time.

Verb.—1. To manage; direct; control.—See subs., sense 1.

    1856. National Intelligencer, Nov. 3. The little fellow that bosses
    it over the crowd.

    1872. Athenæum, March 9. A child wishing to charge his sister with
    being the aggressor in a quarrel for which he was punished,
    exclaimed, ‘I did not boss the job; it was sister.’

    1883. Saturday Review, April 28, p. 515, col. 1. It is long since
    the more respectable inhabitants of America have been divided
    between the convenience of the Irish as hewers of wood and drawers
    of water, and as voters easily bossed or bribed on the one hand,
    and the manifold nuisance of them on the other.

    1885. Sporting Times, July 6. The Shah has fairly bossed everything
    this week—he has been chief actor in our social system.

    1888. Texas Siftings, July.

        When lovely woman hires a servant
          And bosses her around all day,
        What makes the girl pray half so fervent
          As her desire to run away.

2. (popular.)—To miss one’s aim; to make such a shot as a boss-eyed
(q.v.) person would be expected to make. Boss-shot is a common phrase.

    1887. N. and Q., 7 S., iii., 236. To boss is schoolboy slang for
    ‘to miss.’

So also derivatives—bossing, acting as a boss; bossism, a system of
management or wire-pulling; bossy, pertaining to the qualities of a
leader.


Bossers, subs. (common).—Spectacles.—See Barnacles.


Boss-Eyed, adj. (common).—Said of a person with one eye, or rather with
one eye injured; a person with an obliquity of vision. In this sense
sometimes varied by squinny-eyed and swivel-eyed (q.v.). Also used as a
subs.—Boss-eye.

    c. 1884. Broadside Ballad, ‘Put me some Jam Roll by, Jenny.’

        Come where the waves roll high, Jenny,
          Come where the waves roll high,
        Jenny, old girl, I love you,
          Come where the waves roll high.
        Come where the waves roll high, Jenny,
          Come where the sea-sick lie,
        Come where we eat salt-junk, love,
          Come with your old bos-eye.

French Synonyms. Borgniat; cligner des œillets (a military term, ‘to be
boss-eyed’); boiter des calots (‘to be boss-eyed’); calorgne.


Bostruchyzer, subs. (Oxford University).—A small kind of comb for
curling the whiskers.—Hotten. Obsolete.


Bot, Bott, Botts, subs. (common).—The colic; belly-ache; gripes.
Properly a name given to maggots found in the intestines of horses,
under the hides of oxen, and in the nostrils of sheep. A French
equivalent is la tourmente, i.e., ‘the torment.’

    1787. Burns, Death and Dr. Hornbook, st. 27.

        A countra Laird had ta’en the batts,
        Or some curmurring in his guts.

    1816. Scott, Old Mortality, ch. viii. ‘I ne’er gat ony gude by his
    doctrine, as ye ca’t, but a sour fit o’ the batts wi’ sitting amang
    the wet moss-hays for four hours at a yoking.


Botanical Excursion, subs. (old).—A thief’s circumlocution for
transportation—the allusion being to Botany Bay (q.v.).


Botany Bay, subs. (University).—1. At Oxford, Worcester College is so
designated on account of its remote situation as regards the bulk of
the collegiate buildings. It will be seen that a similar reason has
caused a certain portion of Trinity College, Dublin, to receive an
identical nickname. The general idea underlying the term is obviously
that to get to the places in question one has figuratively to go almost
as far as if transported to the real Botany Bay, formerly a convict
settlement in New South Wales.

    1841. Lever, Charles O’Malley, ch. xx., note. Botany Bay was the
    slang name given by college men to a new square rather remotely
    situated from the remainder of the college [i.e., Trinity, Dublin].

    1853. Rev. E. Bradley (‘Cuthbert Bede’), Adventures of Verdant
    Green, I., p. 63. A name given to W. College, from its being the
    most distant college.

2. (thieves’ and prison.)—Penal servitude. Formerly convicts
[1787–1867] were transported to Botany Bay, a convict settlement at the
Antipodes. Hence to go to Botany Bay was in popular use for a long term
of imprisonment.


Botany-Bay Fever, subs. (old).—Transportation; penal servitude.
Convicts condemned to transportation were said to have died of, or to
have Botany-Bay fever. Cf., Hempen fever for hanging.


Botch, subs. (old).—A tailor. [An abbreviated form of ‘botcher,’ which
has been used for a very long period in all the following senses—a
cobbler, tailor who does repairs, jobber, and an unskilful workman.]
Also called a Snip, which see for synonyms.


Bottle. To turn out no bottle, phr. (sporting).—Not to turnout well; to
fail.


Bottle-Ache, subs. (common).—Drunkenness; also applied to an attack of
delirium tremens. [From bottle, in allusion to drink causing
indisposition, + ache, a pain or sickness.] There are many curious
terms for this effect of intemperance, such as Jim-jams, barrel-fever,
quart-mania; but for full list of synonyms, see Gallon distemper.


Bottle-Arsed, adj. phr. (printers’).—Type thicker at one end than the
other—a result of wear and tear.


Bottle-holder, subs. (common).—A second at a prize-fight, hence—

2. One who gives moral support; a backer; an adviser. In the Times of
1851, Lord Palmerston was reported to consider himself the
bottle-holder of oppressed states: and in Punch of the same year, a
cartoon appeared representing that statesman as the ‘judicious
bottle-holder.’

    1753. Smollett, Ct. Fathom (l.). An old bruiser makes a good
    bottle-holder.

    1816. Scott, Antiquary, ch. xxxix. Petrie ... recommends, upon his
    own experience, as tutor in a family of distinction, this attitude
    to all led captains, tutors, dependents, and bottle-holders of
    every description.

    1822. Scott, The Fortunes of Nigel, ch. ii. Cold water, and a
    little vinegar, applied according to the scientific method
    practised by the bottle-holders in a modern ring.

    1860. Thackeray, Philip, ch. xl. ‘Do you remember his tremendous
    fight with Biggs?’ ‘Remember? who didn’t? Marston was Berry’s
    bottle-holder.’


Bottle-Holding, verbal subs. (common).—Backing; supporting.

    1878–80. Justin MacCarthy, History of Our Own Times, II., p. 115.
    The noble lord (Palmerston) told the deputation that the past
    crisis was one which required on the part of the British Government
    much generalship and judgment, and that a good deal of judicious
    bottle-holding was obliged to be brought into play.


Bottle of Brandy in a Glass, phr. (common).—A glass of beer; a recent
and absurd slang introduction.


Bottle of Spruce, subs. (rhyming slang).—Twopence. The play of words is
upon ‘deuce’ = two.


Bottles, subs. (Stock Exchange).—Barrett’s Brewery and Bottling Co.
Shares.


Bottle-Sucker, subs. (nautical).—An able-bodied seaman; the
abbreviation is A.B.S., and a bottle-sucker is supposed to be a
humorous rendering.


Bottle-Up, verb (old).—To restrain (temper, feelings, etc.); to keep or
hold back.

    1622. T. Scott, Belg. Pismire, 53. Vapours ... botteled up in
    cloudes.

    1863. H. Kingsley, Austin Elliot, ch. xi. Austin played very bad,
    trumped his partner’s ... knave, led out strong suits of trumps
    without any suit to follow, bottled them when his partner led them
    first time round.

    1871. Cincinnati Commercial, April, p. 637. He will bottle up his
    wrath, having had some experience in the line of bottling up during
    the war, and pour out his vials upon General Farnsworth’s head,
    whenever the occasion offers.


Bottom, subs. (colloquial).—1. The posteriors; not now in literary use.
For synonyms, see Blind-cheeks and Bum.

    1794–6. E. Darwin, Zoon. (1801), III., 253. So as to have his head
    and shoulders much lower than his bottom.

    1822–36. J. Wilson, Noctes Ambr., xxxix. (1864), iv., 79. The
    Dunghill cock ... hides his head in a hole ... unashamed of the
    exposure of his enormous bottom.

    1837. Carlyle, Fr. Rev., II., iv., i., 185. Patriot women take
    their hazel wands, and fustigate ... broad bottom of priests.

2. (popular.)—Capital; resources; stamina; ‘grit.’

    1662. Fuller, Worthies (1840), II., 451. Beginning on a good bottom
    left him by his father.

    1747. Captn. Godfrey, Science of Defence, p. 34. I have mentioned
    strength and art as the two ingredients of a boxer. But there is
    another, which is vastly necessary; that is, what we call a
    bottom.... There are two things required to make this bottom, that
    is, wind and spirit, or heart, or wherever you can fix the
    residence of courage.

    1819. Moore, Tom Crib’s Memorial to Congress, pref., p. xv. The
    peculiarities of this boxer discussed—his power of standing with
    his arms extended for two whole days, without any rest, by which
    means he wore out his adversaries’ bottom, and conquered without
    either giving or taking.

    1846. Thackeray, V. Fair, vol. II., ch. xiv. He did not like to
    dine with Steyne now. They had run races of pleasure together in
    youth when Bareacres was the winner. But Steyne had more bottom
    than he, and had lasted him out.

3. (popular.)—Spirit placed in a glass prior to the addition of water.
[From bottom, the lowest surface or part of anything, the foundation,
the basis. See peculiar American usage in 1883 quot.] Also used as a
verb.

    1854. Sir Theo. Martin, Bon Gaultier Ballads. Bottomed well with
    brandy.

    1857. A. Trollope, Three Clerks, ch. xxxi. Gin and water was the
    ordinary tipple in the front parlour; and any one of its denizens
    inclined to cut a dash above his neighbours, generally did so with
    a bottom of brandy.

    1883. Daily Telegraph, 2 July, p. 5, col. 3. Soda and dark bottom
    is mentioned in a list of American drinks in this article.

To knock the bottom out of one, phr. (American).—To overcome; to
defeat, etc.

    1888. Cleveland Leader. The declination of Mr. Blaine, has knocked
    the bottom out of Mugwumpery.


Bottom Dollar, subs. phr. (American).—The last dollar. The phrase ‘to
bet one’s bottom dollar’ is frequently heard.


Bottom Facts, subs. phr. (American).—The exact truth about any matter.
To ‘get to the bottom facts’ concerning a subject, is to arrive at an
unquestionable conclusion concerning it; or, as is said in England, to
get to the root of the question.

    1877. S. L. Clemens (‘Mark Twain’), Life on the Mississippi, p.
    393. You take a family able to emba’m, and you’ve got a soft thing.
    You can mention sixteen different ways to do it—though there aint
    only one or two ways when you come down to the bottom facts of
    it—and they’ll take the highest priced way every time. It’s human
    nature—human nature in grief.

The phrase is also varied by bottom rock.

    1888. Omaha World. Bottom Rock. Conductor (on California train some
    years hence)—‘All out for Pitholeville.’ Real Estate Agent
    (entering car)—‘Orange groves and apple orchards, two for a penny.’


Bottomless Pit, subs. (old slang).—A coarse and vulgar name for the
female pudenda. For synonyms, see Monosyllable.


Botty, subs. (popular).—An infant’s posteriors; the French say tu tu.

Adj. (popular).—Conceited; swaggering. To look botty is in French,
faire sa merde; faire son matador.


Bough, subs. (old).—The gallows. Tree (q.v.) is used in a similar
sense.

    1590. Swinburn, Testaments, 53. Or in Kent in Gauelkind ... for
    there it is said, the father to the boughe, and the son to the
    ploughe. [M.]

    1596. Spenser, State Irel., wks. (1862), p. 553, col. 2. Some ...
    have beene for their goods sake caught up, and carryed straight to
    the bough.

    1870. Morris, Earthly Par., III., iv., 77. If she doom thee to the
    bough.


Boughs. Up in the boughs, phr. (old).—In a passion. Quoted by Grose.


Bounce, subs. (common).—Brag; swagger; boastful falsehood and
exaggeration.

    1714. Steele, Lover (1723), 93. This is supposed to be only a
    bounce.

    1748. T. Dyche, Dictionary (5 ed.). Bounce (s.) ... also the huff,
    brag, or swaggering of a bully or great pretender.

    1765. Goldsmith, Haunch of Venison, l. 14. But hold—let me
    pause—don’t I hear you pronounce this tale of the bacon a damnable
    bounce?

    1856. Whyte Melville, Kate Coventry, ch. i. Only tell a man you
    think him good-looking, and he falls in love with you directly; or
    if that is too great a bounce—and indeed very few of them have the
    slightest pretensions to beauty—you need only hint that he rides
    gallantly.

    1880. Blackwood’s Mag., May, p. 670. The whole heroic adventure was
    the veriest bounce, the merest bunkum!

2. Impudence; cheek; brass (q.v.).

    1872–4. John Forster, Life of Dickens, ch. lx. It is the face of
    the Webster type, but without the bounce of Webster’s face.

3. A boaster; swaggerer; showy swindler; bully. Cf., Bouncer.

    1812. J. H. Vaux, Flash Dict. Bounce, a person well or fashionably
    drest is said to be a rank bounce.

Verb.—1. To boast; bluster; hector; bully; blow up.

    1633. Fletcher, Nt. Walkers, IV., i. I doe so whirle her to the
    Counsellors’ chambers ... and bounce her for more money.

    1698. Ward, London Spy, pt. XVIII., p. 428. With lies he tells his
    Bloody Feats, And Bounces like a Bully.

    1748. T. Dyche, Dictionary (5 ed.). Bounce (v.), to swagger, boast,
    crack, stump, or pretend to great matters.

    1749. Walpole, Lett. to Mann, 3 May (1833), vol. II., p. 374. The
    Lords had four tickets a-piece, and each Commoner at first but two,
    till the Speaker bounced and obtained a third.

    1760. Colman, Polly Honeycombe, in wks. (1777) IV., 55. Nay, nay,
    old gentleman, no bouncing; you’re mistaken in your man, sir!

    1859. H. Kingsley, Geoffrey Hamlyn, ch. v. ‘He’ll be drinking at
    all the places coming along to get his courage up to bounce me.’

    1883. Daily News, July 26, p. 4, col. 8. To bounce is simply to
    prevail on persons whose mirth interferes with the general
    enjoyment to withdraw from society which they embarrass rather than
    adorn.

2. To lie; to cheat; to swindle.

    1762. Foote, Liar, II., i. If it had come to an oath, I don’t think
    he would have bounced.

    1863. H. Kingsley, Austin Elliot, ch. x. ‘It’s them gals, Mr.
    Austin, got a shilling of mine among un somewhere, and wants to
    bounce me out of it.’

On the bounce, phr. (common).—In a state of spasmodic movement; general
liveliness.

    1889. Sporting Times, June 29. Funny to a degree was it to watch
    some of the select and chosen of Lord Coventry, Major Clements, and
    those that rule the interior of the Invited Enclosure at Ascot.
    Several well known defaulters would be observed going to and fro
    ‘on the bounce,’ including one young gentleman who once signed his
    surname uninitialled to a cheque which was cashed by a confiding
    tradesman, who took the said endorsement for that of his baronial
    parent.

To get the grand bounce, phr. (American).—This is equivalent, in
political parlance, to dismissal, especially in reference to government
appointments.


Bounceable, adj. (common).—Prone to bouncing or boasting; ‘uppish’;
‘bumptious.’ [From bounce (q.v.) + able.]

    1830. S. Warren, Diary of a Late Physician, ch. xvi. As soon as we
    had exhibited sundry doses of Irish cordial to our friend Tip—under
    the effects of which he became quite bouncible, and ranted about
    the feat he was to take a prominent part in.

    1849. Dickens, David Copperfield, ch. iv. I heard that Mr. Sharp’s
    wig didn’t fit him; and that he needn’t be so bounceable—somebody
    else said ‘bumptious’—about it.


Bouncer, subs. (common).—1. A bully; hector; blusterer; one who talks
swaggeringly. [From the verb bounce, senses 1 and 2, + er.]

    1748. T. Dyche, Dictionary (4 ed.). Bouncer (s.), a bully or
    hectoring bravado.

    1851–61. H. Mayhew, Lon. Lab. and Lon. Poor, IV., 24. Those who
    cheat the Public ... Bouncers and Besters defrauding, by laying
    wagers, swaggering, or using threats.

2. (thieves’.)—A thief who steals goods from shop counters while
bargaining with the tradesman. The exact French equivalent is
dégringoleur, and the practice itself is termed dégringoler à la carre.

3. (common.)—A lie; a liar. For synonyms, see Whopper. [This usage in
many instances completely overlaps sense 4.]

    1762. Foote, Liar, II., i. He will tell ye more lies in an hour,
    than all the circulating libraries put together will publish in a
    year ... he was always distinguished by the facetious appellation
    of the bouncer.

    1833. Marryat, Peter Simple, ch. xxxi. ‘He’s ... such a
    bouncer!!... I mean that he’s the greatest liar that ever walked a
    deck.’

    1872. M. E. Braddon, Dead Sea Fruit, ch. xxii. ‘In that case, I
    should say wait, and put your trust in Time—Time, the father of
    Truth, as Mary Stuart called him when she wanted to go in for a
    bouncer,—and oh, what an incredible number of royal bouncers were
    carried to and fro in the despatches of that period!’

4. (common.)—Anything large of its kind; a ‘whopper’; a ‘thumper’; a
‘corker.’

    1596. Nashe, Saffron Walden, in wks. III., 140. My Book will grow
    such a bouncer, that those which buy it must bee faine to hire a
    porter to carry it after them in a basket.

5. (American.)—A man who ejects; a ‘chucker-out’ (q.v.).

    1883. Daily News, July 26, p. 4, col. 8. The other fresh American
    type is less remarkable—the bouncer. One might suppose that a
    bouncer was a noisy braggart; but no. A scientific writer in the
    Nation describes a bouncer as a ‘silent, strong man.’ Every one who
    mixes much in society in Whitechapel will understand the functions
    of the bouncer when we explain that he is merely the English
    ‘chucker-out.’

6. (harlotry.)—A prostitute’s companion; ponce; bully. For synonyms,
see Ponce.

7. (naval.)—A gun that ‘kicks’ when fired.


Bouncing, ppl. adj. (common).—Vigorous; lusty; exaggerated; excessive;
big. This word has manifold meanings, referring, in its various senses,
to largeness of size, vigour of action, with the idea of ungainliness
rather than elegance. It is, as will be seen, of long continued use.

    c. 1563. Jacke Jugder, p. 42 (ed. Grosart). And made you a banket
    [banquet], and bouncing cheare.

    1588. Marprelate’s Epistle, p. 14 (ed. Arber). For there must bee
    orders of ministers in the congregation where you meane this
    bounsing priest should haue superiortie.

    1611. Middleton, Roaring Girle, Act iii., Sc. 3. The duck that sits
    is the bouncing ramp, that roaring girl my mistress.

    1748. Smollett, Rod. Random, ch. xix. While I was at work in the
    shop, a bouncing damsel, well dressed, came in.

    1846. Thackeray, Vanity Fair, ch. ii. By the side of many tall and
    bouncing young ladies in the establishment, Rebecca Sharp looked
    like a child.


Bouncing Cheat, subs. (old).—A bottle. [Bouncing, probably, says Grose,
an allusion to the explosive noise made in drawing a cork, + cheat, a
thing = Anglo Saxon ceat of the same meaning.] The French equivalent is
une rouillarde or rouille, said to be derived from rouler. Empty
bottles, it may be mentioned, are known as dead-men; camp-candlesticks;
dead-marines; fellow-commoners, etc. For other synonyms, see Dead-men.


Bounder, subs. (popular).—1. A four-wheeled cab or growler (q.v.).
[Supposed to be an allusion to the jolting motion caused when
travelling over a rough road, a fact intensified by the indifferent
springs upon which such vehicles are often hung.]

2. (University.)—A student whose manners are not acceptable; one whose
companionship is not cared for.

3. (University.)—A dog-cart. Cf., sense 1.

4. (common.)—A vulgar though well-dressed man; a superior kind of
‘’Arry’; one whose dress and personal appearance are correct, but whose
manners are of a questionable character. The term is very often used in
connection with bally (q.v.). a bally-bounder is one of the most
objectionable of the genus. A synonymous term is snide (q.v.), and
French equivalents are un mufe and un espèce de cafouilleux. A curious
instance of French back-slang is found in another name—un lof, loff,
loffard, loffe; lof here is fol reversed, i.e., mad, senseless,
foolish.


Bound To Be Had, Bound To Shine, etc., ppl. adj. (colloquial).—This
expression enters into many slang phrases; for instance, when it seems
certain that a man will be out-witted, cheated, or ‘bested,’ it is said
of him that he is bound to be had; similarly, a man fated or resolved
to distinguish himself is bound to shine. The colloquial use of bound
dates back as far as 1360, but the peculiar expressions which bring it
within the category of slang, are of much later origin. The following
quotation will illustrate the usage in question, and further examples
will be found under had, shine, etc.

    1864. Hartford Post, July 14. When the public have an opportunity
    of examining this beautiful steamer, they will pronounce her the
    finest and most comfortable boat they have ever visited, and be
    satisfied that she is bound to shine.


Boung.—See Bung.


Boung-Nipper.—See Bung-nipper.


Bounty-Jumper, subs. (American).—A term applied to men who, receiving a
bounty when enlisting, desert, re-enlist, and receive a second bounty.
[From bounty, a gratuity given to recruits on joining the army or navy,
+ jumper, a slang term for one who decamps surreptitiously.] The War of
the Rebellion is responsible for this, as for many other
colloquialisms. As the conflict lengthened out, men became in great
request, and large bounties were offered by the North for volunteers.
This bounty was found in many cases to be a direct incitement with
unprincipled men to bad faith and unfair dealing. Such would enlist,
receive their bounty, join their regiment, and then decamp, to reappear
in another State, to go through the same performance. Cases were known
where this was done many times over, and the practice was called
bounty-jumping.—See Jumping.

    1875. Higginson, History of United States, p. 306. Bringing into
    the service many bounty-jumpers, who enlisted merely for money, and
    soon deserted to enlist again.

    ante 1880. Song of the Bounty-Jumper (quoted in Bartlett).

        My song is of a fast young man whose name was Billy Wires;
        He used to run with the machine, and go to all the fires:
        But as he lov’d a soldier’s life, and wished strange things to
            see,
        So the thought struck him that he would go and jump the
            bounti-e.


Bounty-Jumping, subs. (American).—Obtaining a bounty by enlisting and
then deserting. Cf., Bounty-jumper.

    1887. Illus. Lon. News, May 14, 552, 1. In the Civil War in America
    between the Northern and Southern States, bounty-jumping, or
    enlisting, and obtaining the bounty in several regiments, and then
    deserting, rose to the dignity of a fine art.


Bourbon, subs. (American).—1. A Democrat of the straitest sect; a
fire-eater. Applied, for the most part, to the Southern Democrats of
the old school. This use of the word probably ante-dates the Civil War,
but no instance of such use has been found in print. Bourbon County,
Kentucky, is popularly associated with this kind of Democrat, but we
must look to the old Bourbon party in France—uncompromising adherents
of political tradition—for its true paternity.

2. A superior kind of whiskey; originally applied to that manufactured
in Bourbon, Kentucky. For synonyms, see Drinks.


Bouse, Bowse, Booze, subs. (old).—1. Applied to drink or liquor of any
kind. In the sixteenth century bouse formed part of the cant of beggars
and thieves; latterly the word, whether as substantive or verb, has
become colloquial. [Thought to be derived from the Dutch busen, to
drink to excess.] For synonyms, see Drinks.

    1567. Harman, Caveat (1814), p. 65. Bowse, drinke.

    1610. Rowlands, Martin Mark-all, p. 37 (H. Club’s Repr., 1874).
    Bowse, drinke.

    1633. Massinger, New Way to Pay Old Debts, I., i. Well. No bouse?
    nor no tobacco?

    1785. Grose, Dictionary Vulgar Tongue. Bouze, etc., drink.

    1811. Lexicon Balatronicum. As above.

2. (old.)—A drinking bout; a carouse. This sense is more frequently
current than sense 1.

Verb.—To drink to excess; to tipple; to ‘swill.’ Both this and the
substantive seem to have been known as early as 1300, but neither came
into general use until the sixteenth century, from which period both
forms have become more and more colloquial. For synonyms, see Lush.

    1567. Harman, Caveat, p. 32. They bowle and bowse one to another,
    and for the tyme bousing belly chere.

    1592. Nashe, Pierce Penilesse. Who surmise, if there were no
    playes, they should have all the companie that resort to them bye
    bowzing and beere-bathing in their houses everie afternoone.

    1615. Harington, Epigrams.

        Yet such the fashion is of Bacchus crue
        To quaffe and bowze, until they belch and spue.
        Well, leave it, Marcus, else thy drinking health.
        Will prove an eating to thy wit and wealth.

So also bouser, a toper; bousing, hard drinking; and bousy, intoxicated
or ‘screwed.’

Bouse the jib, verbal phr. (nautical).—To tipple; to drink heavily.—See
Lush.


Bousing Ken, subs. (old).—A tavern; inn; or drinking den; now applied
to a low public house. For synonyms, see Lush crib.

    1567. Harman, Caveat. Man. What, stowe your bene, cofe, and cut
    benat whydds, and byng we to rome vyle, to nyp a bong; so shall we
    haue lowre for the bousing ken, and when we byng back to the
    deuseauyel, we wyll fylche some duddes of the Ruffemans, or myll
    the ken for a bagge of dudes.

    1652. Brome, Jovial Crew, II., wks. (1873) III., 390 ... As Tom or
    Tib When they at bowsing ken do swill.

    1819. Moore, Tom Crib’s Memorial to Congress, p. 27. But
    notwithstanding the Protean nature of the Flash or Cant language,
    the greater part of its vocabulary has remained unchanged for
    centuries, and many of the words used by the Canting Beggars in
    Beaumont and Fletcher, and the Gipsies in Ben Jonson’s Masque, are
    still to be heard among the Gnostics of Dyot-street and
    Tothill-fields. To prig is still to steal; to fib, to beat; lour,
    money; duds, clothes; prancers, horses; bouzing-ken, an alehouse;
    cove, a fellow; a sou’s baby, a pig, etc., etc.


Bouzy.—See Boozy.


Bow. Two (or many) strings to one’s bow, phr. (colloquial).—To have an
alternative; more resources than one. The phrase sometimes formerly ran
to have many strings to the bow. Numerous figurative expressions in all
languages indicate the dominant pursuits of the respective nations; the
English abounds in habitual phrases testifying to the engrossing
avocations in all times. It is in this manner that to have two strings
to one’s bow has passed into proverbial usage. In the fourteenth
century—a Frenchman, Gaston de Foix, said of our ancestors, ‘Of bows I
know not much, but who would know more, let him go to England, for that
is truly their business.’ In the olden time, archery, as the dominant
pursuit, gave figures of speech to the language—with the very pith of
wisdom or Saxon sarcasm. If you made an enemy’s machinations recoil
upon himself, you ‘outshot a man in his own bow.’ If you are a cautious
man, ‘Always have two strings to your bow,’ and ‘Get the shaft-hand of
your adversaries,’ or ‘Draw not thy bow before thy arrow be fixed.’ Of
course, if you can ‘Kill two birds with one shaft,’ so much the better.
Never ‘shoot wide of the mark’—that is, don’t make a foolish guess on a
subject you know nothing about. Of useless, silly conversation, our
ancestors said—‘The fool’s bolt is soon shot’; and if a man evidently
exaggerated, he was said to ‘draw a long bow.’ If a man’s pretensions
were not in accordance with the facts of his case—in other words, if he
came under the category of ‘false pretences’—it was said that he ‘had a
famous bow, but it was up at the Castle.’ Vain military and other
boasters were the many who ‘talked of Robin Hood, but who never shot
his bow.’ ‘An archer is known by his aim, and not by his arrows’; that
is, if you are not answerable for your materials, at least show your
skill in the modus operandi; or at all events, don’t depend entirely
upon your tool.

    1562. Heywood, Prov. and Epigr. (1867), 30. Ye have many stryngis
    to the bowe. [M.]

    1588. Marprelate’s Epistle, p. 18 (ed. Arber). Doe you not thinke
    that I haue two strings to my bow.

    1606. John Day, Isle of Gulls, Act ii., Sc. 2, p. 39. A wise man’s
    bow goes with a two-fold string.

    1748. Smollett, Rod. Random, ch. xvii. He was resolved to have two
    strings to his bow, that in case the one failed, he might use the
    other.

(?) T. Brown, wks. IV., 115, ed. 1760. A man in Amsterdam is suffer’d
to have but one religion, whereas in London he may have two strings to
his bow.

    1886. Mrs. Riddell, For Dick’s Sake, ch. iv., p. 11 (S.P.C.K.). She
    had a second string to her bow, which suited her far better; and
    she sent Dick back his letters and his presents, and a note
    beginning, ‘Dear sir,’ and ending ‘Yours truly.’

To draw the long bow, phr. (colloquial).—To exaggerate; to ‘gas’; to
‘talk up.’

    1819–24. Byron, Don Juan, xvi., 1. They ... draw the long bow
    better now than ever.

To draw the bow up to the ear, phr. (colloquial).—To do a thing with
alacrity; ‘to put on full steam’; to exert oneself to the utmost.

    1860. Macmillan’s Mag., Feb., p. 258. So Miller, the coxswain, took
    to drawing the bow up to the ear at once.


Bow-Catcher, subs. (common).—A kiss-curl. For synonyms, see
Aggerawator. [A corruption of ‘beau-catcher.’ Cf., Bell-rope.]


Bowdlerize, verb (colloquial).—To expurgate by removing offensive or
questionable words from a book or writing. [From Dr. T. Bowdler’s
method in editing an edition of Shakspeare, in which, to use his own
words, ‘Those ... expressions are omitted which cannot with propriety
be read aloud in a family.’]

    1836. Gen. P. Thompson, Let. in Exerc. (1842), IV., 124. Among the
    names ... are many, like Hermes, Nereus, ... which modern
    ultra-christians would have thought formidably heathenish; while
    Epaphroditus and Narcissus they would probably have bowdlerized.

    1870. Notes and Queries, 4 S., vi., p. 47. No profane hand shall
    dare, for me, to curtail my Chaucer, to bowdlerise my Shakspeare,
    or to mutilate my Milton.

    1874. E. L. Linton, Patricia Kemball, ch. iii. Her uncle had not
    made her read much beside the Bible and Shakspeare, which last he
    had bowdlerised on his own account with a broad pen and very thick
    ink.

From this comes bowdlerization, squeamish emasculation of a work; also
bowdlerizer, etc.

    1882. Westm. Review, April, p. 583. The bowdlerization which the
    Editor has thought necessary is done in an exceedingly awkward and
    clumsy fashion.


Bower, subs. (American thieves’).—A prison—a transferred usage of the
orthodox word. For synonyms, see Cage.


Bowery Boy, Bowery Girl, subs. (American).—The ’Arry and ’Arriet of New
York of some years ago. The Bowery is a well known thoroughfare in the
American metropolis. [Formerly spelt bouwerij, and derived from bouw,
tillage, or bouwen, to till, to cultivate, being equivalent to the
modern Dutch word boerderij, a farm, or the business of farming. The
Bowery was the farm of Governor Stuyvesant.] Cf., Blood tub.


Bowlas, subs. (common).—Explained by quotation.

    1851–61. H. Mayhew, London Lab. and Lon. Poor, vol. I., p. 208.
    Bowlas, or round tarts made of sugar, apple, and bread.


Bowled, ppl. adj. (Winchester).—Croppled (q.v.).


Bowler.—See Boler.


Bowles, subs. (common).—Shoes. For synonyms, see Trotter-cases.


Bowl Out, verb (popular).—To overcome; to get the better of; to defeat.
[Formerly a cricketing term—to bowl a man out by displacing the bails.]
Cf., Bowl over. Among thieves it signifies, in a transitive form, to be
arrested or ‘lagged.’

    1812. J. H. Vaux, Flash Dictionary. Bowled out, when he [a thief]
    is ultimately taken, tried, and convicted [he] is said to be bowled
    out at last.

    1817. Scott, Rob Roy, ch. iii. The polite and accomplished
    adventurer, who nicked you out of your money at White’s, or bowled
    you out of it at Marybone.

    1852. F. E. Smedley, Lewis Arundel, ch. xxiv. ‘He’s handsomer than
    you are; if you don’t mind your play, he’ll bowl you out.’

    1877. Five Years’ Penal Servitude, ch. ii., p. 121. Now and again a
    warder does get bowled out, and comes to grief. At the very least
    he loses his situation.


Bowl Over, verb (popular).—To defeat; to worst. Cf., Bowl out.

    1862. Cornhill Mag., p. 729. You have bowled me over, and I know I
    can’t get up again.

    1878. Stanley, Through the Dark Continent, II., p. 291. I sent in a
    zinc bullet close to the ear, which bowled it [the rhinoceros]
    over, dead.

    1880. A. Trollope, The Duke’s Children, ch. xlvii. He confessed to
    himself that he was completely bowled over,—‘knocked off his pins!’


Bowl the Hoop, subs. (rhyming slang).—Soup.


Bowman, adv. (old).—See quotation.

    1839. Harrison Ainsworth, Jack Sheppard [1889], p. 11. Help!
    ejaculated Wood, renewing his cries. Arrest! Jigger closed! shouted
    a hoarse voice in reply. All’s bowman, my covey. Fear nothing.
    We’ll be upon the ban-dogs before they can shake their trotters!


Bowse.—See Booze.


Bowsing Ken.—See Bousing ken.


Bowsprit, subs. (popular).—The nose.—See Boltsprit.

To have one’s bowsprit in parenthesis is to have it pulled. ‘To have
one’s head in Coventry’ will occur to mind as another English slang
phrase very similar in character.


Bow-Window, subs. (common).—A stomach of large proportions. [A bay or
bow-window is properly a curved window, hence the transference of the
term to a big belly.] Also bow-windowed, i.e., big-bellied.

    1840. Marryat, Poor Jack, ch. i. He was a very large man ... with
    what is termed a considerable bow-window in front.

    1849–50. Thackeray, Pendennis, xxxiv. (1884), 334. Look at that
    very bow-windowed man. [M.]

    1889. Daily Telegraph, May 6. She was what is vulgarly called
    bow-windowed.


Bow-Wow, subs. (common).—1. A childish name for a dog.

    1800. Cowper, Beau’s Reply.

        Let my obedience then excuse
          My disobedience now,
        Nor some reproof yourself refuse
          From your aggrieved bow-wow.

    18(?82). Broadside Ballad, ‘I haven’t for a long time now.’

        I used to have a sweetheart, once,
          A precious little pearl!
        Indeed she was—she really was,
          A very charming girl.

        I sang outside her door each night
          Till her father bought a big bow-wow,
        But I haven’t—haven’t—
          I haven’t for a long time now!

2. (old.)—A Bostonian—a term of contempt.

3. (popular.)—A cavalier; lover; specially applied to a man who dangles
after a woman. Also see Tame cat.

    1877. Chamb. Journal, 12 March, p. 173. Mrs. Brittomart was one of
    those who never tolerated a bow-wow—a species of animal well known
    in India—and never went to the hills as a ‘grass-widow.’


Bow-Wow-Mutton, subs. (old).—Dog’s flesh. [From bow-wow, a humorous
term for a dog, + mutton, here used generically for meat.]


Bow-Wow-Word, subs. (common).—A term applied sarcastically by Max
Müller to words for which it is claimed that they are in imitation of
natural sounds, i.e., onomatopoetic words, of which a full list will be
found under Cachunk.


Bowyer, subs. (old).—One who draws a ‘long bow’; a dealer in the
marvellous; a teller of improbable stories; a liar.—See Long bow.


Box, subs. (thieves’).—A prison cell.

    1834. Harrison Ainsworth, Rookwood, p. 89.

        In a box of the stone-jug I was born,
        Of a hempen widow the kid forlorn
                              Fake away.

    1878. Notes and Queries, 5 S., x., p. 214. The box in the stone-jug
    is doubtless a cell.

Verb (Westminster School).—To take possession of; ‘to bag.’

To be in a box, phr. (common).—To be cornered; in a fix; ‘stuck’ or
‘hung up.’

To be in the wrong box, verbal phr. (colloquial).—To be out of one’s
element; to be in a false position; mistaken. Brewer traces this to
Lord Lyttelton, who, being of rather a melancholy disposition, used to
tell his friends that when he went to Vauxhall he was always supposing
pleasure to be in the next box to his, or at least that he himself was
so unhappily situated as always to be in the wrong box for it. The only
objection to be raised to this story is that the phrase is a very old
one, of which the derivation is now lost.

    1554. Ridley (‘Foxe,’ 1838), vi., 438. Sir, quoth I, if you will
    hear how St. Augustine expoundeth that place, you shall perceive
    that you are in a wrong box.

    1588. J. Udall, Distrephes, p. 31. I perceive that you and I are in
    a wrong box.

    1751. Smollett, Peregrine Pickle, ch. xliii. ‘That, I grant you,
    must be confessed: doctor, I’m afraid we have got into the wrong
    box.’

    1836. Marryat, Midshipman Easy, ch. x. ‘Take care your rights of
    man don’t get you in the wrong box—there’s no arguing on board of a
    man-of-war.’

On the box, phr. (workmen’s).—A man when on strike and in receipt of
strike pay is said to be on the box.

    1889. Daily News, 19 Nov., p. 6, col. 7. The ‘Blackleg’ Question
    Arising. As these have to be allowed strike pay in order to keep
    them out of temptation, the number of men on the box, as they say
    in the North, may be taken to be a thousand.


Box Harry, verbal phr. (commercial travellers’).—Among bag-men to take
dinner and tea together; ‘dining out,’ i.e., doing without a meal at
all.


Box Hat, subs. (common).—A silk hat. For synonyms, see Cady.


Box-Irons, subs. (old).—Shoes. For synonyms, see Trotter-cases.

    1789. Geo. Parker, Life’s Painter, p. 173. Shoes. Hockey-dockies,
    or Box-irons.


Box of Dominoes, subs. phr. (popular).—The mouth. [From box + dominoes
(q.v.), a slang term for the teeth.] For synonyms, see Potato-trap.


Box the Compass, verbal phr. (nautical).—To repeat in succession, or
irregularly, the thirty-two points of the compass; beginners on
accomplishing this feat are said to be able to box the compass.

    1751. Smollett, Peregrine Pickle, ch. vi. ‘A light, good-humoured,
    sensible wench, who knows very well how to box her compass.’

    1753. Chambers, Cycl. Supp. Boxing, among sailors, is used to
    denote the rehearsing the several points of the compass in their
    proper order. [M.]

    1836. Marryat, Midsh. Easy, xviii. I can raise a perpendicular ...
    and box the compass.

    1867. Smyth, Sailors’ Word Book. To box the compass. Not only to
    repeat the names of the thirty-two points in order and backwards,
    but also to be able to answer any and all questions respecting its
    division.


Box the Jesuit, verbal phr. (old).—See Cockroaches.


Boy, subs. (popular).—1. Champagne. [A story, ben trovato, is told by
the Sporting Times of June 30, 1882, as regards the origin of the
phrase:—At a shooting party in Norfolk once, a youth was told off to
supply the company with champagne. The day being hot and the sportsmen
thirsty, cries of ‘Boy! Boy! Boy!’ were heard all day long. This
tickling the fancy of the royal and noble party, the term ‘boy’ became
applied to champagne.] Also called fiz and cham (q.v.). The latter form
is nearly reproduced in the French slang, le champ; they also brutally
speak of this wine as coco épileptique, another epithet being cidre
élégant.

    1882. Punch, vol. LXXXII., p. 69, col. 2. ‘The fine young London
    Gentleman.’

        He will say that port and sherry his nice palate always cloy;
        He’ll nothing drink but ‘B. and S.’ and big magnums of the boy;
        He’s the darling of the Barmaid, and the honest waiter’s joy,
        As he quaffs his Pommery ‘Extra Sec,’ his ‘Giesler’ or ‘Ivroy,’
        Like a fine young London Gentleman,
        Quite of the present style.

    1882. Punch, vol. LXXXII., p. 155, col. 1. Dined with Tom and Corky
    at a new place they had discovered, and raved of. Of course,
    beastly dinner, but very good boy. Had two magnums of it.

    1883. Punch, August 18, p. 84, col. 1. Shall it be B.-and-S., or
    bumpers of the boy?

2. (common.)—A hump on a man’s back. In low circles it is usual to
speak of a humpbacked man as two persons—‘him and his boy,’ and from
this much coarse fun and personality are at times evolved.

3. (Anglo-Indian and colonial.)—A servant of whatever age.

Old boy, subs. (popular).—1. A familiar term of address. The old boy is
one’s father; the ‘guv’nor,’ or ‘boss.’ Sometimes my boy.

    1602. Shaks., Twel. N., ii., 4, 122. But di’de thy sister of her
    loue my boy? [M.]

    1740. Richardson, Pamela, III., 380. Never fear, old boy, said Sir
    Charles, we’ll bear our Parts in Conversation. [M.]

2. The devil. For synonyms, see Skipper.

    1835–40. Haliburton, Clockmaker, (1862), 140. As we invigorate the
    form of government (as we must do, or go to the old boy).

Yellow boy, subs. (common).—A guinea; also, one pound sterling. [From
the colour.] As will be seen the term is an old one. For synonyms, see
Canary.

    1663. Dryden, Wild Gallant, Act i.

        How now, yellow boys, by this good light!
        Sirrah, varlet, how came I by this gold?

    1712. Arbuthnot, History of John Bull, pt. I., ch. vi. There wanted
    not yellow boys to fee counsel, hire witnesses, and bribe juries.

    1840. Dickens, Old Curiosity Shop, ch. xlii. ‘The delight of
    picking up the money—the bright, shining yellow boys—and sweeping
    ’em into one’s pocket!’


Boys, subs. (popular).—This word is very generally in use in the
plural. Thus, bookmakers speak of their fellows, in the aggregate, as
the boys; and it must be noted as a curious fact that on race-courses
the whole army of the swindling and thieving fraternity are so
designated.

Angry or roaring boys, subs. (old).—A set of young bucks, bloods or
blades (q.v.), of noisy manners and ‘fire-eating’ tastes. Nares says
‘like the Mohawks’ (q.v.) described by the Spectator, they delighted to
commit outrages and get into quarrels. Early mention is made of such
characters. Wilson, in his Life of James I. [1653], gives an account of
their origin:—The king minding his sports, many riotous demeanours
crept into the kingdom; divers sects of vicious persons, going under
the title of roaring boys, bravadoes, roysterers, etc., commit many
insolencies; the streets swarm, night and day, with bloody quarrels,
private duels fomented, etc.

    1599. Greene, Tu Quoque, Old Plays, vii., 25.

        This is no angry, nor no roaring boy, but a blustering boy.

    1609. Ben Jonson, Epicœne, i., 4. The doubtfulness of your phrase,
    believe it, sir, would breed you a quarrel once an hour with the
    terrible boys, if you should but keep ’em fellowship a day.

    1610. Ben Jonson, Alchemist, iii., 4.

        Sir, not so young, but I have heard some speech
        Of the angry boys, and seen ’em take tobacco.

    1616. Beaumont and Fletcher, Scornful Lady, iv., 1.

        Get thee another nose, that will be pull’d
        Off, by the angry boys, for thy conversion.


Boys of the Holy Ground, subs. phr. (old).—Formerly [1800–25] bands of
roughs infesting a well-known region in St. Giles.—See Holy Land.

    1819. Moore, Tom Crib’s Memorial to Congress, p. 7.

        For we are the boys of the holy ground,
        And we’ll dance upon nothing and turn us round.


Brace, verb (American thieves’).—To get credit by swagger.

Brace it through, phr. (American).—To succeed by dint of sheer
impudence. Cf., Brace up, ‘to gird oneself up,’ ‘to buckle to.’


Bracelets, subs. (familiar).—Handcuffs; fetters for the wrist.
[Derivation obvious.] French thieves call them les alliances, properly
‘wedding rings’; also la tartouve and les lacets. For synonyms, see
Darbies.

    1661. Wit and Drollery, quoted in Disraeli Cur. of Wit. (Tom
    O’Bedlams.) [Fetters are called bracelets in a song in this work.]

    1671. R. Head, English Rogue, pt. I., ch. lv., p. 371 (1874).
    Fetters confined my legs from stragling, and bracelets were clapt
    upon my arms.

    1839. Harrison Ainsworth, Jack Sheppard (1889), p. 62. ‘Thank
    you—thank you!’ faltered Jack, in a voice full of emotion. ‘I’ll
    soon free you from these bracelets.’

    1848. W. H. Ainsworth, James the Second, bk. I., ch. ii. ‘It may
    be, young squire, you’ll have to go ... with a pair of bracelets on
    your wrists, and pay your next reck’nin’ to the gov’nor of
    Newgate.’

    1877. Five Years’ Penal Servitude, ch. v., p. 359. He travels with
    other people who are also bound to London, and who, seeing him
    handcuffed, know very well his steel bracelets are not the insignia
    of honour.


Brace of Shakes, phr. (popular).—In a moment; ‘jiffy’; ‘twinkling of an
eye,’ etc.—See, however, Shakes. The expression is sometimes a couple,
instead of a brace of shakes. A French equivalent is far-far.

    1837. Barham, I. L. (Babes in the Wood). I’ll be back in a couple
    of shakes.

    1868. Ouida, Under Two Flags, ch. xii. ‘But I’ve a trick with a
    ’oss that’ll set that sort o’ thing—if it ain’t gone too far, that
    is to say—right in a brace of shakes.’

    1884. Cornhill Mag., Jan., p. 101. ‘If there were any boys at
    Oppingbury now like those who were here when I was young, they’d
    break the window in a couple of shakes.’


Brace Up, verb (thieves’).—1. To pawn stolen goods—generally to their
utmost value.

2. (American.)—To take a drink. [A transferred sense; from brace-up =
to string up; to give firmness to.]

    1888. Puck’s Library, Ap., p. 20. Come old boy, let’s brace up; a
    bumper will pull you together again.


Bracket-Faced, adj. (old).—Ugly; hard-featured.—Grose.


Bracket-Mug, subs. (common).—An ugly face. [From bracket (Cf.,
Bracket-faced) + mug, a slang term for the face.] For synonyms, see
Hatchet-face.


Brads, subs. (common).—A generic term for money. De Vaux (see quot.),
though somewhat limiting the meaning, uses the term elsewhere as
equivalent to ‘pence’ or ‘coppers.’ It possibly originated among
shoemakers, brads being small rivets or nails largely employed by them.
Cf., Horse-nails, and for synonyms, Actual.

    1812. J. H. Vaux, Flash Dict. Brads, halfpence; also money in
    general.

    1855. Punch, XXIX., 10. [Cf., Punch’s suggestion for a ‘fast’
    partner in banks who should enquire of customers] ‘Will you take it
    in flimsies, or will you have it all in tin? Come, look sharp, my
    downy one, and I’ll fork out the brads like bricksy wicksy.’

    1868. Brewer, Phrase and Fable, s.v. ‘B Flats.’ Four B’s, essential
    for social success.—Blood, brains, brass, brads [money].—American.

    1888–9. Payne, Eavesdropper, pt. II., ch. ii. They used such funny
    terms: ‘brads’ and ‘dibbs’ ... at last it was borne in upon me that
    they were talking about money.

Tip the brads.—See quotation and Tip.

    1821. W. T. Moncrieff, Tom and Jerry, Act i., Sc. 4. [To] tip the
    brads—and down with the dust, is to be at once good, great,
    handsome, accomplished, and everything that’s desirable—money,
    money, is your universal good,—only get into Tip Street, Jerry.


Brag, subs. (thieves’).—A usurer; a Jew. Cf., Sixty-per-cent.


Braggadocia, subs. (thieves’).—This is explained in Dickens’ Reprinted
Pieces (in a footnote) to mean three months’ imprisonment as reputed
thieves. It is difficult to trace the connection between this and the
ordinary meaning of braggadocio.

    1857. Dickens, Reprinted Pieces (Three ‘Detective’ Anecdotes, The
    Artful Touch), p. 253. ‘We don’t take much by this move, anyway,
    for nothing’s found upon ’em, and it’s only the braggadocia after
    all.’


Brain Pan, subs. (sporting).—1. The skull, or skull-cap. Also called
brain-canister. Hotten quotes the term as of pugilistic origin, but it
ante-dates the palmy days of the ‘Fancy’ by many years. Brain pan in
this sense can, perhaps, hardly be classed as slang; not so, however,
sense 2. The Scotch equivalent is harn-pan.—See quotations under sense
2.

2. (common.)—The head itself. For general synonyms, see Chump.

    b. 1529. Skelton, Elynoor Rommin, in Hart. Misc. (ed. Park), I.,
    417.

        Upon her brain pan
        Like an Egyptian
        Capped about.

    1608. Dekker, Belman of London, in wks. (Grosart) III., 91. The
    spirit of her owne malt walkt in her brayne pan.

    1609. Dekker, Gul’s Hornbook, Prœmium. Tarleton, Kemp, nor Singer
    ... never played the clownes more naturally then the arrantest Sot
    of you all shall if hee will but boyle my Instructions in his
    braine-pan.

    1622. Massinger, Virgin-Martyr, ii., 2.

        Oh, sir, his brain-pan is a bed of snakes,
        Whose sting shoots through his eye-balls.

    1817. Scott, Rob Roy, ch. xxxiii. ‘Weize a brace of balls through
    his harn-pan!’

    1822. Scott, Fortunes of Nigel, ch. xi. ‘Were I your master,
    sirrah, ... I would make your brain-pan, as you call it, boil over,
    were you to speak a word in my presence before you were spoken to.’


Bramble, subs. (provincial slang).—In Kent a lawyer is so called;
obviously a sarcastic allusion to the ‘tangles’ of the law.


Bramble-Gelder (provincial slang).—A derisive appellation for an
agriculturist; a Suffolk term.


Bran, subs. (common).—A loaf. [In all likelihood this is a mere
abbreviation of bran-loaf.] For synonyms, see Tommy.

    1837. Dickens, Oliver Twist, ch. viii. He purchased a sufficiency
    of ready-dressed ham and a half-quartern loaf, or, as he himself
    expressed it, ‘a fourpenny bran!’ Ibid, p. 306. Two half-quartern
    brans, pound of best fresh.


Branded Ticket, subs. (nautical).—Admiral Smyth [1867] quotes this as
‘a discharge given to an infamous man, on which his character is given,
and the reason he is turned out of the service.’


Brandy Face, subs. (old).—A tippler; a drunkard, especially one whose
favourite drink is brandy.

    a. 1687. Cotton, Æneid, II. Burl. (1692), 85. You goodman
    brandy-face, unfist her. [M.]


Brandy-Faced, ppl. adj. (general).—Red-faced; bloated. [A reference to
the effects upon the physiognomy of excessive indulgence in
intoxicating drinks.] The expression is mentioned by Grose as early as
1785, but it is probably still older, for see quotation under
brandy-face.

    1859. G. A. Sala, Tw. Round Clock, 284. Hulking labourers and
    brandy-faced viragos, squabbling at tavern doors.


Brandy is Latin for Goose or For Fish, phr. (popular).—This punning
vulgarism appears first in Swift’s Polite Conversation, and Brewer thus
states the philological equation.

    What is the Latin for Goose? (Answer) Brandy. The pun is on the
    word answer. Anser is the Latin for goose, which brandy follows as
    surely and quickly as an answer follows a question.

    1738. Swift, Polite Conversation (conv. ii.). Lord Sm. Well, but
    after all, Tom, can you tell me what’s Latin for a goose? Nev. O my
    lord, I know that; Why, brandy is Latin for a goose, and Tace is
    Latin for a candle.

    1835. Marryat, Jacob Faithful, ch. xi. ‘Art thou forward in thy
    learning? Canst thou tell me Latin for goose?’ ‘To be sure,’
    replied Tom, ‘brandy.’

As regards the second form, namely, brandy is Latin for fish, the
origin is more obscure, although it is to some extent explained in the
following quotation.

    1851. Mayhew, London Labour and London Poor, I., 125. We are told
    that the thirst and uneasy feeling at the stomach, frequently
    experienced after the use of the richer species of fish, have led
    to the employment of spirit to this kind of food. Hence, says Dr.
    Pereira, the vulgar proverb, brandy is Latin for fish.


Brandy Pawnee, subs. (Anglo-Indian).—Brandy and water. [From brandy +
Hindustan pānī, water. Cf., Parney, also a slang term for water.]

    1816. Quiz, Grand Master, pref. And died at last with brandy pauny.
    [M.]

    1855. Thackeray, Newcomes, ch. i. ‘I’m sorry to see you, gentlemen,
    drinking brandy-pawnee,’ says he; ‘it plays the deuce with our
    youngest men in India.’

    1860. W. H. Russell, My Diary in India, I., p. 120. They had tiffin
    at two; hot lunch and ale and brandy-pawnee.


Brandy Smash, subs. (popular).—An American drink concocted of brandy
and crushed ice. Cf., Drinks.

    1862. E. MacDermott, Popular Guide to International Exhibition,
    1862, p. 185. In the vestibule of each refreshment room there is an
    American bar, where visitors may indulge in ‘juleps,’ ‘cocktails,’
    ‘cobblers,’ ‘rattlesnakes,’ ‘gum-ticklers,’ ‘eye-openers,’
    ‘flashes-o’-lightning,’ brandy-smashes, ‘stone-fences,’ and a
    variety of similar beverages.

    1869. S. Clemens (‘Mark Twain’), Innocents Abroad. We procured the
    services of a gentleman experienced in the nomenclature of the
    American bar ... a bowing, aproned Frenchman stepped forward and
    said Que veulent les messieurs? Our general said (after naming
    several other drinks) give us a brandy smash; the Frenchman began
    to back away suspicious of the ominous vigour of the last order.

    1883. Daily Telegraph, 2 July, p. 5, col. 3. [Brandy-smash is
    mentioned in a list of American drinks.]

    1888. New York Evening Post, 24 Feb. Philological.—Gallic
    Tourist—‘I do not see how any one ever learns the absurd English. I
    read on the menu of drinks, ‘Sherree Cobblair,’ I find in the
    dictionary—a mender of shoes of sherry wine; ‘Santa Cruz Sour,’ La
    Sainte Croix acide; brandy smash, ‘Eau de vie écrasé.’ Bête de
    langue!’


Bran-Mash, subs. (military).—Bread sopped in coffee or tea. Cf.,
Floating batteries.


Brass, subs. (popular).—1. Impudence; effrontery; brass being a type of
unblushing hardness, shamelessness, etc. This colloquialism is by no
means of yesterday, having been used by Shakspeare. Sometimes rendered
bold as brass. Cf., Cheek, which also see for synonyms.

    1594. Shakspeare, Love’s Labour Lost, v., 2, 395. Biron. Thus pour
    the stars down plagues for perjury. Can any face of brass hold
    longer out?

    1701. Defoe, True Born Englishman, pt. II. By my Old Friend [The
    Devil], who printed in my face A needful competence of English
    brass.

    1703. Farquhar, Inconstant, Act i., Sc. 2. Thou hast impudence to
    set a good face upon anything; I would change half my gold for half
    thy brass, with all my heart.

    1740. North, Examen, p. 256. She in her defence made him appear
    such a rogue upon record, that the Chief Justice wondered he had
    the brass to appear in a court of justice.

    1773. O. Goldsmith, She Stoops to Conquer, Act iii., Sc. 1. ‘To me
    he appears the most impudent piece of brass that ever spoke with a
    tongue.’

    1819. Moore, Tom Crib’s Memorial to Congress, p. 68. Oh, what a
    face of brass was his, Who first at Congress show’d his phyz.

    1852. Dickens, Bleak House, ch. lv., p. 462. ‘I haven’t brass
    enough in my composition, to see him in this place and under this
    charge.’

    1876. C. H. Wall, trans. Molière, vol. I., p. 18. Gorgibus is a
    simpleton, a boor, who will readily believe everything you say,
    provided ... you have brass enough.

    1876. C. Hindley, Life and Adventures of a Cheap Jack, p. 199. He
    started with a lot of tin, but had not sufficient brass or physique
    to stand the wear-and-tear of the life.

2. (common.)—A generic term for money. At one time money was made of
brass, hence probably the slang usage. Cf., Tin.

    1526. Tyndale, Matt. x., 9. Posses not golde, nor silver, nor
    brasse yn youre gerdels.

    1597. Hall, Satires, IV., v., 12.

        Hirelings enow beside can be so base,
        Tho’ we should scorn each bribing varlet’s brass.

    1860. Mrs. Gaskell, Sylvia’s Lovers, ch. xx. ‘There’ll be Fosters
    i’ th’ background, as one may say, to take t’ biggest share on t’
    profits,’ said Bell. ‘Ay, ay, that’s but as it should be, for I
    reckon they’ll ha’ to find the brass the first.’

    1864. M. E. Braddon, Aurora Floyd, ch. xii. ‘Steeve’s a little too
    fond of the brass to murder any of you for nothing.’

    1884. Hawley Smart, From Post to Finish, p. 129. ‘It’s noa use
    they’re telling us afterwards they ain’t collared the brass.’

    1889. Sporting Times, June 29. Billy Wells. What the dickens is all
    this about the hats? We have seventy-two telegrams and letters on
    the subject, and would prefer the brass.


Brass-Bound and Copper Fastened, adj. phr. (nautical).—Said of a lad
dressed in a midshipman’s uniform.—W. Clark Russell.


Brass-Bounder, subs. (nautical).—A midshipman.


Brasser, subs. (Christ’s Hospital).—A bully.


Brass Farthing or Farde.—The lowest limit of value.—See quots.

    1642. Rogers, Naaman, 33. As bare and beggarly as if he had not one
    brasse farthing. [M.]

    1880. Punch’s Almanac, p. 5. Nobby button’-oler very well When one
    wants to do the ’eavy swell; Otherwise don’t care not one brass
    farden, For the best ever blowed in Covent Garden.

    1880. Besant and Rice, Seamy Side, x., 78. I care not one brass
    farthing.


Brass Knocker, subs. (vagrants’).—Broken victuals; the remains of a
meal. Specially applied by beggars to the scraps often bestowed upon
them in place of money.


Brass-Plate Merchant, subs. (common).—Explained by quotation.

    1851. H. Mayhew, London Labour and London Poor, II., p. 95. The
    brass-plate merchant, as he is called in the trade, being a person
    who merely procures orders for coal, gets some merchant who buys in
    the coal-market to execute them in his name, and manages to make a
    living by the profits of these transactions.


Brassy, adj. (common).—Impudent; impertinent; shameless. Cf., Brass,
sense 1.

    1570–76. Lambarde, Peramb. Kent (1826), 156. To make them blush ...
    were they never so brassie and impudent.

    1661. T. Middleton, Mayor of Quinborough, iii., 1. There’s no
    gallant so brassy impudent durst undertake the words that shall
    belong to’t.

    1738–1819. Wolcot, P. Pindar, p. 73, ed. 1830.

        No. Mr. Gattle—Betty was too brassy,
        We never keep a servant that is saucy.

    1862. Mrs. H. Wood, Channings, ch. xxxii. ‘I asked him to leave his
    name, sir, and he said Mr. Rowland Yorke knew his name quite well
    enough without having it left for him.’ ‘As brassy as that was he!
    I wish to goodness it was the fashion to have a cistern in your
    house roofs’!


Brazen-Faced, ppl. adj. (common).—Shameless; impudent; unblushing. With
a face as of brass, see Brass. Hotten remarks that such a person is
sometimes said to have had his face rubbed with a brass candle-stick.

    1571. Golding, Calvin on Ps., xii., 5. With such brazenfaste
    baldnesse.

    1596. Nashe, Saffron Walden, in wks. III., 84. Amidst his impudent
    brazen-fac’d defamation of Doctor Ferne.

    1693. Dryden, Juvenal, III., 133. Quick-witted, brazen-fac’d, with
    fluent tongues.

    1714. Memoirs of John Hall (4 ed.), p. 10. Thus with an
    unparallell’d Impudence every brazen-fac’d Malefactor is harden’d
    in his Sin.

    1874. Mrs. H. Wood, Johnny Ludlow, 1 S., viii., p. 137. ‘Of all the
    impudent brazen-faced rascals that are cheating the gallows, you
    must be the worst.’


Bread, subs. (old).—Employment; a transferred sense, the idea being—no
work; no food.

    1785. Grose, Dictionary of the Vulgar Tongue. Out of bread, out of
    employment.


Bread and Butter Fashion, phr. (harlotry).—An expression descriptive of
the sexual embrace.


Bread and Butter Warehouse, phr. (old).—A nickname given to the old
Ranelagh Gardens. An allusion to the scenes of infamy and debauchery
which once characterized the place.—See Bread and butter fashion.


Bread and Meat, subs. phr. (military).—The commissariat.


Bread Bags, subs. (military).—A nickname given in the army and navy to
any one connected with the victualling department, as a purser or
purveyor in the commissariat. At one time called muckers, and amongst
French soldiers riz-pain-sel.


Bread-Barge, subs. (nautical).—The distributing basket or tray
containing the rations of biscuits.


Bread-Basket, subs. (popular).—The stomach. [An obvious allusion to
that part of the body as a receptacle of food.]

English Synonyms. Bread-room; dumpling-depôt; victualling-office;
porridge-bowl.

French Synonyms. La panetière (common: properly a bag or satchel
wherein shepherds put their bread; a pouch. Akin to this is the slang
term la pantière, the mouth); panier au pain (a literal translation of
the English term); le jabot (popular: formerly heart or breast. Se
remplir le jabot = to have a ‘blow out’); la halle aux croûtes
(popular: this may be rendered literally as ‘Crust’ hall; also, a
baker’s shop); la place d’armes (popular: the place of arms, stronghold
or arsenal); la soute au pain (popular: soute = store-room, etc.; thus,
the expression would correspond closely to victualling office or
bread-basket. ‘Put that in your bread-basket’ is rendered by colle-toi
ça dans le Fusil, i.e., ‘ram that in your gun’).

Italian Synonym. The Fourbesque has fagiana (properly a chest or store
house for beans.)

    1753. Foote, Englishman in Paris, Act 1. Another came up to second
    time, but I let drive at the mark, made the soup-maigre rumble in
    his bread-basket, and laid him sprawling.

    1819. Moore, Tom Crib’s Memorial to Congress, p. 18. Neat milling
    this Round—what with clouts on the nob, Home hits in the
    bread-basket, clicks in the gob.

    1821. W. T. Moncrieff, Tom and Jerry, Act iii., Sc. 1. Jerry. Now,
    doctor, take care of your bread-basket—eyes right, look to your
    napper.

    1856. Reade, Never too Late to Mend, ch. lxx. When you can’t fill
    the bread-basket, shut it. Go to sleep till the Southern Cross
    comes out again.

    1876. C. H. Wall, trans. Molière, vol. I., p. 194. And get as a
    reward an ugly piece of cold steel right through my bread-basket.


Bread-Picker, subs. (Winchester College).—The four senior præfects used
to appoint ‘Juniors’ to this office which was nominal, but which
carried with it exemption from fagging at meal times. No ‘notion’ book
states in what the office consisted, but it is supposed that it relates
to times when Juniors had to secure the bread, etc., served out for
their masters.


Bread-Room, subs. (old).—The stomach. A variant of bread-basket, which
see for synonyms.

    1760–61. Smollett, Sir L. Greaves, vol. II., ch. v. He ordered the
    waiter ... to ... bring along-side a short allowance of brandy or
    grog, that he might cant a slug [dram] into his bread-room. Ibid,
    ch. xvii. The waiter ... returned with a quartern of brandy, which
    Crowe, snatching eagerly, started into his bread-room at one cant.


Bread-Room Jack, subs. (nautical).—A purser’s servant.


Break, subs. (thieves’).—A collection (of money) usually got up by a
prisoner’s friends, either to defray the expenses of his defence, or as
a ‘lift’ when leaving prison. Formerly and more generally applied to a
pause in street performances to enable the hat to be passed round. Cf.,
Lead. French slang has une bouline with the same meaning; and, to make
a collection is, among mountebanks, faire la manche.

    1879. J. W. Horsley, in Macm. Mag., XL., 502. The mob got me up a
    break (collection), and I got between five or six foont
    (sovereigns).


Break Down, subs. (Australian).—1. A measure of liquor.—See quotation.

    1759. Frank Fowler, Southern Lights and Shadows, p. 53. To pay for
    liquor for another is to ‘stand,’ or to ‘shout,’ or to ‘sacrifice.’
    The measure is called a ‘nobbler,’ or a break-down.

2. (common.)—A noisy dance; also, a convivial gathering. The term was,
at first, specially applied to a negro dance, but is now in general use
in England in a humorous sense. Also used as a verb, i.e., to break
down, to dance riotously; to be boisterous and ‘spreeish.’ For
synonyms, see Flare up.

    1864. Yates, Broken to Harness, II., p. 54. And Mr. Pingle retired
    into the next room, where he indulged in the steps of a comic dance
    popular with burlesque actors, and known as a nigger break-down.

    1873. Sat. Review, May, p. 676. We shall not be surprised to learn
    that they have serious thoughts of engaging a few comic singers and
    break-down dancers for their next campaign.

    1883. Daily News, March 26, p. 2, col. 4. A patter song ... was
    twice redemanded, chiefly, it appeared, for the sake of a comical
    ‘break-down’ danced by the demented king.


Break o’ Day Drum (American thieves’).—A drinking saloon which keeps
its doors open all night.


Break One’s Back, verbal phr. (colloquial).—To become bankrupt; an
extension of the figurative usage to overpower; render nugatory; crush.

    1601. Shakspeare, Henry VIII., Act i., Sc. 1. Aber. I do know
    Kinsmen of mine, three at the least, that have By this so sicken’d
    their estates, that never They shall abound as formerly. Buck. O,
    many Have broke their backs with laying manors on ’em For this
    great journey.

    1620. Middleton, Chaste Maid, iii., 2. [The word is here used in
    the sense of bankruptcy and ruin.]

    1887. Baring Gould, The Game-cocks, ch. xxviii. ‘They are very
    poor, and have made a hard fight to get on. I fear this change
    would break their backs.’

    1888. Ashton, Mod. Street Ballads, p. 13. The cesses, rates, and
    tithes nearly breaks their backs.


Break One’s Egg.—See Crack one’s egg.


Break Out All Over or In a Fresh Spot, etc., verbal phr.
(American).—Expressions in common use—in the one case conveying an idea
of completeness; and, in the other, of commencing some new undertaking,
or assuming a different position whether in an argument or action.
These usages may be traced to the phraseology of medicine.


Break Shins, verbal phr. (general).—To borrow money. Hotten thinks the
term is a variant of ‘to kick,’ formerly in use with a similar meaning.
This may be so, but it is worthy of note that ‘to shin’ is colloquial
in America in the sense of ‘to walk quickly,’ ‘to gad about’; but
having particular reference also, in mercantile phraseology, to the
action of a man who, finding himself short of money to meet his
engagements, goes round to his friends to borrow what he requires. To
bite the ear (q.v.) has the same signification; but for synonyms, see
Shins.


Break the Balls, verbal phr. (billiards).—To commence playing; a phrase
very much akin to ‘breaking ground’; indeed few verbs enter more
largely into figurative or colloquial combinations than break.


Break the Molasses Jug, verbal phr. (American).—To come to grief; to
make a mistake.


Break the Neck or Back of Anything, verbal phr. (common).—To accomplish
the major portion of a task; to be near the end of an undertaking; to
be past the middle of same.


Breaky-Leg, subs. (common).—1. Intoxicating drink of any kind. [A
humorous allusion to one of the possible effects of confirmed
drunkenness, or the weakness produced in one’s legs by tippling.] For
all synonyms, see Drinks.

2. (thieves’.)—A shilling.

    1857. Snowden, Mag. Assistant, 3 ed., p. 446. A shilling.
    Breake-leg.


Breast Fleet, subs. (old).—Roman Catholics; so called from their
practice of crossing themselves on the breast as an act of devotion.

    1785. Grose, Dictionary of the Vulgar Tongue. He (or she) belongs
    to the breast fleet; i.e., is a Roman Catholic; an appellation
    derived from their custom of beating their breasts in the
    confession of their sins.


Breath. Change your breath, phr. (American).—An injunction to adopt a
different manner or bearing. An offensive, slang expression which,
originating in California, quickly ran its course through the Union.


Breech, verb (schoolboys’).—To flog or be flogged; especially on the
posteriors. This verb was formerly in literary use, but has now fallen
into disuetude.

    1557. Tusser, Husbandrie, ch. lxxiv., st. 6, p. 166 (S.D.S.).

        Maides, up I beseech yee
        Least Mistres doe breech yee.

    1637. Massinger, Guardian, i., 1. How he looks! like a school-boy
    that had play’d the truant, And went to be breech’d.

    1821. Scott, Kenilworth, ch. xxiv. ‘Go to,’ said Wayland, ‘thou art
    a prating boy, and should be breeched for thine assurance.’


Breeched, ppl. adj. (popular).—1. To be well off; to have plenty of
money; ‘to be well breeched,’ to be in good circumstances. Cf.,
Ballasted. The French have a similar idiom. If a man is bankrupt he is
said to be déculotté—unbreeched. Given in this sense by Vaux in his
Flash Dictionary [1812].


Breeches. To wear the breeches, phr. (common).—A phrase said only of
women; and signifying to rule; to usurp a husband’s prerogative; to be
‘master.’ An analogous phrase is ‘the grey mare is the better horse of
the two.’ [The derivation is obviously an allusion to breeches as the
symbol of authority, i.e., of manhood.] Murray traces the expression
back to 1553, but it is, in reality, much older. It is found in French
as early as 1450.

    1450. Les Quinze Joyes de Mariage: La Dixiesme Joye. Edition
    Elzevirienne, Paris (1853), p. 113. Et sachez qu’il est avenu à
    aucuns que l’en leur faisoit boire de mauvès brouez affin de porter
    les braies ou pour autres choses pires.

The idea is met with in English at about the same date in a carol, the
burden of which is founded on it:—

    14(?). Songs and Carols of the Fifteenth Century, Percy Soc. Pub.,
    vol. XXIII., p. 65.

        Nova, nova, sawe you ever such,
        The moste mayster of the hows weryth no brych.

Also a little later, from the same collection:—

    The Boke of Maid Emlyn, vol. VI., p. 21.

            All women be suche,
        Thoughe the man wear the breche.

It is curious to note also that the expression has cropped up in most
languages. The Dutch say, ‘De vrouw draagt ’er de broek’; the Germans,
‘Sie hat die Hosen.’ The Germans have also other ‘breeches’ sayings; as
e.g., ‘Das Hertz ist ihm in die Hosen gefallen.’ Other illustrative
quotations are:—

    1557. Tusser, Husbandrie, ch. lxvii. st. 18, 156 (E.D.S.).

        Least some should talke, as is the speech,
        The good wiues’ husband weares no breech.

    1591. Nashe, A Prognostication, in wks. II., 158. Diverse great
    stormes are this yere to be feared, especially in houses where the
    wives weare the breeches.

    1663. T. Killigrew, Parson’s Wedding, ii., 3, in Dodsley’s O. P.
    (1780), xi., 413. Anything that may get rule; I love to wear the
    breeches.

    1724. Swift, Misc. Poems, in wks. (1824) XIV., 199.

        Those men, who wore the breeches least,
        Call’d him a cuckold, fool, and beast.

    1820. Coombe, Syntax, Consolation, ch. v.

        When she doth wear the breeches;
        And the poor fool dare not resist
        The terrors of her threat’ning fist.

    1821. W. T. Moncrieff, Tom and Jerry, Act ii., Sc. 4. Mrs. T. No,
    no—no mischief—harkye, you did me a service just now in the street.
    Tom. I know I did, down by the pump. Mrs. T. Well, now, I’ll do you
    one—my husband is asleep: I have the keys; and I wear the breeches.


Breeching, verbal subs. (schoolboys’).—A flogging. Like breech (q.v.),
formerly in general use.

    1520. Whittington, Vulg. (1527), 26. I studye to-day to-daye
    bycause I fere a brechyng.

    1594. Nashe, Unfortunate Traveller, in wks. V., 149. Heeres a
    stirre thought I to my selfe after I was set at libertie, that is
    worse than an vpbrayding lesson after a britching.


Breef.—See Brief.


Breeze, subs. (general).—A row; quarrel; disturbance; coolness. [From
breeze, a cool wind.]

    1785. Grose, Dictionary of the Vulgar Tongue. To kick up a breeze,
    to breed a disturbance.

    1819. Moore, Tom Crib’s Memorial to Congress, p. 5. But, though we
    must hope for such good times as these, Yet, as something may
    happen to kick up a breeze.

    1865. Saturday Review, 28 Jan., p. 119. ‘Don’t be angry; we’ve had
    our breeze. Shake hands!’ [M.]


Brekker, subs. (Oxford University).—Breakfast. [Formed by phonetically
taking the first syllable of ‘breakfast’ + er, a species of slang
formation, which originated at Harrow.]—See ‘Comparative and Historical
Study of Slang’ at the end of this work.


Brevet Hell, subs. (American).—A nickname for a battle, which
originated during the Civil War. The meaning is obvious enough. The
carnage and bloodshed of a battle-field is only a degree short of the
horrors of the theological ‘hell.’ Compare with brevet-wife,
brevet-rank.


Brevet-Wife, subs. (general).—A woman who, without being married to a
man, lives with him, takes his name, and enjoys all the privileges of a
wife. A transferred figurative sense of the legitimate word.


Brew, verb (Marlborough School).—To make afternoon tea. Almost always
carried on in couples, but sometimes three boys brew together.


Brewer’s Horse, subs. (old).—A drunkard. For synonyms, see Elbow
crooker.


Brewing, verbal subs. (Marlborough College).—The making of afternoon
tea.—See Brew.


Brian o’ Linn, subs. (rhyming slang).—Gin. For synonyms, see Drinks.


Briar, Brier, subs. (popular).—A colloquialism for ‘brier-wood pipe.’
The Erica arborea or White Heath, a native of the Mediterranean
littoral is largely used in the manufacture of pipes. [Cf., Fr. bruyère
= ‘heath.’]

    1882. Graphic, Dec. 16, p. 683, col. 2. Nowadays, every third man
    you meet has a cigarette or a briar in his mouth.

    1886. Harper’s Mag., 27 Dec. There is the ever-ready brier-root
    pipe loaded with Caporal.


Brick, subs. (popular).—A good fellow; one whose staunchness and
loyalty commend him to his fellows—a highly eulogistic epithet for one
man to apply to another. Said to be of University origin, the simile
being drawn from the classics. A writer in Hallberger’s Illustrated
Magazine [1878, p. 635], says the expression is logically deduced in
the following amusing manner. A brick is ‘deep-red,’ so a ‘deep-read’
man is a brick. The punning syllogism is carried further. To read like
a brick is to read till you are deep-‘read’; a deep-read man is in
University-phrase a ‘good man’; a good man is a jolly fellow with
non-reading men, ergo a jolly fellow is a brick.

It has, however, been pointed out that dedicatory columns of various
forms have been found bearing Greek inscriptions, records of the great
and virtuous. Some of these were circular and fluted pillars; but the
Athenians are said to have dedicated square columns so inscribed, which
gave rise to the style τετράγ = ωνος ἀνὴρ [see Aristotle, Eth., i.,
10], one whose worth entitled him to honorary mention on some
monumental stone of the form described. The anticipatory distinction
might, therefore, be easily accorded to one worthy of such posthumous
honours. From the meritorious notion of the rectangular stone or pillar
we get the living type of genuine or supposititious worth—a regular
brick. A further analogy may be drawn from the clayey basis of the
brick, even in a state of combination with sand and ashes—those types
of instability and decay—and we naturally acquire the notion of
solidity, consistency, and strength. We are thus enabled to apply the
above phrase to the child of clay, who may chance to resemble it in its
constitution, whose moral materials and parts have been originally so
carefully formed, so judiciously tempered and skilfully moulded, that,
in spite of a frail and infirm nature, he has preserved his shape thus
early given. The fiery test but determines his solidity; his sound,
staunch, and unshrinking firmness, constitutes him a regular brick or
hero, the attributes which especially qualify him for that metaphorical
appellation. Cf., On the square; straight—true—clean as a die.

    1837. Barham, Ingoldsby Legends (Brothers of Birchington). In brief
    I don’t stick to declare, Father Dick, So they called him for
    short, was a regular brick; A metaphor taken, I have not the page
    aright, Out of an ethical work by the Stagyrite.

    1850. Smedley, Frank Fairlegh, p. 10. ‘Mr. Fairlegh, let me
    introduce this gentleman, Mr. George Lawless; he is, if he will
    allow me to say so, one of the most rising young men of his
    generation, one of the firmest props of the glorious edifice of our
    rights and privileges.’ ‘A regular brick,’ interposed Coleman.

    1855. Thackeray, Newcomes, ch. x. ‘But the others are capital.
    There is that little chap who has just had the measles—he’s a dear
    little brick.’

    1856. T. Hughes, Tom Brown’s School-days, p. 100. He voted E.’s new
    crony a brick.

    1876. George Eliot, Daniel Deronda, ch. xvi. Their brothers’
    friend, declared by Hans to be the salvation of him, a fellow like
    nobody else, and, in fine, a brick.

French Synonyms. Un bon gniasse (cads’ and thieves’); être d’un bon
bouchon (to be a brick. Michel gives bouchon as ‘cadet’); un bon bougre
(popular: Barrère says the word bougre is often used with a disparaging
sense; bougre de cochon, ‘you dirty pig’; bougre de serin, ‘you ass.’
Littré derives bougre from Bulgarus, Bulgarian; the heretic Albigeois,
who shared the religious ideas of some of the Bulgarians, received the
name of bougres); un zig, zigue, zigorneau, zigard, or zingo (popular:
Michel gives zig as camarade, ‘a comrade’; in Italian zigno or petit
lézard which latter (lézard) signifies in French argot, a ‘bad lot’).

Verb (American).—To punish a man by bringing the knees close up to the
chin, and lashing the arms tightly to the knees—a species of trussing.

Like a brick—like bricks—(and in an intensive form) like a thousand of
bricks, adv. phr. (common).— With energy; alacrity; thoroughly;
vehemently and with much display. [Derived partly attributively from
brick (q.v.), and partly in allusion to the crash of failing bricks.]
There are numerous similes of a kindred character; e.g., Like beans;
Like one o’clock; Like blazes, all of which see.

    1835. Dickens, Sketches, p. 139. Bump they [cab and horse] cums
    agin the post, and out flies the fare like bricks.

    1837. Barham, I. L. (Ingoldsby Penance).

        For the Friar to his skirts closely sticks,
        ‘Running after him,’—so said the Abbot,—like bricks!

    1860. New Orleans Picayune, April 27 (Police Report). ‘When it came
    to the breakdown, Your Honor, he kicked up a row like a drove of
    contrary mules, and when we wanted to turn him out, he fell upon us
    like a thousand of bricks, and threatened to make minced meat of
    the police and every one of us.’

    1864. Western World, March 5. ‘When Mr. Nye had finished, Mr.
    Stewart rose, and with his irresistible logic and impressive
    language came down upon him like a thousand of bricks, till he was
    utterly crushed and demolished.’

Brick in the hat, phr. (American).—A drunken man is said to have a
brick in his hat, the allusion being to top-heaviness and inability to
preserve a steady gait.


Brick-duster.—See Brickfielder.


Brickdusts, subs. (military).—The Fifty-third Regiment of Foot, so
nicknamed from its facings, which are scarlet. Another slang
appellation is ‘The Old Five-and-Threepennies,’ from its number and the
daily pay of an ensign.


Brickfielder or Brickduster, subs. (Australian colloquial).—In Sydney
the name given to a dust or sand-storm brought by southerly winds from
sand hills locally known as the Brickfields—hence the name. Also called
the buster or southerly burster.

    18(?). Munday, Our Antipodes. In October, 1848, as I find by my
    diary, I witnessed a fine instance of a nocturnal brickfielder.
    Awakened by the roaring of the wind I arose and looked out. It was
    bright moonlight, or it would have been bright but for the clouds
    of dust, which, impelled by a perfect hurricane, curled up from the
    earth, and absolutely muffled the fair face of the planet.
    Pulverised specimens of every kind and colour of soil within two
    miles of Sydney, flew past the house high over the chimney tops in
    lurid whirl-winds, now white, now red. It had all the appearance of
    an American prairie fire, barring the fire.

    1853. Fraser’s Mag., XLVIII., 515. What the Sydney people call a
    brickfielder.

    1886. Cowan, Charcoal Sk. The buster and brickfielder: Austral
    red-dust blizzard and red-hot simoon.


Bricklayer, subs. (clerical).—A clergyman. [It has been hazarded that
the term is a familiar corruption of Rubricklayer, to denote general
character for Rubrical exactness—said of men who not only lay down
Liturgical law, but obey it. With more propriety, however, may it be
held as referring to the important part taken by the mediæval clergy in
ecclesiastical architecture. Mr. Thomas Boys, in the course of an
interesting article on the subject [N. and Q., 2 S., vii., 115], traces
its historical derivation somewhat as follows:—It is well known how in
former days the building of cathedrals and other sacred edifices was
patronised and promoted both by the dignitaries and by the clergy
generally; but it is not, perhaps, matter of equal notoriety that many
chapters and collegiate bodies had a functionary called a workman
(operarius), on whom devolved the charge of repairing and maintaining
the sacred fabric, and who was often one of their own number. In fact,
he was of the dignitaries of the church. ‘Operarius, Dignitas, in
Collegiis Canonicorum, et Monasteriis, cui operibus publicis vacare
incumbit’ (Carpenter). The office of this operarius or workman was
called ‘operaria.’ ‘Operaria. Dignitas Operarii in collegiis
canonicorum et monasteriis’ (ib.). In Spain, the clerical operarius was
called by the corresponding Spanish name, obrero (a workman). ‘Obrero.
Se llama tambien el que cuida de las obras, en las Iglesias o
Comunidades, que en algunas Cathedrales es dignidad’ (Dicc. de la Ac.
Esp.); i.e., in some cathedrals the office made the holder of it a
dignitary. Salazar de Mendoza, in his ‘Cronica del Cardenal Don R. G.
de Mendoça,’ tells us that, the Cardinal having conceded to the Chapter
of the cathedral at Toledo, the administration of the building-fund,
the Chapter in 1485, nominated as workman (obrero) the Canon Juan de
Contreras (Lib. II., cap. 62, par. 2). May we not conjecture, then,
that, if clergymen are now provincially called bricklayers, it is
because their mediæval predecessors were, with a special reference to
building, called ‘workmen’? Possibly, from the appointment of certain
ecclesiastics in former days under the name of operarii or workmen, for
the repair and maintenance of public edifices in the University of
Oxford, the title of bricklayers may have passed, in course of time, to
the neighbouring clergy of Oxon and Berks. The use of bricks, which
ceased in this country after the decline of the Roman power, is stated
by Hallam to have been reintroduced, probably from Flanders, in the
early part of the fourteenth century.

With perhaps equal propriety the term [bricklayer] is thought to refer
to the οἰκοδομὴ τοῦ σώματος τοῦ Χριστοῦ (Eph. iv., 12), trusting that
they, like St. Paul, are wise ‘master builders’; builders on the only
true foundation, ‘which is Jesus Christ.’ Edify, edificare οἰκοδομεῖν
have primary reference to houses built with hands, as well as to the
spiritual one of building up the Church of Christ.]


Bricklayer’s Clerk, subs. (nautical).—One of the hundred names given to
a lubberly sailor.—W. Clark Russell. For synonyms, see Strawyarder, and
Cf., Bail.


Bricks, subs. (Wellington College).—A sort of pudding.


Bridge, subs. (cards’).—A cheating trick at cards, by which any
particular card is cut by previously curving it by the pressure of the
hand. Used in France as well as in England, and termed in the Parisian
Argot faire le pont sec, also couper dans le pont. The modus operandi
of avoiding, or rather of neutralizing the cut, which is the very
backbone of the card-sharper’s art, is somewhat difficult, and is
generally performed by one of two methods, termed respectively the
‘bridge’ and the ‘pass.’ In the former method the sharper, at the end
of his shuffle—the cards being still held backs uppermost in the left
hand—takes some twelve or fifteen of the underneath cards lengthwise
between the thumb and first and second fingers of the right hand and
throws them on the top of the pack, at the same time giving them a
slight squeeze outwards which causes them to assume an imperceptible
curve. When placed on the table to be cut, the pack will now, owing to
this curve or ‘bridge,’ present in the middle a very slight gap almost
invisible to the eye; and experience shows that the odds are twenty to
one that the adversary will cut exactly at that very spot, thus taking
off the twelve or fifteen cards thrown on the top and bringing the
‘readied’ portion of the pack back to its original position.

    1851. Mayhew, London Labour and London Poor, I., p. 266. I got my
    living by card-playing in the low lodging-houses ... I worked the
    oracle; they were not up to it. I put the first and seconds on, and
    the bridge too.

    1859. Lever, Davenport Dunn, I., p. 251. I’ve found out the way
    that Yankee fellows does the king. It’s not the common bridge that
    every body knows.

    1866. Yates, Black Sheep, I., p. 70. The genius which had hitherto
    been confined to bridging a pack of cards, or ‘securing’ a die,
    talking over a flat, or winning money of a greenhorn, was to have
    its vent in launching a great City Company.

Verb (old).—Explained by quotation.

    1812. J. H. Vaux, Flash Dict. To bridge a person, or to throw him
    over the bridge, is ... to deceive him by betraying the confidence
    he has reposed in you.


Bridle-Cull, subs. (old).—A highwayman. [From bridle + cull, a ‘man.’]
A French equivalent is un garcon de campagne; also un grinche de
cambrouse; aller au trimar or trimard, ‘to become a highwayman.’ Trimar
= road or ‘toby.’

    1754. Fielding, Jonathan Wild, bk. I., ch. v. A booty of £10 looks
    as great in the eye of a bridle-cull, and gives as much real
    happiness to his fancy, as that of as many thousands to the
    statesman.


Bridport or Brydport Dagger, subs. (old).—The hangman’s rope. ‘To be
stabbed with a Bridport Dagger’ signifies ‘to be hanged.’ For synonyms,
see Horse’s nightcap, and Cf., Anodyne necklace.

    1662. Fuller, Worthies, Dorset (I., 310). ‘Stab’d with a Brydport
    dagger.’ That is, hang’d or executed at the Gallowes; the best, if
    not the most, hemp (for the quantity of ground) growing about
    Brydport.

    1787. Grose, Prov. Glossary, etc. (1811), p. 67. Stabbed with a
    Brydport dagger. That is hanged. Great quantity of hemp is grown
    about this town; and, on account of its superior qualities, Fuller
    says there was an ancient statute, now disused, that the cables for
    the royal navy should be made thereabouts.

    1807. Southey, Espriella’s Letters, i., 35 (3 ed.). The
    neighbourhood is so proverbially productive of hemp, that when a
    man is hanged, they have a vulgar saying, that he has been stabbed
    with a Bridport dagger.


Brief, subs. (thieves’).—A ticket of any kind, whether railway pass,
pawnbrokers’ duplicate, or ticket for a raffle; also a pocket book.
Hence briefless (q.v.).

    1879. J. W. Horsley, in Macm. Mag., XL., 501. I took a brief
    (ticket) to London Bridge.

    1885. Daily Telegraph, Aug. 18, p. 3, col. 2. His usual line of
    business was ‘brief-snatching,’ i.e., hovering about the crowd that
    surrounds a small bookmaker, and snatching from the hands of the
    unwary the credential they with rash eagerness exhibit, and which
    they desire to exchange with the man they have bet with for their
    winnings.

    1889. Sporting Times, 6 July. They copped the briefs at the next
    station, and he changed carriages.


Briefless, adj. (common).—Ticketless.—See Brief.

    1889. Bird o’ Freedom, Aug. 7, p. 3. Following close at the heels
    of Newman, I soon found myself within the Aquarium, all briefless
    as I was, and without having been asked any questions.


Briefs or Breefs, subs. (card-sharpers’).—Cards tampered with for the
purpose of swindling.—See Bridge, Concaves, and Convexes, Longs, and
Shorts, Reflectors, etc. [From the German briefe, which Baron Heinecken
says was the name given to the cards manufactured at Ulm. Brief is also
the synonym for a card in the German Rothwalsch dialect, and briefen is
to play at cards.]

    1529. [Edited by] Luther, Liber Vagatorum (1860), p. 47.
    ‘Item—beware of the Joners (gamblers), who practice Beseflery with
    the brief (cheating at cards), who deal falsely and cut one for the
    other, cheat with Boglein and spies, pick one brief from the
    ground, and another from a cupboard,’ etc.

    1720. Old Book of Games, quoted by Hotten. ‘Take a pack of cards
    and open them, then take out all the honours ... and cut a little
    from the edges of the rest all alike, so as to make the honours
    broader than the rest, so that when your adversary cuts to you, you
    are certain of an honour. When you cut to your adversary cut at the
    ends, and then it is a chance if you cut him an honour, because the
    cards at the ends are all of a length. Thus you may make breefs
    end-ways as well as side-ways.’


Brief-Snatcher, subs. (thieves’).—Pocket-book thieves. [From brief
(q.v., sense 1), slang term for a pocket-book, + snatcher.]


Brigh, subs. (thieves’).—A pocket.

    1879. J. W. Horsley, in Macm. Mag., XL., 502. Having a new suit of
    clobber on me, and about fifty blow in my brigh (pocket).

Some English Synonyms are:—Cly, skyrocket.

French Synonyms are une grande; une profonde, parfonde or prophête
(thieves’: literally deep; also used for ‘cave’ or ‘cellar’); une
fouillouse (thieves’: this term is an old one. Fouille = a ‘digging’ or
excavation. There are various forms—foulle, felouse, filoche); une
gueularde (thieves’: gueulard = wallet in slang, but properly signifies
a stove); une baguenaude (thieves’ and cads’: properly ‘a
bladder-nut’); une balade or ballade; une valade (thieves’: from
avaler, to swallow up); une fondrière (thieves’); un four banal
(thieves’: either used to signify a ‘pocket,’ a ‘false pocket,’ or an
‘omnibus’); une sonde (literally sonde = probe).


Bright in the Eye, subs. (common).—Slightly tipsy. [An allusion to the
sparkling appearance of the eyes at an early stage of intoxication;
subsequently they become dull and sleepy.] For synonyms, see Screwed.


Brighton Tipper, subs.—A peculiar kind of ale.—See quotation.

    1843. Dickens, Martin Chuzzlewit, I., p. 347. Requiring ... a pint
    of the celebrated staggering ale, or Real Old Brighton Tipper, at
    supper. Ibid, p. 447. If they draws the Brighton Tipper here, I
    takes that ale at night, my love.


Brim, subs. (old).—1. A prostitute. [A contraction of brimstone (q.v.)]
For synonyms, see Barrack-hack.

    1730–6. Bailey. Brim [q. a contraction of Brimstone], a common
    strumpet. [M.]

    1764. T. Brydges, Homer Travest. (1797), i., 173. Can mortal
    scoundrels thee [Hera] perplex, And the great brim of brimstones
    vex?

    1808. Jamieson. Brim, a cant term for a trull.—Loth.

2. (common).—Nowadays the term signifies an angry, violent woman, or a
termagant, without reference to moral character. An equivalent French
term is une chipie. Cf., Brimstone.

    1799. Whim of the Day. She raved, she abused me, and splenetic was;
    She’s a vixen, she’s a brim, zounds! She’s all that is bad.


Brimstone, subs. (old).—1. A violent tempered woman; a virago; a
spitfire. [A reference to the inflammable character of the mineral.]

    1712. Bp. Burnet, in Walpole’s Reminiscences (1819), p. 75. ‘Oh,
    madam,’ said the bishop, ‘do not you know what a brimstone of a
    wife he had?’

    1751. Smollett, Peregrine Pickle, ch. vi. ‘She is ... not a
    brimstone, like Kate Koddle, of Chatham.’

    1760. C. Johnston, Chrysal, II., 190. I hate the law damnably ever
    since I lost a year’s pay for hindering our boatswain’s mate’s
    brother from beating his wife. The brimstone swore I beat her
    husband, and so I paid for meddling.

    1859. H. Kingsley, Geoffrey Hamlyn, ch. xxiii. Who seemed, too, to
    have a temper of her own, and promised, under circumstances, to
    turn out a bit of a b—mst—ne.

2. (old.)—A prostitute. For synonyms, see Barrack-hack.

    1785. Grose. Brim (abbreviation of brimstone), an abandoned woman;
    perhaps originally only a passionate or irascible woman, compared
    to brimstone for its inflammability.


Briney or Briny, subs. (popular).—The sea. A ‘dip in the briney’ once a
year is a great attraction to Cockney excursionists. Hotten tells a
story of one excursionist saying to another, as they stripped in a
double machine, ‘Why, ’Arry what dirty feet you’ve got!’ ‘’Ave I; well
yer see I wasn’t down last year.’ [From the adj. signifying, ‘of or
pertaining to brine or the sea.’]

    1856. Whyte Melville, Kate Coventry, ch. xiv. The luckless plight
    in which a stout gentleman had found himself, by the temporary loss
    of all his apparel, while he was disporting in the briny.

    1881. Punch, Jan. 15, p. 14. Grigsby. Hullo, my Jellaby, you here!
    Come and take a dip in the briny, old man. I’m sure you look as if
    you wanted it. Postlethwaite. Thanks, no. I never bathe. I always
    see myself so dreadfully foreshortened in the Water, you know!

    1889. Sporting Times, June 29. Next day bathing, returning from
    which we beheld a curious sight, three nymphs carrying down to the
    strand a bath in which one of them was, apparently with a curious
    mistrust of the sea, going to try the briny.

English Synonyms. Herring pond; big pond; big drink; the puddle; Davy’s
locker.

French Synonyms. La grande tasse (familiar: properly ‘the big cup.’
Boire dans la grande tasse, ‘to be drowned’); la grande bleue (popular:
the great blue—an allusion to the colour of deep sea water); le grand
salé (popular: literally ‘the great salt’); le pré salé (popular:
properly the salted or briny meadow.)


Bring Down the House, verbal phr. (general).—To elicit loud applause;
and, still more figuratively, to be successful. [The figure of speech
is that demonstrative applause will cause the walls to give way. Cf.,
To raise the roof off.]

    1754. World, II., No. 76, 125. His apprehension that your statues
    will bring the house down.

    1853. Rev. E. Bradley (‘Cuthbert Bede’), Adventures of Verdant
    Green, II., p. 23. Why, it would surpass the British sailor’s
    broadsword combat for six, and bring down the house.

    1872. Forster, Life of Charles Dickens, ch. xliv. (IV., p. 252).
    ‘And give us your applause, for that is always just’! which brought
    down the house with rapture.

    1877. Mrs. Riddell, Her Mother’s Darling, II., p. 61 (ch. xii). I
    do not fancy she would ever forgive any of us if Honie were to
    bring down the house at Elm Vale.

    1889. Bird o’ Freedom, Aug. 7, p. 3. But Samson’s crowning feat of
    all was to break with his fist two steel chains, suspended from a
    couple of posts. This fairly brought down the house.


Brisket-Beater, subs. (old).—A Roman Catholic. Cf., Breast fleet and
Craw-thumper, synonymous terms. Quoted by Grose [1785].


Bristles or Bristle Dice, subs. (old).—A method of ‘cogging’ dice by
inserting bristles into them, and thus influencing the position of the
cubes when ‘thrown.’

    1532. Dice Play (1050), 28. Bristle dice, be now too gross a
    practice to be put in use. [M.]

    1680. Cotton, in Singer Hist. Cards, 335. This they do by false
    dice, as ... By bristle-dice. [M.]

    1822. Scott, Fortunes of Nigel, ch. xxiii. ‘Men talk of high and
    low dice, Fulhams and bristles ... and a hundred ways of rooking
    besides.’


Bristol Milk, subs. (old).—Sherry. [An allusion to sherry being
formerly a large import of the city of Bristol.] For synonyms, see
Drinks.

    1644. Prynne and Walker, Fiennes’ Trial, 78. Good store of Bristol
    milk, strong wines and waters. [M.]

    1662. Fuller, Worthies, Bristol. ‘Bristol milk’; this metaphorical
    milk, whereby Xeres or Sherry Sack is intended.

    1785. Grose, Dictionary of the Vulgar Tongue. Bristol milk, a
    Spanish wine called sherry, much drank at that place, particularly
    in the morning.

    1849–61. Macaulay, Hist. Eng., I., iii. A rich beverage made of the
    best Spanish wine, and celebrated ... as Bristol milk.


Broach Claret, verbal phr. (pugilistic).—To draw blood.—See, however,
Claret.


Broad and Shallow, phr. (popular).—An epithet applied to the so-called
‘Broad Church,’ in contradistinction to the ‘High’ and ‘Low’
Churches.—See High and dry.

    1886. Graphic, 10 April, p. 399. In the Church have we not the
    three schools of High and Dry, Low and Slow, and Broad and Shallow?


Broadbottoms, subs. (political).—A nickname given to two Coalition
Governments, one in the last century [1741], and the other in 1807.—See
quots.

A pamphlet dated April 18, 1807, has reference to the latter. Its full
title is:—‘The pigs possessed, or the broadbottom’d litter running
headlong into the Sea of Perdition.’ The characters are George III., as
the British farmer; Lords Sidmouth, Ellenborough, Howick (‘Test Act’);
Mr. Windham; Lords Holland, Walpole, Carlisle St. Vincent; Earls Temple
(‘Last Stake’), Grenville (‘Catholic Bill’), and of Derby; Lords
Erskine, Lauderdale (a Scotch pig), H. Petty, and Moira; the Duke of
Bedford, who was Lord Lieutenant of Ireland, marked ‘Erin go Bragh’;
Earl Spencer, Marquis of Buckingham (‘Family’), R. B. Sheridan
(Harlequin), Courtney, Tierney, and Whitbread (‘Entire’). Courtney is
placed in profile between Ellenborough and Sidmouth. He was an intimate
friend of Fox. This is said to be the only portrait of him. The print
is a supplement to another styled ‘More Pigs than Teats.’ The pigs
represent the Ministers described commonly by the phrase ‘All the
Talents,’ or the ‘Broad-Bottoms’ who were succeeded, April, 1807, by
the Duke of Portland and his supporters. The former are not to be
confounded with an earlier ‘Broad-Bottom’ Administration. The latter
was commemorated in the satirical inscription for Fox’s tomb, Hic jacet
Pater Broad-Bottomos.

    1742. Walpole, Lett. to Mann (1833), No. 22, Feb. 18, vol. I., p.
    106. The Tories declare against any farther prosecution—if Tories
    there are, for now one heard of nothing but the broad-bottom; it is
    the reigning cant word, and means, the taking all parties and
    people, indifferently, into the ministry.

    1843. Macaulay, Historical Essays, II., p. 244. The Pelhams had
    forced the King, much against his will, to part with Lord
    Carteret.... They proceeded, after this victory, to form the
    Government on that basis, called by the cant name of the
    ‘broad-bottom.’

    1863. Jeaffreson, Live It Down, I., p. 249. The star of Granville
    is falling, that of Pelham is in the ascendant; and the great
    coalition on ‘The Br. B.’ is managing the affairs of the State.

    1871. Miss Braddon, Robert Ainsleigh, I., p. 37. A scathing reply
    from the polished chief of the famous Br. B. Administration.

    1887. Pol. Slang, in Cornhill Mag., June, p. 628. A Coalition
    Government in the last century was known by the apt nickname of the
    ‘Broad Bottom.’


Broadbrim, subs. (common).—A Quaker. [The origin of this expression is
to be found in the hat once peculiar to the ‘Society of Friends.’
Hotten says the epithet is now used of any quiet, sedate, old man.]

    1712. Spectator, No. 276. [Broad-brim is used as the name of a
    Quaker correspondent.]

    1750. Fielding, Tom Jones, bk. VII., ch. x. This the Quaker had
    observed, and this, added to the rest of his behaviour, inspired
    honest broad-brim with a conceit that his companion was, in
    reality, out of his senses.

    1864. Reader (quoted in Notes and Queries, 5 S., ix., p. 263).
    Broadbrim, a Quaker. This word clearly owes its origin to the
    peculiar hat worn by the Society of Friends.

    1876. Jas. Grant, One of the Six Hundred, ch. i. The sly
    broad-brim, and popularity-hunters of the Peace Society sent a
    deputation to the Emperor Nicholas.


Broad-Cooper, subs. (brewers’).—A person employed by brewers to
negotiate with publicans.


Broad Coves, subs. (old).—Card-sharpers. [From broads (q.v.), cards, +
cove (q.v.), a man.] The modern term for swindling at cards is broad
faking (q.v.). A French equivalent is un brêmeur. For synonyms, see
Rook.

    1821. W. T. Moncrieff, Tom and Jerry, Act ii., Sc. 5.

        Your swell broad coves, with all their airs
        Can’t match the kids near Wapping stairs,
          They are so down and knowing;
        Of lowest life you’ll see the best,
        At Maces’s, All-max, in the East;
          So let’s at once be going:
        Come, toddle along, toddle along, etc.


Broad-Faking, subs. (card-sharpers’).—Playing at cards. Generally used,
however, to denote ‘work’ of the three card and kindred descriptions.


Broad-Fencer, subs. (thieves’).—A ‘k’rect card’ seller at races. [From
broad (q.v.), a card, + fence or fencer, a ‘tradesman.’]


Broads, subs. (general).—Playing cards.—See Stock broads.

    1789. Geo. Parker, Life’s Painter, p. 142. Who are continually
    looking out for flats, in order to do them upon the broads, that is
    cards.

    1812. J. H. Vaux, Flash Dict. Broads, cards; a person expert at
    which is said to be a good broad-player.

    1834. Harrison Ainsworth, Rookwood, IV., ii. I nick the broads.

    1877. Five Years’ Penal Servitude, ch. iv., p. 262. He ... became
    one of a gang who practised with the broads card-sharping and the
    ‘confidence trick.’


Broadsman, subs. (common).—A card-sharper. [From broads = cards + man.]
Formerly called broad cove (q.v.). For synonyms, see Rook.

    1879. J. W. Horsley, ‘Autobiography of a Thief,’ in Macm. Mag.,
    XL., 502. Broadsmen (card-sharpers).

    1888. G. R. Sims, in Cass. Sat. Journal, 31 March, p. 7. The
    broadsman is a card-sharper.


Broady, subs. (common).—1. Cloth. [A corruption of broad-cloth.]

    1851. Mayhew, London Labour and London Poor, I., p. 54. Gentlemen
    finding their own broady can be accommodated.

    1883. Daily Telegraph, August 7, p. 6, col. 2. The prospectus
    further intimated that ... gentlemen ‘finding their own broady ...
    could be accommodated.’

2. (thieves’.)—Anything worth stealing.—See Broady worker.


Broady Worker, subs. (thieves’).—A man who goes round selling vile
shoddy stuff under the pretence that it is excellent material, which
has been ‘got on the cross,’ i.e., stolen.


Brock, verb (Winchester College).—To bully; to tease; to badger. [Brock
is a north country and Hampshire name for a badger.] In French military
schools this is called faire une brimade or faire brimer.


Brockster, subs. (Winchester College).—A bully.—See Brock.


Brogues, subs. (Christ’s Hospital).—Breeches. This is, in reality, an
obsolete old English term which has survived among the ‘Blues.’


Broiled or Boiled Crow. To eat boiled crow.—A newspaper editor, who is
obliged by his ‘party’ or other outside influences, to advocate
‘principles’ different from those which he supported a short time
before, is said to ‘eat boiled crow.’ Originally the phrase was simply
to eat crow, and the following account is that currently accepted as to
its derivation.

    1888. Atlanta Constitution. During the unpleasantness between the
    States and England, there were located on opposite sides of the
    Niagara river a British and an American fort, and during an
    armistice the soldiers of both garrisons were accustomed to go
    hunting. Among the American troops was one long, lank, stuttering
    specimen of the genus Yankee, who would persist, in spite of orders
    to the contrary, in going across the river on his hunting
    expeditions. One day when on the Canada side he had had poor luck
    and got nothing, but resolved not to go back entirely empty handed.
    While passing through the grounds of an English gentleman, he spied
    a crow, and, blazing away, brought it down. The Englishman had
    witnessed the shot and resolved to punish the offender for poaching
    on his private grounds. As the Yankee was loading his gun he
    approached, and, complimenting him on his good shot, asked to look
    at his gun. The unsuspecting Yankee handed it to him, and the
    Briton, bringing the gun to his shoulder and covering the Yankee,
    abused him for trespassing on his grounds, and ordered him, on pain
    of death, to take a bite out of the crow. The soldier begged and
    pleaded, but to no avail. The Englishman had the drop on him, so he
    finally bit a piece from the breast of the crow. The Englishman,
    after warning him to keep off his premises in the future, handed
    him back his gun and bade him clear out. No sooner was his rifle
    returned than he covered the Briton and ordered him to finish the
    crow. Then it was the Englishman’s turn to beg off, but the Yankee
    was firm, and the Englishman, with many a wry face, did succeed in
    downing several bites of the unsavoury bird. His wounded honour
    being appeased, the Yankee betook himself back to the fort. The
    Englishman the next day went to the American commander and told his
    version of the affair, and demanded that the culprit be punished.
    From the description given, the American officer knew that the
    offender must have been the stuttering soldier, and ordered him to
    be brought before them. When he came in the captain asked him if he
    had ever seen the gentleman before. The Yankee shifted uneasily
    from one foot to the other, and, after several attempts, finally
    answered that he had. ‘When and under what circumstances?’ asked
    the officer. ‘I d-dined with him y-y-yesterday, captin,’ stuttered
    the soldier. The story goes that his wit saved the soldier from
    punishment.


Broke. Dead broke (q.v.)—Stone broke (q.v.), adj. (common).—Ruined;
decayed; hard up—said of health or pecuniary circumstances. The French
slang has n’avoir pas un radis, literally ‘not to have a radish’; but
for all synonyms, see Dead-broke.

    1887. G. R. Sims, How the Poor Live, p. 16. ‘How do you do when
    you’re stone broke?’ I ask him. ‘Well, sir, sometimes I comes
    across a gentleman as gives me a bob and starts me again.’

    1889. Pall Mall Gaz., Aug. 14. I see that Sullivan made 21,000
    dols. out of his fight, but as he was ‘dead broke’ before the
    battle, there won’t be much of it left. Nevertheless, Sullivan has
    received hundreds of begging letters from folks who want him to pay
    off mortgages on their homes or buy them houses and lots and things
    of that sort.


Broken Feather in One’s Wing, subs. phr. (popular).—A blot on one’s
character.

    1880. Mrs. Oliphant, Phœbe, jun., ii., 6. If an angel were to walk
    about, Mrs. Sam Hurst would never rest till she had found out where
    he came from. And perhaps whether he had a broken feather in his
    wing.


Broken-Kneed, ppl. adj. (common).—Said of a girl or woman who has been
seduced. Cf., Ankle and Broken legged; for synonyms, see Dock and Leg.
In French theatrical slang, avoir mal aux genoux.


Broken Legged, ppl. adj. (common).—Seduced.—See Dock and Leg for
synonyms.


Brolly, subs. (general).—An umbrella. Term first used at Winchester,
being subsequently adopted at both Oxford and Cambridge Universities.

    1885. Punch, June 6, p. 273. Pair o’ pattens and brolly are more in
    your line.


Broncho, adj. (American).—Unruly; wild; savage. The epithet is derived
from broncho, the name of the native horse of California, a somewhat
tricky and uncertain quadruped. The term is familiarly applied to
horses that buck and show other signs of vice. The Spanish
signification of the word is rough and crabbed little beast, and in
truth he deserves this name.

    1888. Francis, Saddle and Mocassin. Oh! I don’t know. He’d been
    singing the music to ‘em’ (imitating them). Sam’s too broncho.


Broncho-Buster, subs. (American).—A breaker-in of bronchos; also called
a flash-rider. [From broncho (q.v.) + bust, in its slang sense of
annihilate, or overcome, + er.] These men make a profession of their
business and perform really marvellous feats, riding with ease the most
vicious and unbroken beasts that no ordinary rider would dare tackle. A
favourite feat is to sit out the antics of a bucking-horse with silver
half-dollars under each knee or in the stirrups under each foot. Their
method of breaking-in may be described as the exercise of main force,
it being a tussle as to which can hold out the longest, man or broncho.
The calling is a dangerous one, and a first-class broncho-buster can
always command high wages and constant employment on large ranches.


Bronze John, subs. (American).—Texas name for yellow fever; Englishmen
commonly call it yellow Jack (q.v.)


Broom, subs. (old).—1. See quot.

    1815. Scott, Guy Mannering, ch. xxviii. ‘The people got rusty about
    it, and would not deal, and they had bought so many brooms that——’
    Ibid, ch. xxxiii. (II., p. 96). What are you wanting here? Ye’ll be
    come wi’ a broom in your pocket frae Ellengowan? Got so many
    warrants out.

2. (harlotry.)—The female pudenda. The male penis is the broomstick.
For synonyms, see Monosyllable.

Verb (old).—To run away. For synonyms, see Amputate.

    1821. Moncrieff, Tom and Jerry, p. 6. Tom. That will do—now then
    Dicky, mizzle!—be scarce!—broom! Prime. Wouldn’t intrude a moment,
    gentlemen, good morning—order my carriage.


Broomstick, subs. (athletic).—A sort of rough cricket bat, very narrow
in the blade and all of one piece of wood.

To jump the broomstick—hop the broom—jump the besom, phr. (common).—To
live as man and wife without the legal tie. The allusion is to a quasi
marriage ceremony performed by both parties jumping over a broomstick.

    1811. Poole, Hamlet Travestied, ii., 3. Jump o’er a broomstick, but
    don’t make a farce on The marriage ceremonies of the parson.

    1851. Mayhew, London Labour and London Poor I., p. 336. The old
    woman (who kept the ken), when any female, old or young, who had no
    tin, came into the kitchen, made up a match for her with some men.
    Fellows half-drunk had the old women. There was always a broomstick
    wedding. Without that ceremony a couple weren’t looked on as man
    and wife.

    1860. Dickens, Great Expectations, ch. xlviii., p. 227. ‘They both
    led tramping lives, and this woman in Gerrard St. here, had been
    married very young, over the broomstick (as we say), to a tramping
    man, and was a perfect fury in point of jealousy.’

    c. 18(79). Broadside Ballad, ‘David Dove that fell in love.’ By L.
    M. Thornton.

        The girl that I had hoped to hear
          Pronounce my happy doom, sir,
        Had bolted with a carpenter,
          In fact hopped o’er the broom, sir.


Broomsticks, subs. (old).—Worthless bail. For synonyms, see Straw bail
and Cf., Bail.

    1812. J. H. Vaux, Flash Dictionary. Queer bail are persons of no
    repute, hired to bail a prisoner in any bailable case. These men
    are to be had in London for a trifling sum, and are called
    broomsticks.


Brosier or Brozier, subs. (Eton College).—A boy when he had spent all
his pocket-money. [Brozier is a Cheshire term for a bankrupt.] A French
term for a bankrupt is un déculotté, i.e., one unbreeched; also un
bauce or bausse fondu.

Broziered, ppl. adj.—Cleaned out; done up; ruined; bankrupt.

    1796. Merton, Way to get Married (in Inchbald’s ‘British Theatre,’
    vol. XXVI). [The term is so used here].

Brozier-my-dame, verbal phr. (Eton College).—Eating one out of house
and home. At Eton, when a dame (q.v.) keeps an unusually bad table, the
boys agree together on a day to eat, pocket, or waste everything
eatable in the house. The censure is well understood, and the hint is
generally effective.

    1850. Notes and Queries, June 15, p. 44. I well remember the phrase
    brozier-my-dame, signifying to eat her out of house and home.

    1888. Rev. W. Rogers, Reminiscences, p. 15. Etonians of my standing
    will remember John Francis Plumptre, one of the Fellows ... I once
    behaved very shabbily to him, for I joined a conspiracy to
    ‘brozier’ him. There were ten or twelve of us [at breakfast], and
    we devoured everything within reach.


Brother-Blade, subs. (old).—A soldier. Formerly brother of the blade,
i.e., of the sword; a fellow-soldier. For synonyms, see Mudcrusher.

    1785. Grose, Dictionary of the Vulgar Tongue. Brother of the blade,
    a soldier.

    1834. H. Ainsworth, Rookwood, bk. IV., ch. ii. ‘I heard some
    devilish good stories of you at D’Osyndar’s t’other day; the fellow
    who told them to me little thought I was a brother blade.’


Brother Chip (provincial workmen’s).—One of the same calling or trade;
formerly a fellow carpenter.

    1820. Clare, Poems of Rural Life, Familiar Epistle, st. 3. And,
    brother chip, I love ye dearly, poor as ye be!


Brother of the Brush, subs. phr. (old).—An artist; a house-painter.

    1687. Bp. Cartwright, in Hist. Magd. Coll. (Oxf. Hist. Soc.), 143.
    Pray make use of my brother of the brush. [M.]

    1759. Sterne, Tr. Shandy (1793), I., 133. The honourable devices
    which the Pentagraphic bretheren of the brush have shewn in taking
    copies. [M.]

    1833. Byron, wks. (1846), p. 585, col. 1. A young American brother
    of the brush. [M.]


Brother of the Bung, subs. phr. (old).—A brewer; one of the same trade.
[Bung here is used as an emblem of the trade of a brewer.]


Brother of the Buskin, subs. phr. (old).—A player; actor—one of the
same profession. [Buskin is in allusion to the covering for the foot
and leg (cothurnus) worn by actors in tragedy among the ancients; in
contrast to the sock (soccus) worn by comedians. Stage buskins had very
thick soles to give an appearance of height. Hence buskin as symbolical
of tragedy, but used in the phrase brother of the buskin in a
transferred and general sense.] Quoted by Grose [1785]. Cf.,
Barn-stormer and Booth-burster.


Brother of the Coif, subs. (old).—A serjeant-at-law. [The coif was a
close-fitting cap worn by the serjeants-at-law—hence the term.] Quoted
by Grose [1785].


Brother of the Gusset, subs. (old).—A pimp or ponce (q.v.). For
synonyms, see Bully.


Brother of the Quill, subs. phr. (old).—An author. [Quill = pen.] For
synonyms, see Ink-slinger.

    1754. B. Martin, Eng. Dict. (2 ed.). Brother of the quill, an
    author, one of the same profession.


Brother of the String, subs. phr. (old).—A fiddler. [A reference to the
violin or fiddle as a stringed instrument.]


Brother of the Whip, subs. phr. (old).—A coachman, the whip being
taken, as it were, as an insignia of office.

    1756. The World, No. 207. He ... had always greased my heels
    himself, and upon every one of my birthdays, had treated all his
    brother whips at his own expence.

    1849. T. Miller, in Gabarni in London, p. 39. He is very kind to
    any poor brother of the whip whom he sees tugging up-hill in vain,
    with a weighty load and an ill-fed team.


Brother-Smut, subs. phr. (popular).—A term of familiarity. ‘Ditto,
brother or sister smut,’ tu quoque.


Brother Starlings, subs. (old).—Men who cohabit with the same mistress.

    1785. Grose, Dictionary of the Vulgar Tongue. Brother Starling ...
    one who ... builds in the same nest.


Broth of a Boy, subs. phr. (Irish originally, but now common).—A jolly
good fellow. Cf., Brick. [The term is thought to originate from the
Irish Broth, passion—Brotha, passionate, spirited—its meaning being,
‘He’s a lad of spirit,’ though it may come from the ancient Cornish
name for the mastiff—brath. Hence a broth of a boy would then mean ‘a
stout dog of a boy—robust.’]

    1819–24. Byron, Don Juan, c. viii., st. 24. But Juan was quite a
    broth of a boy, a thing of impulse and a child of song.

    1877. Besant and Rice, Son of Vulcan, ch. xx. You ought to have
    been a preacher and a boy. Faith, and a broth of a boy, and a broth
    of a preacher you’d have made.


Broughtonian, subs. (old).—A bruiser; boxer; pugilist. [From Broughton,
once the best boxer of his day.]


Brown, subs. (common).—1. A halfpenny. [Probably an allusion to the
colour of the coin in question.] For synonyms of money generally, see
Actual.

    1812. J. H. Vaux, Flash Dict. Browns and whistlers, bad halfpence
    and farthings.

    1821. W. T. Moncrieff, Tom and Jerry, Act ii., Sc. 3. Bob. Now then
    for the stumpy. (Searching about in his pockets for the money.) My
    tanners are like young colts; I’m obliged to hunt ’em into a
    corner, afore I can get hold on ’em—there!—hand us over three
    browns out of that ’ere tizzy; and tip us the heavy. (Landlord
    receives money, and delivers porter.)

    1837. Barham, I. L. (Black Mousquetaire).

        The magic effect of a hand of crowns
        Upon people whose pockets boast nothing but browns.

    1851. Mayhew, London Labour and London Poor, III., p. 57. If I
    takes a hat round, they has a plate, and they gets sovereigns where
    we has only browns. Ibid. We keeps it up for half an hour or an
    hour ... if the browns tumble in well.

    1853. Whyte Melville, Digby Grand, ch. iv. A shower of browns, the
    coppers mingled with silver, from our private box, rewards their
    exertions.

    c. 1884. Broadside Ballad, ‘Jimmy Johnson’s Holiday.’

        But Violet, the Margate pet,
          Who always call’d him Teaser,
        Said ‘She would stick like mortar’d brick,
          While Johnson had a brown.’

2. (old.)—Porter. [Qy. an abbreviation of ‘Brown Stout.’]

    1820. Glossary at end of Corcoran’s The Fancy. Brown, porter; heavy
    brown, stout.

Verb.—1. A variant of ‘to do brown,’ i.e., to do to perfection; to get
the better of. [The simile is obviously taken from the browning process
which meat undergoes during roasting.]—See Do brown.

2. To understand; comprehend.

To do brown, verbal phr. (common).—To do well; also ‘to take in’;
deceive; to exceed bounds. Cf., Brown, verb, sense 1. French
equivalents for ‘to allow oneself to be done brown’ are godancer and
être flouè.—See second quotation for variation in usage.

    a. 1600. John Bon, 162 in Hazl. E. P. P., iv., 16. Ha! browne done.
    [M.]

    1828. Jon. Bee, Picture of London, p. 5. ‘Those who consider
    themselves brown to every move upon the board’ of actual life.

    1837. Barham, I. L. (The Execution). ‘Why, they’d laugh at and quiz
    us all over the town, We are all of us done so uncommonly brown!’

    1854. Harper’s Monthly, January.

        ‘And some of the greenhorns
          Resolved upon flight,
        And vamosed the ranch
          In a desperate plight;
        While those who succeeded
          In reaching the town,
        Confessed they were done,
          Most exceedingly brown.’

    1861. Times (on American affairs).

        John Bull, slyly winkin’, then said unto he:
        ‘My dear Times, my old covey, go pitch into he;
        Let us wallop great Doodle now when he is down;
        If we wallops him well, we will do him up brown.’

    1876. Hindley, Life and Adventures of a Cheap Jack, p. 267. I was
    once done myself with some pigs—I! and done brown too, and at a
    time when I ought to have known better.


Brown Bess, subs. (rhyming slang).—1. Yes.

2. (military.)—The old regulation musket. Considerable discussion has
taken place over the origin of this term. It first appears in Grose
[1785], but the term ‘brown musquet’ occurs at the beginning of the
eighteenth century [1708]. The following suggested derivation appeared
in N. and Q. [2 S., v., p. 259]. Brown Bess, in its primary meaning, is
equivalent to brown barrel. Bus, in Dutch is the barrel of a gun; in
Low Germ. büsse, in Swed. byssa. Hence our English Bess as applied to a
gun-barrel. (Conf. in Med. Latin—bus-bas fragor scloporum et
certaminis.) The Dutch bus appears often in composition. Hand-bus, a
pistol; literally a hand-barrel. Bus-schieter, a gunner; literally a
barrel-shooter. We have the Dutch bus (a barrel) in three English names
of fire-arms: namely arquebuse, obus, blunderbuss. At the first of
these three, arquebuse, we must look a little more closely would we
trace the term brown Bess to its primæval source. The most formidable
of cross-bows before fire-arms came into general use, was one which
shot a ball or pellet from a barrel. Specimens may yet be seen. Now
this was the original arquebuse (i.e., arc-bus, or arc-et-bus, bow and
barrel). In process of time as gunpowder came into use, the arc
disappeared, and the buss or barrel remained. Hence arquebuse, though
it properly implies a bow fitted with a tube or barrel, came into use
as the old appellation of a soldier’s firelock. And hence the name of
Bess (bus, büsse or byssa), which the musket has borne more recently.
Bess or bus is the last syllable of the old arquebuse or harquebus cut
off for separate use, just as in the more recent instance of bus from
omnibus. The barrels of firelocks were sometimes browned. Sometimes,
however, they were required to be kept bright. Could we ascertain who
first in mercy ordained the browning of the barrel, we might have some
prospect of ascertaining the first introduction of the term brown Bess.
Doubtless it was some hero of the fight, not of the field-day. For a
further illustration of the term brown Bess, it may be proper to remark
that in Northumberland, according to Halliwell, a gun is known by the
not very elegant title of black-bitch. Now like bus in Dutch, büchse is
in German a gun-barrel. (‘Büchse, 2, ein eisernes Rohr zum schiessen,’
an iron tube for shooting.) May we not infer, therefore, that
black-bitch was originally ‘black büchse,’ i.e., black barrel, in
conformity with brown barrel or brown Bess? ‘Formerly,’ says Zedler,
‘and before the invention of gunpowder, arquebuse signified a bow with
a barrel’ (Bogen Büchse), which is the literal meaning of the word.
Hotten, however, says it is much more likely that the phrase is derived
from the fact that ‘the soldier is wedded to his weapon,’ and some
colour is given to this alternative derivation by the fact that the
Dutch soldier, mindful of all the care he has to bestow upon his gun,
calls it his wife—mijn geweer is mijn vrouw. French soldiers call their
weapon la clarinette de cinq pieds.

    1785. Grose, Dictionary of the Vulgar Tongue. Brown Bess, a
    soldier’s firelock.

    1820. Coombe, Dr. Syntax, Tour II., ch. ii.

        Religion Jack did never profess,
        Till he had shoulder’d old Brown Bess.

    1854. Whyte Melville, General Bounce, ch. xi. The British soldier,
    with his clothing and accoutrements, ...—not to mention brown Bess,
    his mainstay and dependence—nothing punishes him so much as wet.

    1877. Chambers’ Journal, No. 720. Such may have been the case in
    the days of brown Bess, but a spinning conical ball from the
    Martini-Henry will pierce the largest crocodile.

3. (old.)—A prostitute. For synonyms, see Barrack-hack.

    1631. Dore, Polydorun. Things proffered and easie to come by
    diminish themselves in reputation and price, for how full of pangs
    and dotage is a wayling lover, for it may be some brown Bessie.

To hug brown Bess, verbal phr. (old).—To serve as a private soldier.


Brown George, subs. (old).—1. Explained by quotations.

    1837. Barham, Ingoldsby L., 3 S. ‘Jerry Jarvis’s Wig.’ He looked
    disdainfully at the wig; it had once been a comely jasey enough, of
    the colour of over-baked ginger-bread, one of the description
    commonly known during the latter half of the last century by the
    name of a brown George.

    1882. Globe, 24 July, p. 2, col. 1. The King [George III.] wore a
    brown wig ... known popularly a century ago as brown George.

2. (common.)—A jug; generally of brown earthenware. Cf., Black-jack.

    1861. Hughes, Tom Brown at Oxford, ch. xxiv. He ... stood behind
    his oak, holding his brown George, or huge earthenware receptacle,
    half full of dirty water, in which his bedmaker had been washing up
    his tea-things.

    1881. Besant and Rice, Chap. of the Fleet, pt. II., ch. iii. His
    country brother might have been seen at the Crown, over a pipe and
    a brown George full of strong October.

3. (old.)—A coarse brown loaf; or hard biscuit.

    1653. Urquhart, Rabelais, bk. IV. Author’s Prologue. The devil of
    one musty crust of a brown George the poor boys had to scour their
    grinders with.

    1693. Dryden, Persius, V., 215.

        Cubb’d in a cabin, on a mattrass laid,
        On a brown George, with lousy swabbers fed.


Brownie, subs. (nautical).—The polar bear.


Brown Janet, subs. (nautical).—A knapsack.


Brown Joe, intj. (rhyming slang).—No. Cf., Brown Bess for ‘yes.’


Brown-Papermen, subs. (thieves’).—Low gamblers.—See quot.

    1851. H. Mayhew, London Lab. and Lon. Poor, vol. I., p. 502. ‘But
    the Little Nick is what we call only ‘brown papermen,’ low
    gamblers—playing for pence, and 1s. being a great go.’


Brown Stone, subs. (American thieves’).—Beer. For synonyms, see Swipes.


Brown Talk, subs. (common).—Conversation of an exceedingly ‘proper’
character, Quakerish. Compare blue.


Browse, verb (Marlborough and Royal Military Academy).—To idle; loll;
take things easy. [A transferred sense of the legitimate word—to eat
lazily.]

Adj.—See foregoing. ‘A browse morning,’ i.e., one in which there is
little work.


Bruise, verb (prize-fighters’).—1. To fight; box—generally with the
idea of mauling.

Bruise along, verbal phr. (hunting).—To pound along.

    1865. Dublin University Magazine, II., 19. A majority of those who
    follow them have ... no notion of hunting, but go bruising along.

    1872. Anteros, xii., p. 110. The baron hunted his five days ...
    bruising along determinedly.


Bruiser, subs. (pugilistic).—1. A prize-fighter; a boxer. [From bruise,
to maul, + er.]

    1744. Nov. 26, Walpole, Lett. to Mann (1833), II., 57. He let into
    the pit great numbers of bear-garden bruisers (that is the term),
    to knock down everybody that hissed.

    1753. Foote, Englishman in Paris, Act i. Dick Daylight and Bob
    Bread-basket the bruisers.

    1830. S. Warren, Diary of a Late Physician, ch. xii. The man last
    named was short in stature, but of a square iron build; and it
    needed only a glance at his posture to see he was a scientific,
    perhaps a thorough-bred bruiser.

    1846–48. Thackeray, V. Fair, ch. xi. At college he pulled
    stroke-oar in the Christchurch boat, and had thrashed all the best
    bruisers of the ‘town.’

    1860. Thackeray, Philip, ch. xlii. A jolly wag, a fellow of
    indifferent character, a frequenter of all the ale-houses in the
    neighbourhood, and rather celebrated for his skill as a bruiser.

    1880. Jas. Greenwood, Flyfaker’s Hotel, in Odd People in Odd
    Places, p. 58. Nearly every one seemed to have some little job or
    other that was necessary to be done at this almost last moment for
    the business of to-morrow; even one of the two villanous-looking
    bruisers had. They were of the very lowest of the ‘rough’
    type—broken-nosed, besotted, pimple-visaged, and
    unwholesome-looking fellows, whose foul and blasphemous language
    seemed to pollute the pestilent air of the place more than anything
    else that contributed thereto.

2. (thieves’.)—A prostitute’s bully or fancy man. For synonyms, see
Bully.

3. (common.)—One fond of fighting. Cf., Chucker-out, and next sense.

4. (American.)—A generic name in large cities for a rowdy or bully.
Sometimes, however, the term has been limited in its application to a
particular band of ruffians. This was the case once in Baltimore.


Bruising, verbal subs. (prize-fighters’).—Fighting with the fists;
boxing.

    1751. Smollett, Peregrine Pickle, ch. c. The combatants were, in
    point of strength and agility, pretty equally matched; but the
    jailer had been regularly trained to the art of bruising.

    1855. Thackeray, Newcomes, ch. x. At that time the Sunday
    newspapers contained many and many exciting reports of boxing
    matches. Bruising was considered a fine manly old English custom.

    1860. Thackeray, Philip, ch. xxxv. Mugford always persisted that he
    could have got the better of his great hulking sub-editor, who did
    not know the use of his fists. In Mugford’s youthful time, bruising
    was a fashionable art.

Ppl. adj. (hunting).—That pounds along.

    1872. Anteros, by the author of Guy Livingstone, I., p. 207. He was
    a good second-rate shot, and a fair, though by no means bruising
    rider to hounds. Ibid., p. 234. There were not a few admirers of
    his bruising style, etc.


Brum, subs. (old).—1. A counterfeit coin. [Contracted form of Brummagem
(q.v.).] The term appears to have been given specially to some
counterfeit groats [about 1691].

2. (common).—Something counterfeit; not genuine. [A contraction of
Brummagem (q.v.).]

    1883. Daily Telegraph, July 9, p. 3, col. 2. One [earring] might be
    gold, and the other a Brum, though exactly alike.

3. (common).—Copper money struck by Boulton and Watt at their works at
Soho, Birmingham.

    1787. J. West, Trip to Richmond, in Ashton’s Eighteenth Century
    Waifs, p. 133. My silver I chang’d for a handful of Brums.

4. (common).—An inhabitant of Birmingham.

    1876. Hindley, Life and Adventures of a Cheap Jack, p. 321. For
    Nottingham is a rare place for good eating; here you may buy
    anything to eat of the commonest person, or in the commonest place
    with confidence that it is good, clean, and wholesome, very
    different to dirty Birmingham and the Brums.

Adj. (Winchester College).—Mean; poor; stingy. A superlative form is
dead brum. [There are two derivations suggested; viz. (1) from bruma =
winter; and (2) traditional in ‘College’ that it is an abbreviated form
of brevissimum.] A popular French equivalent, used both as a
substantive and adjective, is rapiat.


Brumby, subs. (Australian).—A wild horse. An Antipodean counterpart of
the American ‘broncho.’


Brummagem, subs. (popular).—1. A nickname for Birmingham.

    1862. Cornhill, Nov., p. 648. We have just touched for a rattling
    stake of sugar (i.e., a large stake of money) at Brum.

2. (old).—Base money of various denominations has been so
called—especially groats in 17th century—hence its application to
anything spurious or unreal—as in adjectival sense.—See also Brummagem
buttons and Brums.

    1691. G. Miege, New State Eng., 235. Bromicham, particularly noted
    a few years ago for the counterfeit groats made here, and from
    hence dispersed all over the kingdom. [M.]

    1754. B. Martin, Eng. Dict., 2 ed. Bromidgham, money of base metal.

    1834. Southey, The Doctor, ch. cxl. He picked it up, and it proved
    to be a Brummejam of the coarsest and clumsiest kind, with a head
    on each side.

Adj.—Counterfeit; unreal; sham; showy; pretentious.—See substantive,
senses 1 and 2.

    1637. Calendar Dom. St. Papers, 105. Those swords which he ...
    pretends to be blades of his owne makeing are all Bromedgham blades
    and forraine blades.

    1686. D’Urfey, Commonwealth of Women, I., i. A Brummingham, son of
    a wh—, affront the Noble Admiral!

    1866. G. Eliot, Felix Holt, ch. v. ‘The most of the middle class
    are as ignorant as the working people about everything that doesn’t
    belong to their own Brummagem life.’

    1883. Echo, March 28, p. 1, col. 5. There is little of a Brummagem
    character about the municipal, parochial, and philanthropic work of
    Birmingham, whatever we may think of some of her industrial
    productions.


Brummagem Buttons, subs. (common).—Counterfeit coin.

    1836. Dickens, Posthumous Papers of the Pickwick Club, I., p. 11.
    Bad silver, Brummagem buttons, etc.

    1873. Saturday Review, Nov., p. 661. They [Brummagem buttons] were
    marvellously inexpensive, and being such ingenious imitations of
    the spade guineas and half-guineas then current that many
    Englishmen might have failed to detect the difference; they must
    have been of very great ‘use to the Indians’ indeed.


Brummish, adj. (common).—Doubtful; counterfeit. [From Brum (q.v.) +
ish.]

    1805. G. Colman, John Bull Brit. Theat., 55. Two guineas ... one
    seems light and t’other looks a little brummish. [M.]


Brums, subs. (Stock Exchange).—London and North Western Stock.
(Formerly London and Birmingham Ry.).

    1887. Atkin, House Scraps.

        We kneel at the feet of our ‘Nancys,’
          We load them with ‘cottons’ and ‘tapes.’
        If anything tickles our fancy,
          We buy them Brums, ‘Caleys’ or ‘Apes.’


Brush.—1. See Brother of the brush.

2. subs. (old).—A hasty departure. For analogous terms, see Amputate.

    1750. Fielding, Tom Jones, bk. VIII., ch. xii. ‘I reminded him, not
    without blushing, of my having no money. He answered, “That
    signifies nothing, score it behind the door, or make a bold brush,
    and take no notice.”’

3. (old.)—A person who decamps hastily, or who evades his creditors.

    1748. T. Dyche, Dictionary (5 ed.). Brush (v.) ... also a canting
    term for one who goes off privately, or runs away from his
    creditors, or with stolen goods.

Verb (Christ’s Hospital).—1. To flog.

2. (old.)—To have sexual intercourse. For synonyms, see Ride.

3. (old.)—To run away; to decamp. Also to brush off. For synonyms, see
Amputate.

    1690. B. E., Dict. Cant. Crew. Brush, to Fly or Run away. [M.]

    1706. E. Coles, Eng. Dict. Brush, c., run away.

    1764. A. Murphy, No One’s Enemy but his Own, Act ii. Rascal, says
    my Master, do as I bid you, and so off he brushed to the tune of an
    old song.

    1776. Foote, Bankrupt, I. But I must brush off, for here comes my
    lady.

    1837. Barham, Ingoldsby Legends (1877), 204. And one Sergeant
    Matcham had brush’d with the dibs.

    1837. Barham, I. L. (Dead Drummer). One of their drummers, and one
    Sergeant Matcham, Had brush’d with the dibs, and they never could
    catch’em.


Brusher, subs. (old).—A full glass.

2. (old.)—See quotation.

    1748. T. Dyche, Dictionary (5 ed.). Brusher (s.) ... also one that
    gets or steals away privately.

3. (common and schools’.)—A schoolmaster.

4. (American.)—To humbug by flattery.

Brushing up a flat, phr. (general).—Using mealy-mouthed words, or, to
employ other slang equivalents, ‘laying it on thick,’ ‘soft soaping
one.’


Brute, subs. (University).—See quot.

    1868. Brewer, Phrase and Fable, s.v. Brute, in Cambridge University
    slang, is a man who has not yet matriculated. The play is evident.
    A ‘man,’ in college phrase, is a collegian; and as matriculation is
    the sign and seal of acceptance, a scholar before that ceremony is
    not a ‘man,’ and therefore only a ‘biped brute.’


Brydport Dagger.—See Bridport dagger.


B. T. I., phr. (American).—An abbreviation of a big thing on ice. These
curtailments of slang phrases are not infrequent in America, and among
others may be mentioned p.d.q.; o.k.; n.g. and q.k., etc. (q.v.).


Bub, subs. (old).—1. Strong drink of any kind, but usually applied to
malt liquor. [It is suggested that this term is onomatopoetic, an
imitation of the sound of drinking; others, however, incline to regard
the word as a derivative of the Latin bib-ĕre, to drink. Sometimes
spelt bubb.] A common expression for eating and drinking is ‘to take
bub and grub,’ a French equivalent for which is se caresser
l’Angoulême.

    1671. R. Head, English Rogue, pt. I., ch. iv., p. 36 (1874). In a
    short time these four return’d laden with bub and food.

    1748. Dodsley, Collection of Poems, III., 262.

        Tho’ beef twice boil’d his meal, with P—n’s bub,
        And sixpence chang’d defrays the frugal club.

    1839. H. Ainsworth, Jack Sheppard, ep. II., ch. xi. ‘Och! many a
    mug o’ bubb have I drained wi’ the landlord.’

2. (common.)—A woman’s breast; generally used in the plural—bubbies
(q.v.).

3. (old.)—A brother.

4. (American.)—Also bubby. A term of affection applied to a little boy.
[Said to have originated in Pennsylvania from the German Bube.]
Likewise used figuratively as a familiar mode of address.

    1872. S. Clemens (‘Mark Twain’), Roughing It. The cayote turns
    smiles blandly upon him once more, and with a something about it
    which seems to say: ‘Well, I shall have to tear myself away from
    you, bub—business is business, and it will not do for me to be
    fooling along this way all day.’

    1888. San Francisco Weekly Examiner. When she was ready to go home,
    she did so without carriage or baby. Shortly after bubby kicked up
    high jinks, and the joker clerk was sent for to take him away.

5. (old.)—An abbreviated form of bubble, subs.

    1690. B. E., Dict. Cant. Crew. Bub or bubble, one that is cheated.
    [M.]

Verb (old).—1. To drink.—See substantive.

    1671. R. Head, English Rogue, pt. I., ch. vi., p. 54 (1874). We
    straight betook ourselves to the Boozing Ken; and having bubb’d
    rumly, we concluded an everlasting friendship.

2. (old.)—To bribe; to cheat. Cf., Bubble.

    1719. D’Urfey, Pills, II., 54. Another makes Racing a Trade.... And
    many a Crimp Match has made, By bubbing another Man’s Groom.


Bubber, subs. (old).—1. A hard drinker; a confirmed tippler. [From bub
(q.v.) = drink + er.] A synonymous French term is un bibassier, but for
analogous terms generally, see Elbow crooker.

    1653. Middleton, Sp. Gipsy, ii., 1. Though I am no mark in respect
    of a huge butt, yet I can tell you great bubbers have shot at me.
    [There is a play in the word ‘butt.’]

    1674. R. Head, Canting Acad., 191. A bubber ... goes to the
    Alehouse, and steals there the Plate.

    1785. Grose, Dictionary of the Vulgar Tongue. Bubber, ... a great
    drinker. A thief that steals plate from publick houses.

2. (old.)—A drinking bowl. Cf., derivation of previous sense.

    1690. B. E., Dict. Cant. Crew. Bubber, a drinking Bowl; also a
    great Drinker, and he that used to steal Plate from Publick-houses.

    1785. Grose, Dictionary of the Vulgar Tongue. Bubber, a drinking
    bowl, etc.

3. (old.)—A public house thief.—See quotation 1690, sense 2; also
mentioned by Grose [1785].

4. (American.)—A nickname for an old woman with large pendulous
breasts. Rarely heard.

    1848. Bartlett, Americanisms. Bubber. A stout or stoutly mammalated
    old woman. Used in Salem, Mass., in 1820, and since. ‘Bubber
    Jones.’ (Fr. poitron, old woman; Old Fr. pect. poitron; Lat.
    pectus, the breast.)


Bubbies, subs. (common).—A woman’s breasts. An old term of which the
derivation is somewhat doubtful, though it may be noted that the
ancient cant has bub in the sense of ‘to drink,’ and also as an
abbreviated form of bubby. Arber says that ‘bu bu’ is the cry of a
child needing its mother’s milk.—For synonyms, see Dairies.

    1686. D’Urfey, New Poems (1690), 206.

        The Ladies here may without Scandal shew,
        Face or white bubbies, to each ogling Beau.

    1693. Congreve, Old Batchelor, Act v., Sc. 7. Did not her eyes
    twinkle, and her mouth water? Did not she pull up her little
    bubbies?

    1712. Arbuthnot, Hist. of John Bull, pt. III., ch. viii. ‘To see a
    handsome, brisk, genteel, young fellow so much governed by a
    doating old woman! Why don’t you go and suck the bubby?’

    1715. Vanbrugh, Country House, II., v. He talked to me of you, and
    said you had the charmingest bubbies.

    1748. Dodsley, Collection of Poems, III., 191. And snowy bubbies
    pull’d above the stays.

    1754. B. Martin, Eng. Dict., 2 ed. Bubbys, a woman’s breasts.


Bubbing, subs. (old).—Drinking; tippling.

    1678. Poor Robin’s Char. of Scold, 6. She clamours at him so long
    ... which makes him seek Bubbing-schools to hide himself in from
    her fury. [M.]


Bubble, subs. (old).—A dupe; gull; also caravan (q.v.); and rook
(q.v.). Grose thinks from the party cheated being like an air-bubble
filled with words which are only wind instead of real property. Also
apparently used of anything not genuine. Applied to persons, it is
older than appears from Murray.

    1598. Shakspeare, All’s Well, iii., vi., 5. Sec. Lord. On my life,
    my lord, a bubble. Ber. Do you think I am so far deceived in him?

    1688. Shadwell, Sq. of Alsatia, III., in wks. (1720) IV., 62. This
    kinsman a most silly bubble first, and afterwards a betrayer of
    young heirs.

    1697. Vanbrugh, Provoked Wife, V., iii. If her conduct has put a
    trick upon her virtue, her virtue’s the bubble, but her husband’s
    the loser.

    1711. Swift, Conduct of the Allies. We are thus become the dupes
    and bubbles of Europe.

    1712. Arbuthnot, History of John Bull, pt. II., ch. iii. He has
    been my bubble [tool] these twenty years; and to my certain
    knowledge, understands no more of his own affairs than a child in
    swaddling clothes.

    1750. Fielding, Tom Jones, bk. I., ch. vii. ‘This would be to own
    herself the meer tool and bubble of the man.’

    1788. G. A. Stevens, Adv. of a Speculist, I., 69. He persuades his
    bubble, that he will insure him a certain safe way of getting a sum
    of money.

    1795. R. Cumberland, The Jew, Act iii., Sc. 2. If he attempts to
    raise money upon expectancies, be at their peril who are fools
    enough to trust him: No prudent man will be his bubble.

    1805. G. Barrington, New London Spy (4 ed.), p. 24. The shame of
    being thought a bubble, and exposed to the town, frequently
    prevents gentlemen from making use of the statute provided in such
    cases.

Verb (old).—To cheat; humbug; delude as with bubbles; to overreach.
Cf., substantive sense.

    1664. Etheridge, Comical Revenge, II., iii., in wks. (1704), 24. I
    believe he’s gone down to Receive money; ’twere an excellent design
    to bubble him.

    1685. Dryden, Prol. to Albion and Albanius, 23.

        Freedom and zeal have choused you o’er and o’er;
        Pray give us leave to bubble you once more.

    1711. Spectator, No 89. That she has bubbled him out of his youth
    ... and that he verily believes she will drop him in his old age,
    if she can find her account in another.

    1752. Fielding, Amelia, bk. XI., ch. iv. He ... actually bubbled
    several of their money by undertaking to do them services, which,
    in reality, were not within his power.

    1777. Sheridan, Trip to Scarborough, Act ii. Help the gentleman
    with a chair, and carry him to my house presently—that’s the
    properest place—[aside]—to bubble him out of his money.

    1788. G. A. Stevens, Adv. of a Speculist, I., 75. And this was the
    language which the pretenders to the Philosopher’s Stone used to
    bubble their pigeons with.

    1880. McCarthy, Own Times, III., xli., 235. Some critics declared
    ... that the French Emperor had bubbled him [Mr. Cobden].


Bubbleable, adj. (old).—That can be duped; gullible. [A very rare form
from bubble, to cheat, + able.]

    1669. Nicker Nicked, in Hart. Misc. (ed. Park), II., 109. If the
    winner be bubbleable, they will insinuate themselves into his
    acquaintance, and civilly invite him to drink a glass of wine;
    wheedle him into play, and win all his money.


Bubble and Squeak, subs. phr. (common).—A compound of cold meat fried
up with potatoes and greens. [From the hissing sound produced by the
frying; originally nautical.]

    1785. Grose, Dictionary of the Vulgar Tongue. Bubble and squeak,
    beef and cabbage fried together; it is so called from its bubbling
    up and squeaking whilst over the fire.

    1786–89. Wolcot (‘P. Pindar’), Lousiad, ch. i., line 366.

        Such is the sound (the simile’s not weak)
        Form’d by what mortals bubble call, and squeak,
        When ’midst the frying-pan, in accents savage,
        The beef so sorely quarrels with the cabbage.

    1853. Lytton, My Novel, bk. VIII., ch. viii. ‘Rank and title!
    bubble and squeak! No, not half so good as bubble and squeak.
    English beef and good cabbage.’


Bubble Buff, subs. (old).—A bailiff.


Bubble Company, subs. (common).—A swindling association, enterprise or
project. [From bubble, to cheat, + company.] The South Sea Bubble will
occur to mind in this connection.

    1754. B. Martin, Eng. Dict. (2 ed.). Bubble ... 5 (in Commerce), a
    cant name given to certain projects for raising money on imaginary
    grounds.

    1880. Hawley Smart, Social Sinners, ch. xix. ‘My inheritance
    disappears as if it had been invested in a bubble company.’


Bubbled, ppl. adj. (old).—Gulled; deceived; befooled. [From bubble, to
cheat, + ed.]

    a. 1683. Oldham, Wks. and Rem. (1686), 66. Bubled Monarchs are at
    first beguil’d ... at last depos’d, and kill’d. [M.]

    1701. Defoe, True Born Englishman, Introd.

        Who shall this bubbled nation disabuse,
        While they, their own felicities refuse?

    1889. Gentleman’s Mag., June, p. 598. Towards the end of the
    century [xvii] a person easily gulled, or bubbled was known as a
    ‘caravan,’ but earlier the term ‘rook,’ which is now restricted to
    a cheat or sharper, appears to have been applied to the person
    cheated.


Bubbling Squeak, subs. (army).—Hot soup.


Bubbly Jock, subs. (old Scotch).—1. A turkey-cock; a ‘gobbler.’
[Probably in allusion to the cry of the bird.]

    1785. Grose, Dictionary of the Vulgar Tongue. Bubbly jock, a
    turkey-cock.

    1843. Thackeray, Irish Sketch Book, ch. xv. He took but one glass
    of water to that intolerable deal of bubbly jock.... Three
    turkey-wings and a glass of water.

    1877. Besant and Rice, Son of Vulcan, pt. II., ch. xviii. Puffing
    his cheeks like some infuriated bubbly jock in a stable-yard.

2. (common.)—A stupid boaster.

3. (popular.)—A pert, conceited, pragmatical fellow; a prig; a cad.

    1883. G. A. Sala, Living London, p. 113. Mr. Benjamin Bunny (Mr. J.
    L. Toole) is the good-natured husband of a pretty young wife (Miss
    Winifred Emery). Mr. Bunny is, to use a Scotticism, ‘sair
    owerhanded,’ not by a ‘bubbly jock,’ but by his wife’s aunt.


Bubby.—See Bub and Bubbies.


Bucco, subs. (American thieves’).—A dandy. [A corruption of buck
(q.v.).]


Buck, subs. (common).—1. In the first instance a man of spirit or
gaiety of conduct; later a fop, a dandy. [A transferred sense of buck,
the male of the fallow deer.] In the form ‘old buck’ it is merely a
familiar mode of address. The epithet, as applied to a man about town,
is somewhat obsolete; masher, dude, and swell having taken its place.
Cf., Blood.

    1725. New Cant. Dict. Buck, as a bold buck, is sometimes used to
    signify a forward daring Person of either Sex.

    1752. Fielding, Amelia, bk. X., ch. ii. A large assembly of young
    fellows, whom they call bucks.

    1846–48. Thackeray, V. Fair, ch. vi. She had sate by him on the box
    of his open carriage (a most tremendous buck he was, as he sat
    there, serene, in state, driving his greys).

    1889. Answers, Feb. 9. The ancient buck was last seen (at the age
    of eighty-four) wearing a wig, a pair of stays, ‘plumpers,’ rouge,
    and padding, and he daily anointed his face with a compound called
    ‘skin-tightener.’ ‘Skin-tightener’ removes wrinkles, and after the
    face has been washed with ‘bloom of roses,’ the wearer can strut
    forth with the consciousness that all the world takes him for a
    quarter of a century younger than he is.

2. (common.)—An unlicensed cabdriver. Apparently also applied to a sham
fare.—See last quotation.

    1851–61. H. Mayhew, London Lab. and Lon. Poor, vol. III., p. 362.
    The long-day men are the parties who mostly employ the bucks ...
    they are glad to avail themselves of the services of a buck for
    some hours at the end of the day. Ibid. The bucks are unlicensed
    cabdrivers, who are employed by those who have a license to take
    charge of the cab while the regular drivers are at their meals or
    enjoying themselves.

    1865. Morning Star, 14 Sept. What is the prisoner? Constable: He is
    a buck, who hangs about an omnibus stand. [M.]

    1887. Daily News, 5 October, 5, 4. At Bow Street something was
    further heard of the buck. This person ... is the sham fare whom a
    cabby drives past the police in order to get up to the theatre
    doors out of his proper turn, and so increase his chance of
    securing a legitimate fare.

3. (old.)—A sixpence. [Thought to be a corruption of fyebuck (q.v.).]
The word is rarely used by itself, but generally denotes the sixpence
attached to shillings in reference to cost, as, ‘three and a buck,’
three shillings and sixpence. For synonyms, see Bender.

    1885. Household Words, June 20, p. 155. ‘Buck’ is most likely a
    corruption of ‘fyebuck,’ a slang name for sixpence, which is now
    almost, if not altogether, obsolete.

4. (schoolboys’.)—A large marble. Cf., Alley, Bonce, Mivey.

    1885. Household Words, June 20, p. 155. Readers whose school-days
    are still green in their memories will also recognise in buck the
    name for the large marble once dear to their boyish hearts.

5. (American.)—A term used in poker (q.v.). Cf., Tiger.

Adj. (American University).—At Princeton College anything which is of
an intensive degree, good, excellent, pleasant or agreeable, is called
buck.

Verb (American).—1. To oppose; to run counter to. [Possibly a
corruption of butt, or from buck as applied to a horse.—See sense 2.]

2. (Western American.)—As applied to horses this term is used to
describe the action of plunging forward and throwing the head to the
ground in an effort to unseat the rider—a motion of which probably no
domesticated beast is capable, aside from the Texan miserable and
treacherous species of horse. A raw hand thus relates his
experience:—‘When I was told how hard he could buck, I only laughed, my
impression being that no pony standing on four legs could throw me off.
I mounted my new horse, and waving my bran new hat about my head,
galloped away in a dignified style. Suddenly the horse stopped. His
ears went back, and his hind legs went between his front. The motion
was a curious one. But I did not fall. Realizing that the man on his
back could ride a little bit, the pony got right down to business. My
stomach seemed to fly up into my mouth, and millions of stars floated
about my head. I am not prepared to state what kind of hold the pony
got on me, but I went sprawling on the ground, my nose making an
irrigating ditch. It was all done not more than one hundred yards from
where my girl was standing. I stuck on well, however, as the saddle,
blanket, gun and bridle came off with me. The wild yell that greeted my
exploit nearly drove me mad. While I spit the dirt and curses out of my
mouth, I thought that if I had that pony back I’d break him in or break
my head. It ran out on the prairie and joined the Government herd. When
an old-timer tried to fix things for me in front of my girl by saying,
“It’s no disgrace, pardnr, that horse can buck off a porus plaster,” I
thanked him from the bottom of my heart.’

3. (commercial.)—A variant of to cook (q.v.), as applied to accounts.

4. (Western American.)—To play against the bank, usually ‘to buck the
tiger.’—See following.

    1879. Bret Harte, Gabriel Conroy, p. 375. I don’t like your looks
    at all. I’d buck against any bank you ran, all night.

    1880. Bret Harte, Brown of Calaveras. (Tales of the Arg., p. 81).
    Why don’t you say you want to buck agin’ faro?

    1888. Hotel Mail.

        A man may hunt the wildest game
          Along the Nile or the Niger,
              In woods or ranch;
        But he will find the sport most tame
          Compared with bucking the tiger
              At dear Long Branch.

5. (Western American.)—To put forth one’s whole energy. [An extension
of meaning from sense 4.]

    1870. San Antonio Paper. ‘You’ll have to buck at it like a whole
    team, gentlemen, or you won’t hear the whistle near your diggings
    for many a year.’

To run a buck, verbal phr. (old Irish).—To poll a bad vote at an
election.—Grose.

Buck or fight the tiger, verbal phr. (American).—To gamble. [There are
two derivations suggested:—(1) that the phrase is derived from the
parti-coloured division or stripes on a gambling table; (2) that it is
of Chinese origin. A favourite figure of one of the Chinese gods of
gambling is a tiger standing on his hind-feet, and grasping a large
cash in his mouth or his paws. Sometimes the image is made of wood or
clay, or drawn on a piece of paper or board. The title of the beast,
His Excellency the Grasping Cash Tiger, is frequently written on a
piece of paper, and placed in the gambling rooms between two bunches of
mock-money suspended under the table or on the wall behind it. This
figure is the sign for a gambling house: ‘The Fighting Tiger.’]

    1888. Daily Inter-Ocean, Feb. 14. Last night and to-day they have
    succeeded in placing under arrest six of the gaming-house keepers
    of the city and subpœnaed thirty citizens as witnesses, among whom
    are said to be prominent city officials and business men. The
    affair has caused a good deal of talk already, and if reports are
    anywhere near true, it will create a great sensation when the cases
    are called, and more than one unsuspecting wife will have her eyes
    opened to the fact that the wicked tiger, and not legitimate
    business has been detaining her husband out so late at night.


Buck Bait, subs. (thieves’).—Bail given by a confederate. Cf., Bait.


Buck Down, verbal phr. (Winchester College).—To be sorry; unhappy. Cf.,
Buck up and Bucksome.


Bucked. To be bucked, verb (Uppingham).—To be tired. Cf., Buck up.


Buckeen, subs. (Irish).—A bully.—Grose. Properly a young man of the
poorer aristocracy.


Bucket, subs. (American).—An anonymous letter.

Verb (general).—1. To ride hard; not to spare one’s beast.

    1856. Whyte Melville, Kate Coventry, ch. xi. ‘I had rather give
    Brilliant a good bucketing’ [Aunt Horsingham shuddered—I knew she
    would, and used the word on purpose] ‘over an even heath or a line
    of grass, than go bodkin in a chariot.’

    1864. Yates, Broken to Harness, II., p. 218. There’s room in the
    Row to give him [the horse] a very good bucketing.

    1868. Tottenham, C. Villars, I., 243. Bucketing his wretched horse
    home to Cambridge. [M.]

    1884. Hawley Smart, From Post to Finish, p. 342. ‘Ten thousand
    pardons, Dollie, dearest; but I only got your message an hour or so
    ago, and am so busy I couldn’t get here before. As it is I have had
    to bucket my hack unmercifully.’

2. (old.)—To cheat; ruin; deceive.

    1812. J. H. Vaux, Flash Dict., s.v. To bucket a person is
    synonymous with putting him in the well.

    1828. Scott, Diary, in Lockhart (1839), ix., 253. Thurtell ... must
    in slang phrase have bucketed his palls.

3. (rowing.)—To take the water unfairly—with a scoop at the beginning
of the stroke instead of a steady even pull throughout.

    1876. Besant and Rice, Golden Butterfly, ch. xv., p. 130. He was
    not so straight in the back as an Oxford stroke; and he bucketed
    about a good deal, but he got along.

To give the bucket, phr. (old).—To dismiss from one’s employment; to
‘send a person about his business.’—Cf., Bag and Sack.

    1860. Mrs. Gaskell, Sylvia’s Lovers, ch. xxi. He were sore put
    about because Hester had gi’en him the bucket.

To kick the bucket, phr. (general).—To die. [The bucket here is thought
to refer to a Norfolk term for a pulley.] When pigs are killed they are
hung by their hind legs on a bucket.—For synonyms, see Aloft.

    1785. Grose, Dictionary of the Vulgar Tongue. Bucket; to kick the
    bucket; to die.

    1796. Wolcot (‘P. Pindar’), Tristia, wks. (1812) V., 242. Pitt has
    kicked the bucket.

    1840. Marryat, Poor Jack, xxx. He drained it dry ... and kicked the
    bucket.

    1849. Kingsley, Alton Locke, ch. ii. ‘Fine him a pot’ roared one,
    ‘for talking about kicking the bucket. He’s a nice young man to
    keep a cove’s spirits up, and talk about a short life and a merry
    one.’

    1876(?). Broadside Ballad, ‘Ten Little Niggers.’

        Eight little niggers never heard of heav’n,
        One kicked the bucket, and then there were seven.

    1889. Answers, July 27, p. 141, col. 3. The high-school girl
    explained to her particular friend yesterday that He kicked the
    bucket was slang, and that the polite expression was, ‘He propelled
    his pedal extremities with violence against a familiar utensil used
    for the transportation of water and other fluids.’


Bucket Afloat, subs. (rhyming slang).—A coat.


Bucket Shop, subs. (American).—1. Primarily a petty stock gambling den
carried on in opposition to regular exchange business, and usually of a
very doubtful character. The New York World recently investigated the
whole question, and gave some very interesting details as to the many
tortuous ways of these crooked corners of the money world. The
conclusion arrived at was that Wall Street and its vicinity did not
contain a single ‘square and honest’ bucket-shop; all their dealings
were nothing but ‘a brace gambling game.’ By their schemes the customer
had ‘not the ghost of a chance to win.’ Their quotations were obtained
surreptitiously, and, in handling them, the bucket-shop keepers in
several ways take unfair advantage of their clients. The term bucket
shop has become common in England, but, fortunately for the community
at large, no comparison can be drawn between the establishments known
by that name in England, and those which flourish in America under the
same title, though in very truth the proceedings of some of the former
are scandalous enough. [Possibly from bucket (q.v.), to cheat, + shop.
As an alternative derivation, the ‘bucket’ into which the tape falls
may be suggested.]

    1887. Daily News, 14 April, 7, 1. Mr. Charles Fisher said that he
    carried on business as an agent.... He did Stock Exchange business,
    for clients. Mr. Besley: Commonly called a bucket shop, I think.

    1888. Missouri Republican, Feb. 12. New York, Feb.
    11.—(Special).—Inspector Brynes was seized with another spasm of
    indignation against the bucket-shops this morning, and, accompanied
    by detectives and a squad of officers, he swooped down upon the
    lairs of these enemies of the Stock Exchange that abound on Lower
    Broadway and New Street.

    1889. Pall Mall Gazette, 12 Nov., p. 3, col. 1. ‘The tape is
    credited with fostering gambling.’ ‘Well, we know that there are
    bucket-shops, but we have for some time refused to entertain any
    proposal for a machine if there is the least prospect of its being
    used for bucket-shop purposes. There is gambling, of course, but it
    is unfair to say that the tape is responsible for it. The tape was
    not originated for that purpose, but in order to inform the public,
    through the newspapers or otherwise, how securities were going, and
    it does that. In practice it serves as a check between client and
    broker, and broker and jobber.’

2. Also applied generally to low groggeries; lottery offices; gambling
dens, etc.


Buck Face, subs. (old).—A cuckold; one who in French slang is said to
be un loger rue du Croissant.


Buck Fitch, subs. (old).—An old roué; a lecherous old man.


Buckhara, subs. (American).—A name given in California to a
cattle-driver or cowboy.


Buckhorse, subs. (pugilistic).—A smart blow or box on the ear. [Derived
from the name of a celebrated ‘bruiser’ of that name. Buckhorse was a
man who either possessed or professed insensibility to pain, and who
would for a small sum allow anyone to strike him with the utmost force
on the side of the face. His real name was John Smith, and he fought in
public 1732–46.]

French Synonyms. (For the blow itself.) Une boffete (from the old word
buffet); une bouffe; une châtaigne; une accolade; une pamure. To
receive a buckhorse, encaisser un soufflet; to give a buckhorse; donner
la savate.

    1864. Blackwood’s Mag., II., p. 463 (the Public Schools’ Report,
    1864—Westminster School). One of the Seniors informs us that the
    common punishment was buckhorsing. ‘That was boxing the ears, was
    it?’ ‘Yes.’ ‘Buckhorsing was rather severe, was it not?’ etc. ‘I
    got buckhorsed pretty often.’

    1876. Lord Albemarle, Fifty Years of my Life, quoted in Temple Bar,
    August, 1884, p. 517. He then felled me to the ground by a swinging
    buckhorse on my right cheek.


Buckish, adj. (old).—Foppish; dandyish. [From buck (q.v.) + ish.] Now
colloquial.

    1782. D’Arblay, Diary, etc. (1876), i., 463. A buckish kind of
    young man of fashion.

    1785. Wolcot (‘P. Pindar’), Apolog. Postscript to Ode upon Ode, in
    wks. (Dublin, 1795), vol. I., p. 365. Did not good Nathan tell that
    buckish youth, David the King, that he stole sheep?

    1789. Geo. Parker, Life’s Painter, p. 57. Having beat the rounds
    (as buckish spirits phrase it) of that bustling microcoser, the
    British metropolis, for eighteen months.

    1812. Coombe, Dr. Syntax, Picturesque, ch. xvii.

        A buckish blade, who kept a horse,
        To try his fortune on the course.

    1858. G. Eliot, Janet’s Repentance, ch. v. ‘I’ve made him as neat
    as a new pin this morning, and he says the Bishop will think him
    too buckish by half.’

    1873. W. D. Howells, A Chance Acquaintance, ch. xiii. A very
    buckish young fellow, with a heavy black moustache and black eyes,
    who wore a jaunty round hat, blue checked trousers, a white vest,
    and a morning-coat of blue diagonals.


Buck-Jump, subs. (stable).—A jump made in buck (q.v., verb, sense 2)
fashion.

    1864. G. A. Lawrence, Guy Livingstone, ch. ix. The instant the
    chestnut was mounted he reared, and indulged in two or three
    ‘buck-jumps’ that would have made a weaker man tremble for his
    backbone.


Buckle, verb, trans. and intrans. (colloquial).—1. To unite or be
united in wedlock—a humorous term. For synonyms, see Splice. French
thieves call such a union l’amadouage.

    1693. Dryden, Juvenal, vi., 37. Is this an age to buckle with a
    bride?

    1751. Smollett, Peregrine Pickle, ch. lxvii. Who ... declared
    himself well satisfied with the young man’s addresses, and desired
    that they might be buckled with all expedition.

    1822. Scott, The Fortunes of Nigel, ch. xxxii.

    ‘Buckle them, my Lord Bishop, as fast as you can....

    ‘The Bishop accordingly opened his book and commenced the marriage
    ceremony.’

    1857. A. Trollope, Three Clerks, ch. xlvi. ‘We could have half a
    dozen married couples all separating, getting rid of their ribs and
    buckling again, helter-skelter, every man to somebody else’s wife.’


Buckle-Beggar, subs. (old).—A Fleet prison ‘clergyman’; one who
celebrated marriage ceremonies therein; thence, one who celebrated
irregular marriages; a hedge priest; one who undertook similar offices
for gypsies and tramps—a buckle the beggars.—See Couple-beggar. [Of
Scotch derivation, but Cf., Buckle, verb, sense 1.]

    c. 1700. Ld. Fountainhill, Diary, in Larwood, Bk. Cleric. Anecd.,
    294. He after turn’d a buckle-beggar, i.e., one who married without
    license. [M.]

    1822. Scott, Fortunes of Nigel, ch. xvii. (II., p. 86). A hedge
    parson, or buckle-beggar, as that order of priesthood has been
    irreverently termed. Ibid, ch. xxvii. (III., p. 22). Dr. R., who
    buckles beggars for a tester [sixpence] and a dram of Geneva.


Buckled, ppl. adj. (thieves’).—Arrested; taken into custody;
‘scragged.’


Buckle Down, verb (common).—To ‘settle down’; to become reconciled to;
a variant of to ‘knuckle down’ (q.v.).

    1874. Jos. Hatton, Clytie, bk. III., ch. iv. ‘But you do not buckle
    down to your position,’ said Cuffing ... ‘you wrangle, you higgle.’


Buckler, subs. (American thieves’).—A collar. Cf., All-rounder.


Buckles, subs. (old).—Fetters of any kind. For synonyms, see Darbies.


Buckle To, verb (familiar).—To undertake; grapple with; ‘slip in’; work
vigorously.

    1557. Tusser, Husbandrie, ch. xcvi., st. 84, p. 187 (E.D.S.).

        Then purchase some pelfe,
          by fiftie and three:
        or buckle thy selfe,
          a drudge for to bee.

    1663. Butler, Hudibras, pt. I., ch. ii., l. 926.

        And fitting it for sudden fight,
        Straight drew it up, t’attack the Knight,
        For getting up on stump and huckle,
        He with the foe began to buckle.

    1712. Arbuthnot, Hist. of John Bull, pt. IV., ch. viii. At last
    Esquire South buckled to, to assist his friend Nic.

    1883. James Payn, Thicket than Water, ch. xxvii. ‘Of course it
    could never have been taken up as a serious occupation; the way you
    buckled to at it, as I told Mr. Payton, was something amazing.’

    1889. Modern Society, 19 Oct., p. 1302. (‘How the Nobility live in
    Germany.’) Though, as a rule, courteous to ladies at dinner, when a
    course is served all buckle to, and conversation is at an end. Each
    gentleman forgets his fair neighbour, and minds only number one.
    Between the courses, when nothing better is on, they converse, and
    always everything is served à la Russe.


Bucksome, adj. (Winchester College).—Happy; in a state of
‘buck-uppishness.’—See Buck-up.


Buck Up, verbal phr. (Winchester College).—To be glad; pleased. Cf.,
Buck down. The usual expression is ‘Oh buck up,’ a phrase which at
Westminster School would have a very different meaning, namely, ‘exert
yourself.’ At Uppingham to be bucked (q.v.) is to be tired.


Budge, subs. (old).—1. A pickpocket; a general thief.—See quots., and
for synonyms, Area-sneak and Thieves.

    1671. R. Head, English Rogue, pt. I., ch. v., p. 48 (1874). Budge,
    one that steals cloaks.

    1674. R. Head, Canting Acad., 95. The Budge ... his employment is
    in the dark of the Evening, to go into any door that he seeth open,
    and ... take whatever next cometh to hand.

2. (thieves’.)—Also called sneaking budge (q.v.). In more modern times
an accomplice who gains access to a building during the day for the
purpose of being locked in. When night comes he is thus easily able to
admit his fellow thieves. For synonyms, see Area-sneak, and Cf.,
Standing bridge.

    1752. Fielding, Amelia, bk. I., ch. iii. ‘I find you are some
    sneaking budge rascal’ [cant term for pilfering].

3. (old.)—Drink; liquor.—See Drinks. [Thought to be a corruption of
booze.] There are several derivatives—Budgy, ‘drunk’; Budging-ken, ‘a
public house’; Cove of the budging-ken, ‘a publican’; Budger, ‘a
drunkard’—all of which see.

    1821. D. Haggart, Life, Glossary, p. 171. Budge, drink.

Verb (old slang, but now colloquial).—To move; ‘to make tracks.’ For
modern synonyms, see Amputate, and Cf., Budge-a-beake.


Budge-a-Beake, verbal phr. (old).—To run away (presumably from
justice). There seems some connection in meaning between this
expression and a modern phrase—‘to bilk the blues’ (q.v.). [From budge
(q.v.), ‘to move away,’ ‘to decamp,’ + a + beak (q.v.), a policeman.]
For synonyms, see Amputate.

    1610. Rowlands, Martin Mark-all, p. 37 (H. Club’s Repr., 1874).
    Budge-a-beake, runne away.


Budger, subs. (old).—A drunkard. [From budge, subs., sense 3, ‘drink’
(q.v.) + er.] For synonyms, see Elbow crooker.


Budging-Ken, subs. (old).—A public house.—See Budge. [From budge,
drink, + ken (q.v.), a place or house.] For synonyms, see Lush crib.

    1821. D. Haggart, Life, Glossary, p. 171. Budge kain, a
    public-house.


Budgy, adj. (old).—Drunk; intoxicated. [From budge (q.v.), sense 3,
drink.] For synonyms, see Screwed.


Bud of Promise, subs. phr. (American).—A facetious term for a young,
unmarried woman.—See Rosebud.

    1889. Charlestown Enterprise.

        The young, unmarried girl, in sport,
          Is called a bud of promise;
        She blooms each year at some resort,
          The weather when it warm is.
        And in the Fall a score of men,
          Whose hearts till now have harm missed,
        Compare sad notes, and find out then
          To each the bud is promised.


Bud Sallogh (Old Irish).—A term applied to one who practises
unmentionable vices.—See Jesuit.


Buenos Ayres (provincial).—The Royal Crescent at Margate at the extreme
end of the town used to be so called. The houses remained unfinished
for a very considerable time.—H. J. Byron.


Bufe, subs. (old cant).—A dog. [Murray says, from the sound of its
bark.]—See Buffer, and Tike for synonyms.

    1567. Harman, Caveat, 84. Bufe, a dogge.

    1785. Grose, Dictionary of the Vulgar Tongue. Bufe, a dog; Bufe’s
    nob, a dog’s head.


Bufe-Nabber or Napper, subs. (old).—A dog thief. [From bufe, old cant
for a ‘dog,’ + nabber, one who steals or ‘nabs.’] For synonyms, see
Area-sneak.

    1785. Grose, Dictionary of the Vulgar Tongue. Bufe-nabber, a
    dog-stealer.


Buff, subs. (common).—1. The bare skin. [An allusion to the colour.]

    1654. Chapman, Revenge for Honour, I., i.

        Then for accoutrements you wear the buff,
        As you believed it heresy to change
        For linen: surely most of yours is spent
        In lint.

    1749. H. Fitzcotton, Homer, I., 38. If you perplex me with your
    stuff—All that are here shan’t save your buff. [M.]

    1760. Johnston, Chrysal, II., 235. ‘I have got as many clothes and
    things of all kinds as would serve to set up a Monmouth-street
    merchant: if the place had held out but a few days longer, the poor
    devils must have done duty in their buff; ha! ha! ha!’ ‘And the
    properest dress for them,’ returned the admiral; ‘who wants any
    clothes in such a climate as this?’

    1824. Hughes, Magic Lay of the One-horse Chay (Blackwood). When our
    pair were soused enough, and returned in their buff.

    1856. H. Mayhew, Gt. World of London, p. 223. ‘There’s a fine young
    chap there, stript to the buff, and working away hard!’

    1872. C. King, Sierra Nev., viii., 176. Stripping ourselves to the
    buff, we hung up our steaming clothes. [M.]

2. (old.)—A man; a fellow; also buffer (q.v.).

    1708–15. Kersey, Buff ... a dull Sot, or dronish Fellow. [M.]

    1709. Brit. Apollo, II, No. 8, p. 3, col. 2. Tell me Grave Buffs,
    Partly Gods, partly men. [M.]

    1725. New Cant. Dict., s.v. Buff, a Newgate Cant Word used in
    familiar Salutation as, How dost do, my Buff?

    1748. Smollett, Roderick Random, ch. iv., p. 15. Mayhaps old buff
    has left my kinsman here his heir.

    1764. Brydges, Homer Travest. (1797), II., 420. You seem afraid
    these buffs will flinch.

Buff it, verb (common).—1. To swear to; to adhere to a statement hard
and fast; to stand firm. [Query from ‘to bluff.’] To buff it is
sometimes enlarged—to buff it home.

    1812. J. H. Vaux, Flash Dict., s.v. Buff, To buff to a person or
    thing, is to swear to the identity of them.

    1881. New York Slang Dictionary. Buffing it home is swearing
    point-blank to anything, about the same as bluffing it, making a
    bold stand on no backing.

2. (common.)—To strip; to bare oneself to the ‘buff’ or skin.

    1851. Mayhew, London Labour and London Poor, II., p. 416. ‘You had
    better buff it, Jim,’ says I; but Jim wouldn’t do it, and kept his
    trowsers on. Ibid, p. 417. So I locks the door, and buffs it, and
    forces myself up, etc.

In buff, phr. (common).—Naked; in a state of nudity. Among English
equivalents are Abram (q.v.) and birthday suit (q.v.), but for all
synonyms, see Nature’s garb.

    1602. Dekker, Satiro-Mastix. I go in stag, in buff.

    1855. Notes and Queries, 1 S., xi., p. 467. We say of one in a
    state of nudity, ‘he is in buff.’

To stand buff, verbal phr. (old).—To stand the brunt; to pay the piper;
to endure without flinching. [From buff, an old pugilistic term for a
blow.]

    a. 1680. Butler, Hudibras’s Epitaph. And for the good old cause
    stood buff ’Gainst many a bitter kick and cuff.

    1697. Vanbrugh, Provoked Wife, I., i. Would my courage come up to a
    fourth part of my ill-nature, I’d stand buff to her relations, and
    thrust her out of doors.

    1737. Fielding, The Miser, Act ii., Sc. 2. Love. How! rascal, is it
    you that abandon yourself to those intolerable extravagancies?
    Fred. I must even stand buff, and outface him.

    1748. T. Dyche, Dictionary (5 ed.). To stand Buff (v.), to stand
    stoutly to a thing, to be resolute and unmoved, though the danger
    be great.

    1761. Colman, Jealous Wife, V., i., 139. Stick close to my advice
    and you may stand buff to a tigress.

    1822. Scott, Fortunes of Nigel, ch. xii. ‘Stand buff against the
    reproach of thine over-tender conscience.’


Buff-Ball, subs. (vagrants’).—A dancing party in which both sexes dance
together naked. [From buff (q.v.), naked, + ball.] Cf., Ballum rancum.

    1880. Greenwood, In Strange Company. The most favourite
    entertainment at this place is known as buff-ball, in which both
    sexes—innocent of clothing—madly join, stimulated with raw whiskey,
    and the music of a fiddle and a tin whistle.


Buffer, subs. (old).—1. A dog. [Considerable obscurity surrounds the
origin of this term. It occurs in varying forms from 1567 down to the
present time. Harman gives it as bufe (1567) and bufa (1573); Rowlands
as buffa (1610); Head as bugher (1673); whilst in The Memorials of John
Hall it first appears as buffer.] Synonymous terms will be found under
Tike.

    1567. Harman, Caveat (1814), p. 65. Bufa, a dogge.

    1610. Rowlands, Martin Mark-all, p. 37 (H. Club’s Repr., 1874).
    Buffa, a Dogge.

    1714. Memoirs of John Hall (4 ed.), p. 11. Buffer, a Dog.

    1842. Lover, Handy Andy, ch. iv. ‘It is not every day we get a
    badger, you know.... Reilly the butcher has two or three capital
    dogs, and there’s a wicked mastiff below stairs, and I’ll send for
    my ‘buffer’ and we’d have some spanking sport.’

    1876. C. Hindley, Life and Adventures of a Cheap Jack, p. 162. They
    had a dog belonging to them that would be sure to begin a quarrel
    with another buffer, whenever his master or mistress found a match.

2. (common.)—A man; a fellow—sometimes used with a slightly
contemptuous meaning; generally speaking a familiar mode of address, as
in Old Buffer, although even this form may be used disparagingly.

    1749. H. Fitzcotton, Homer, I. (1748), 23. You’re a buffer always
    rear’d in The brutal pleasures of Bear-garden, [M.]

    1837. Barham, I. L. (The Bagman’s Dog).

        So I’ll merely observe, as the water grew rougher,
        The more my poor hero continued to suffer,
        Till the Sailors themselves cried, in pity, ‘Poor buffer!’

    1882. F. Anstey, Vice Versâ, ch. xiv. ‘I made a first-rate
    booby-trap, though, one day for an old yellow buffer who came in to
    see you.’

3. (pugilistic.)—A boxer; one of ‘the fancy.’ [Hotten gives this as of
Irish origin, but it would rather seem to come from O.E. buff, a blow.]

    1819. Moore, Tom Crib’s Memorial to Congress, p. 7.

        Last Tuesday, at Moulsey, the Balance of Power
        Was settled by twelve Tightish Rounds in an hour,
        The Buffers, both ‘Boys of the Holy Ground.’—Ibid, p. 51:—
        Yet, sprightly to the Scratch both Buffers came,
        While ribbers rung from each resounding frame,
        And divers digs, and many a ponderous pelt,
        Were on their broad bread-baskets heard and felt.
        With roving aim, but aim that rarely miss’d,
        Round lugs and ogles flew the frequent fist;
        While showers of facers told so deadly well,
        That the crush’d jaw-bones crackled as they fell!

4. (old.)—See quots.

    1690. B. E., Dict. Cant. Crew. Buffer, a Rogue that kills good
    sound Horses only for their Skins.

    1737. Bacchus and Venus. Buffer, a rogue that killed good sound
    horses for the sake of their skins, by running a long wire into
    them.

    1785. Grose, Dictionary of the Vulgar Tongue. Buffer, one that
    steals and kills horses and dogs for their skins.

5. (old.)—One who took a false oath for a ‘consideration.’ Cf., Bail.

6. (old.)—A pistol. Cf., Barker.

    1824. Sir W. Scott, Red Gauntlet. ch. iii. Here be a pair of
    buffers will bite as well as bark.

7. (old.)—A smuggler; rogue; or cheat.

8. (nautical.)—A navy term for a boatswain’s mate, one of whose duties
it is—or was—to administer the ‘cat.’ Cf., O.E. Buff, a blow.


Buff Howards, subs. (military).—The Third Regiment of Foot; now
contracted into Buffs. It was nicknamed the Buff Howards, from its
facings and Colonel from 1737 to 1749; also the Nut-crackers (q.v.);
and the Resurrectionists (q.v.), from its re-appearing at the Battle of
Albuera after being dispersed by the Polish Lancers; also the ‘Old
Buffs,’ from its facings, and to distinguish it from the 31st, the
‘Young Buffs’; but the most ancient ‘Old Buffs’ were the ‘Duke of York
and Albany’s Maritime Regiments,’ raised in 1664, and incorporated into
the 2nd or Coldstream Guards in 1689.

    1886. Tinsley’s Mag., ‘Our Regimental Mottoes and Nicknames,’
    April, p. 319. The Buffs—a corps which enjoys the almost unique
    privilege of marching through the city of London with bayonets
    fixed. The 3rd Foot owes its immortal cognomen to the fact of its
    having originally been clad in scarlet, lined and faced with buff;
    its members also had buff waistcoats, buff breeches, and buff
    stockings. Being the senior regiment thus clothed, they were
    occasionally styled the ‘Old Buffs’; and the 31st, raised in 1702,
    and dressed in a precisely similar fashion, were known as the Young
    Buffs. The following tradition, however, offers a more
    circumstantial account of the latter appellation. Having earned in
    some hotly-contested action, the good opinion of a general under
    whom they were serving, and who expressed his approbation by
    calling out to the 31st, ‘Well done, Old Buffs!’ A few of the men,
    somewhat excited by close combat, replied, ‘We are not the Old
    Buffs, Sir.’ Whereupon the general cried, ‘Then well done, Young
    Buffs!’ And so the ‘Young Buffs’ they became, and have since
    remained, although the days of buff waistcoats and stockings have
    long passed away.


Buffle, subs. (old).—A fool; a stupid person. Cf., Buffle-head and
Buff, sense 2. Murray quotes it as occurring in 1655, but the term is,
as will be seen, nearly a century older. [After French buffle.] For
synonymous terms, see following:—

English Synonyms. Buffle-head; Sammy-soft, often contracted into Sammy;
sheep’s head; crock (the original meaning is rather concerned with a
slow worthless horse, but in sporting phraseology it has also come to
mean a foolish, good-for-nothing person); duffer; dotty (also used by
prostitutes of a low class to designate their protector or fancy man);
cuckoo; calf; cabbage-head; cake; block; greenhorn; old curmudgeon;
doddering old sheep’s head.

French Synonyms. Un échappé de Charenton (échapper = to escape;
Charenton is the name of a lunatic asylum in Paris; hence one escaped
from Charenton. Cf., English colloquial use of the names of Hanwell,
Colney Hatch, and Bedlam in describing idiotic or foolish conversation
or behaviour); échappé d’Herode (Cf., foregoing); un vieil embaumé
(this term is applied to a foolish person well advanced in years; an
old curmudgeon); un actionnaire (literary: properly a shareholder).

German Synonyms. Amhorez (literally a countryman; from Hebrew om, the
people, + erez, country); Blechseppel (a soldier’s term); Chammer (a
butcher’s or knacker’s word; it also signifies a donkey, and is derived
from the Hebrew chamor); Dilmisch, Dilledapp, Dilldapp, Dilledali,
Dellemelle, Dirledapp, Didel, Tatidel, Dudeldop, Dilldan (all these are
popular expressions for a stupid fellow. Cf., dildalfen = to exhaust);
Ewil (from the Hebrew owal; the term also stands for a sinner);
Godeschaute (a great fool, a perfect fool; from the Hebrew godol,
great, strong, celebrated, + schoto, a fool); Gomol (used only as a
nickname; from the Hebrew gamal, a camel); Hanne or Hannes (a shortened
form of Johannes, the German for the English John; it is curious that
in both languages the nicknames Hanne and Jack should, as applied to
men, always be used depreciatingly, see Jack); Harbogen, Hornickel,
Hornigel (besides signifying a fool or weak-headed one, these words are
used to designate an ox; they are employed indiscriminately); Heckel,
Häckel, Hegel (also a fop; heckeln = to fool anyone, probably from
hacken or hecheln, to hew, to hackle); Koppel (a diminutive of Jacob;
sometimes written Jockel); Ksil (from the Hebrew kossal; variations in
spelling are Kessil, Kessel, and in students’ slang Theekessel);
Nebbich or Newich (among thieves employed to designate the clumsy,
stupid fellow who is only entrusted with unimportant tasks connected
with a robbery, such for instance as holding the sacks in which the
stolen property is placed, or in carrying off the plunder); Nille or
Knolle or Nolle (these terms are used to signify a fool, jester, or the
male penis); Nowel or Newil or Nebel (also a cunning fellow, a rogue or
‘sly blade’; das ist ein Newele, the equivalent of the Low German dat
is een Aas vun Kêrl might be rendered by the English ‘he is a devil of
a fellow’); Oochbram or Ogbrôm (a fool or rather one whose craziness
resembles in extent the traditional stature of Og, King of Bashan—at
least authorities agree in thinking this the most likely derivation of
the word. Among the Jews Og is taken as an image of gigantic size. When
the Israelites advanced on Edrëi, Og sat on the wall of the town, and
his feet reached to the ground, so that Moses at first thought he was
part of the wall, but when he discovered that it was a man he was
seized with terror. Rum = on high, therefore Og b’rum = the [great] Og
on high. Er hat die Grösse von Og Melech haboschon, he has the size of
Og, King of Bashan. A corresponding expression is found in the Low
German, de lange Rick, i.e., a tall, slenderly built fellow); Schote or
Schaute or Schotte (from the Hebrew schoto; used especially of one who
can be cheated or robbed with his eyes open; a tradesman or money
changer who can be robbed while transacting business at the counter or
while exchanging money); Sonof (a Hebrew word signifying properly a
tail, and mostly used proverbially of things low and contemptible. It
is also employed to designate the male penis; the German Gaunerspräche
offers frequent examples in which contemptible names are also used
synonymously for the male and female organs of generation).

Italian Synonyms. Fiadetto (besides its meaning of a dolt or duffer,
this term is also applied to a thief, rogue, or indeed a villain of any
description); ribeba or ribecca (a goose or simpleton; properly a
violin or Jewish harp); cordovano (this also means in the Fourbesque, a
big man; properly it is the name of Morocco or Spanish leather);
furlana; marietta or marietto (a dolt or dunce).

Spanish Synonym. Dupa (Cf., English dupe).

    1580. Beehive of the Romish Churche, fo. 66 b. An unlearned buffle
    did babble.

    1655. Comic Hist. Francion, iv., 22. He said to the three buffles
    who stood with their hats in their hands. Tell me you Waggs, etc.
    [M.].

    1710. Pol. Ballads (1860), II., 90. To see the chief attorney such
    a buffle.


Buffle-Head, subs. (old).—An ignoramus; a stupid obtuse fellow. Cf.,
Buffle, and which see for synonyms.

    1659. Lady Alimony, I., ii., in Hazl. Dodsley, xiv., 278. What a
    drolling buffle-head is this!

    1663. Pepys, Diary, March 17. But my Lord Mayor a talking,
    bragging, buffle-headed fellow.

    1668. Pepys, Diary, Jan. 29. He tells me that Townsend, of the
    Wardrobe, is the veriest knave and buffle-head that ever he saw.

    1677. Wycherley, Plain Dealer, Act ii. Oliv. You know nothing, you
    buffle-headed stupid creature you.

    1686. D’Urfey, Commonwealth of Women, I., i. A damn’d huffing
    fellow yonder, a Rebel, Whiggy buffle-head.

    1754. B. Martin, Eng. Dict., 2 ed. Buffle-head, an ignoramus, or
    dull sot.

    1887. Dead Man’s Rock, bk. I., ch. v. ‘Jonathan’s a buffle-head ...
    a daft fule like Jonathan.’


Buffleheaded, adj. (old).—Stupid; idiotic; foolish. [From bufflehead, a
foolish fellow (q.v.), + ed.]

    1883. Baring Gould, John Herring, vol. II., ch. xxv., p. 275.
    (Tauchnitz ed.) ‘A buffleheaded sort of a chap,’ said Joyce.


Buffs, subs. (military).—The Third Regiment of Foot in the British
army. From their facings.—See Buff Howards.

    1849. Macaulay, Hist. England, I., 295. The third regiment,
    distinguished by flesh-coloured facings, from which it derived the
    well-known name of the Buffs.

    1851. Mayhew, London Labour and London Poor, I., p. 232. His father
    was a captain in the Buffs, and himself a commissioned officer at
    seventeen.

    1874. Saturday Review, p. 95. This regiment [the First or Grenadier
    Guards] has almost the longest record of any in the service, only
    yielding, we believe, to the 1st Royals, and to the 3rd Buffs,
    which were originally raised for the service of the States-General
    of Holland.


Buffy, adj. (common).—Intoxicated. For synonyms, see Screwed.

    1866. Yates, Land at Last, I., p. 85. Flexor was fine and buffy
    when he came home last night, after you was gone, sir.

    1872. Besant and Rice, R. M. Mortiboy, ch. xlii. ‘My ideas take me
    first of all unawares. They generally begin, like a toothache, when
    I least expect them. Perhaps when I feel a little buffy, in the
    morning; mayhap, after an extra go of grog the night before. Then
    one comes all of a sudden.’


Bug, subs. (thieves’).—1. A breast pin.

2. (Old Irish.)—A jeering name for an Englishman—Grose says ‘because
bugs were introduced into Ireland by Englishmen!!’

3. (American.)—The term bug is, in the United States, not confined
merely, as in England, to the domestic pest, but is applied to all
insects of the Coleoptera order, which includes what in this country
are generally called beetles. The English bug (Cimex lectularius) is,
in the Southern States, known as the chinch. It may be mentioned,
however, that at Winchester College a usage akin to that prevailing in
America exists. There a bug merely means an insect, whether belonging
to the Coleoptera, Lepidoptera, or any other order. Synonyms for the
English domestic pest will be found under Norfolk Howards.

    1642. Rogers, Naaman the Syrian, 74. Do not all as much and more
    wonder at God’s rare workmanship in the Ant, the poorest bugge that
    creeps.

    1888. Grass Valley (Cal.) Tidings. Entomology, or bugology, is now
    taught to some extent in our public schools. This is well, and is
    of use. The children ought to learn about the bugs that are
    destructive to useful vegetation. It is better to learn much about
    bugs than so much about how to solve those arithmetical problems
    that will never face anybody in the practical affairs of life.

    1888. Daily Inter-Ocean, March. The Insane Asylum Board some time
    ago discontinued a bug-killer’s employment, and the doctor avers
    that the old hospital building is swarming with cockroaches, and
    that these bugs will soon be large and fat enough to carry out the
    inmates and take their food and clothes.

4. (American.)—Bug is also used idiomatically in various combinations,
as big bugs (q.v.), a jocose and vulgar name for persons of wealth or
distinction. Thence, similarly, cattle-bugs, that is, wealthy
stock-raisers; gold-bugs, or monied men, etc.

    1843. Haliburton, Sam Slick in England, ch. xv. The great guns and
    big bugs have to take in each other’s ladies. Ibid, p. 24. Pick out
    the big bugs and see what sort of stuff they’re made of.

    1888. St. Louis Globe Democrat, March 5. ‘Would Senator Allison’s
    well-known views on silver coinage operate materially against him
    in New York.’ ‘I think not; I do not think the feeling against
    silver is anything like as strong as it was. Of course, a few
    gold-bugs might fight him, but any of the men I have mentioned are
    reasonably certain to carry New York.’

That beats the bugs, phr. (American).—A phrase conveying a high mead of
praise; ‘that beats cock-fighting.’

Verb (old).—1. A cant word among journeymen hatters, signifying the
exchanging some of the dearest materials of which a hat is made for
others of less value. Hats are composed of the furs and wools of
diverse animals, among which is a small portion of bever’s fur. Bugging
is stealing the bever, and substituting in lieu thereof an equal weight
of some cheaper ingredient. Bailiffs who take money to postpone or
refrain the serving of a writ, are said to bug the writ.—Grose.

2. (thieves’.)—To bribe. In old slang, bailiffs accepting money to
delay service were said to bug the writ.

3. (thieves’.)—To give; hand over; to deliver. Cf., sense 2.

    1812. J. H. Vaux, Flash Dict. ‘He bug’d me a quid.’ ‘Bug over the
    rag.’


Bugaroch, adj. (Old Irish).—Pretty; comely; handsome.—Grose.


Bug-Blinding, subs. (military).—Whitewashing operations.


Bugger, subs. (old).—1. A thief whose speciality is stealing
breast-pins from drunken men. [From bug, a cant term for a breast pin,
+ (g) ger.] Also called a bug hunter. For synonymous terms, see
Area-sneak and Bug-hunter.

2. (low.)—A man; a fellow. A coarse term of abuse without, however, any
reference to the legal meaning—a sodomite. The French has an exact
equivalent in Bougre, which Littré says is une terme de mépris et
d’injure, usité dans le langage populaire le plus trivial et le plus
grossier. The term, as applied to a man, is equivalent to bitch (q.v.),
as applied to women. Hence also buggery (q.v.).

    1719. D’Urfey, Pills, I., 59. From every trench the bougers fly.
    [M.]

    1854. M. Holmes, Tempest and Sun, 203. ‘If I’d known all you city
    buggers was comin’, I’d a kivered my bar feet.’ [M.]


Buggery, adj. (low).—An indefinite expression signifying disgust; or
disapprobation. Of the same type as bloody, blamed, blasted, etc.
(q.v.), but conveying a somewhat intenser meaning.

    1851. Mayhew, London Labour and London Poor, I., p. 23. A buggery
    fool, why don’t he let people go to hell their own way? Ibid, p.
    180. Here mother, give us one of your buggery trotters.


Buggy, subs. (old).—A leather bottle.


Bugher.—See Buffer.


Bug-Hunter, subs. (thieves’).—A thief who plunders drunken men. The
same as bugger, sense 1.

French Synonyms. Un poivrier (popular and thieves’); un allumeur (this
term is also applied to an auction room ‘button’ or confederate, and to
a card-sharper’s decoy); faire un louave, or faire les gavés (to go
bug-hunting. Louave and gavé = drunkard, the latter from gaver, to
glut).

    1856. H. Mayhew, Gt. World of London, p. 46. Those who hocus or
    plunder persons by stupefying; as ‘drummers,’ who drug liquor, and
    ‘bug-hunters,’ who plunder drunken men.

2. subs. (old).—An upholsterer.—Lexicon Balatronicum.


Bug-Juice, subs. (common).—1. Ginger ale.

2. (American.)—The Schlechter whiskey of the Pennsylvania Dutch—a very
inferior spirit. Also called bug-poison. These terms are now applied to
bad whiskey of all kinds. For synonyms, see Drinks.

    1888. Texas Siftings, 7 July. It is a singular fact, that nearly
    every character introduced by Charles Dickens into his numerous
    novels, was addicted to drinking ... each and every individual took
    his bug-poison with surprising regularity and eminent satisfaction.


Bugle It, verb (American cadets’).—To abstain from going into class
until the last moment—i.e., until the bugle sounds.


Bug Walk, subs. (common).—A bed. [Derivation obvious.]

English Synonyms. Bedfordshire; Sheet Alley; Blanket Fair; Land of Nod;
doss; rip; Cloth Market.

French Synonyms. Un portfeuille (familiar: properly ‘a portfolio’); la
boîte à puces (popular: this almost exactly corresponds to the English
‘bug walk,’ the French phrase signifying ‘the flea box’); le pucier
(popular: from puce = flea); le tremblant (popular); le plumard
(popular); le fournil (popular and thieves’); la halle aux draps
(popular: literally, Sheet Market or Fair. Cf., English ‘Blanket
Fair’); le pagne; le panier aux ordures.


Build, subs. and verb (popular).—Properly ‘to build is to construct,’
says Murray, ‘for a dwelling and by extension of meaning ... to
construct by fitting together of separate parts; chiefly with reference
to structures of considerable size ... (not, e.g., a watch or a
piano).’ Difficult as it may be at times to draw a dividing line
between a literary, or even a colloquial usage and a slang
signification, there can be little doubt that when build is applied to
the make or style of dress, that it is the purest slang—‘It’s a tidy
build, who made it?’ A tailor, it may be noted, is sometimes called a
‘trousers’ builder.’ In the United States, this verb is used with much
more latitude than in England. There, as Fennimore Cooper puts it,
everything is built. The priest builds up a flock; the speculator a
fortune; the lawyer a reputation; the landlord a town; and the tailor,
as in England, builds up a suit of clothes. A fire is built instead of
made, and the expression is even extended to individuals, to be built
being used with the meaning of formed. ‘I was not built that way’; and
hence in a still more idiomatic sense to express unwillingness to adopt
a specified course or carry out any inconvenient plan.—See Not built
that way.

    1853. Wh. Melville, Digby Grand, ch. xx. That creator of manly
    beauty, who builds your coat on the model of an Apollo.

    1853. Rev. E. Bradley (‘Cuthbert Bede’), Verdant Green, pt. I., ch.
    x. If he forswore the primitive garments that his country-tailor
    had condemned him to wear, and adapted the build of his dress to
    the peculiar requirements of university fashion.

    1871. A. Forbes, My Experience of the War, etc., II., p. 19. I met
    a gentleman who had got a dress coat built in the place
    [Versailles].

    1880. Punch, Jan. 10, p. 6. The spread of education and liberal
    ideas.—His Grace the Duke of Poplar and Bermondsey. ‘Just look at
    these bags you last built me, Snippe! J’ever see such beastly bags
    in your life? I shall always be glad to come and dine with you, old
    man; but I’ll be hanged if you shall ever measure me for another
    pair of bags!’ Mr. Snippe (of Snippe and Son, St. James’s Street).
    ‘You’ve always grumbled about your bags, as you call ’em, ever
    since you were my fag at Eton; and at Christchurch you were just as
    bad, even though my poor dear old governor used to come all the way
    down and measure you himself. It ain’t the fault of the bags, my
    dear Popsy—it’s the fault of the legs inside ’em! So, shut up, old
    Stick-in-the-mud, and let’s join the ladies—the duchess has
    promised to give us “Little Billee.”’

Build a chapel, verbal phr. (nautical).—To steer badly, and so cause a
ship to veer round.

Not built that way, phr. (general).—Not to one’s taste, in one’s line—a
general expression of disapproval or dissent, whether said of persons
or things.

    1881. American Humorist, May 12. We cannot shut our eyes to the
    fact that mankind is passing through a great era of change; even
    womankind is not built as she was a few brief years ago.

    1888. Missouri Republican, Jan. 25.

        ‘Why didn’t you roll down?’
        ‘I wasn’t built that way.’


Bulgarian Atrocities, subs. (Stock Exchange).—Varna and Rutschuk Ry. 3
per cent. obligations.

    1887. Atkin, House Scraps.

        And we’ve really quite a crew
        Of fancy names to represent a share....
              But fancy, by the way,
              Now, in the present day,
        A Varna’s a Bulgarian atrocity.


Bulge, verb (American).—The legitimate meaning is extended in many odd
ways. ‘Bags’ bulge, but do not get baggy; and in a similar fashion when
a man is ‘all attention,’ his eyes are said to bulge.

    1888. Puck’s Library, May, p. 31. A Phenomenal Fee. ‘Yes,’ said a
    pompous young lawyer, on a street-car, to a friend: ‘I hadn’t been
    downtown half an hour this morning, before I got a fee of ten
    dollars!’ Then the eyes of a man who was hanging on to a strap
    began TO bulge. ‘I say, young feller,’ he whispered earnestly:
    ‘what saloon d’ye work at? I’m a waiter, myself!’

To go or be on a bulge, verbal phr. (American).—To drink to excess.

To get the bulge on one, verbal phr. (American mining slang).—To obtain
an advantage over; an equivalent is to get the drop on one.

    1869. S. L. Clemens (‘Mark Twain’), Innocents at Home, p. 18. Well,
    you’ve rather got the bulge on me. Or maybe we’ve both got the
    bulge, somehow.

    1885. Household Words, Oct. 10, p. 466. ‘Smart chap, that Jacob,
    for a nig!’ remarked he, as we told him the outlines of our story.
    ‘I guess now he’s had the bulge on you pretty considerable this
    trip.’

    1888. American Humorist, May 12. ‘Pop! are you up there?’ ‘Yes, my
    son.’ ‘I saw he had the bulge on you and I got the gun and dropped
    him!’ ‘Right, my boy. That’s what I was praying for.’


Bulger, adj. (common).—Large; synonymous with buster (q.v.).


Bulk, subs. (old).—See quots.—See also File and Bulker, sense 2.

    1674. R. Head, Canting Acad., 35. Bulk and File. The one jostles
    you, whilst the other picks your pocket.

    1725. New Cant. Dict. Bulk, an assistant to a File or Pickpocket,
    who jostles a Person up against the Wall, while the other picks his
    Pocket.

    1785. Grose, Dictionary of the Vulgar Tongue. Bulk and file, two
    pickpockets; the bulk jostles the party to be robbed, and the file
    does the business.


Bulker, subs. (old).—1. A prostitute of a low type—generally one who
had no settled home; one who slept on a ‘bulk,’ a kind of sill
projecting from a window. For synonyms, see Barrack-hack.

    1691. Shadwell, Scowerers, Act i., Sc. 1. ‘Every one in a petticoat
    is thy mistress, from humble bulker to haughty countess.’

    1728. Baily, Bulker, a Common Jilt; a Whore.—Canting term. [In a
    later edition (1790) he adds ‘one who would lay down on a bulk to
    anyone.’]

2. (old.)—A thief. Cf., Bulk.

    1669. Nicker Nicked, in Hart. Misc. (ed. Park), II., 108. Bulker
    occurs in a list of names of thieves.

    1678. Four for a Penny, in Hart. Misc. (ed. Park), IV., 147. He is
    the treasurer of the thieves’ exchequer, the common fender of all
    bulkers and shop-lifts in the town.


Bulky, subs. (provincial).—A police constable. Said to be a northern
term. For synonyms, see Beak.

    1821. Edinburgh Mag., August, p. 156. This enterprising ruffian
    boasts of his success in deceiving the bulkies on a search, by
    concealing his stolen notes in the cape of his coat.

    1841. Lytton, Night and Morning, bk. V., ch. ii. ‘Inquiries about
    your respectability would soon bring the bulkies about me.’

Adj. (Winchester College).—Rich or generous, or both. The opposite of
brum (q.v.).


Bull, subs. (colloquial.)—1. Formerly a blunder or mistake; now
generally understood as an inconsistent statement; a ludicrous
contradiction, often partaking largely of the nature of a pun. [Bull in
M.E. = to befool; to mock.] The term was current long before the form
Irish bull is met with.

    1642. Milton, Apol. for Smect., § 6. But that such a poem should be
    toothless, I still affirm it to be a bull, taking away the essence
    of that which it calls itself. For if it bite neither the persons
    nor the vices, how is it a satire? And if it bite either, how is it
    toothless?

    1673. Dryden, The Assignation, Act iii., Sc. 1. Ben. Faith, lady, I
    could not sleep one wink, for dreaming of you. Lan. Not sleep for
    dreaming? When the place falls, you shall be bull master general at
    court.

    1689. Selden, Table Talk, p. 96 (Arber’s ed.). We can make no
    notion of it, ’tis so full of intricacy, so full of contradiction:
    ’tis in good earnest, as we state it, half-a-dozen bulls one upon
    another.

    1705. Ward, Hudibras Redivivus, vol. II., pt. I., p. 6. With Stale
    Quibbles, Puns, and Bulls.

    1841. Lever, Charles O’Malley, ch. i. ‘I have got into such an
    infernal habit of making bulls, that I can’t write sense when I
    want it.’

    1859. H. Kingsley, Geoffrey Hamlyn, ch. xxxix. He was telling the
    most outrageous of Irish stories, and making, on purpose, the most
    outrageous of Irish bulls.

In this connection it may be noted that in French cavalry regiments
portez! and remettez! are mock commands given upon the perpetration of
a bull. La calinotade signifies in the popular speech a ludicrous or
foolish saying, whilst one given to uttering them is termed un calino.

2. (thieves’.)—A crown or five shilling piece. Formerly bull’s eye
(q.v.). [The origin is doubtful. It may be a mere allusion to the
circular shape, or it may be of classical derivation, and be a
reference to the herds and flocks which at one time constituted a man’s
wealth. Cf., Latin pecunia, from pecus, cattle or oxen.]

    1812. J. H. Vaux, Flash Dictionary. Bull, a crown, or five
    shillings.

    1851–61. H. Mayhew, London Lab. and Lon. Poor, vol. I., p. 232.
    List of patterers’ words. Bull, a crown.

    1852. Dickens, Bleak House, ch. xlvi. Four half-bulls, wot you may
    call half-crowns.

    1857. Notes and Queries, 2 S., 4 July. And therefore much as a bull
    (or a hog) stand arbitrarily for a five-shilling-piece, half-a-bull
    for half a-crown, a bob for a shilling, a tanner for sixpence,
    etc., with equal propriety might a plum stand for £100,000.

    1889. Answers, July 27, p. 136, col. 2. Once found, the ‘lurker’ is
    pretty sure to draw a bull (five shillings), or even a ‘counter’
    (pound).

3. (Stock Exchange.)—Originally a speculative purchase for a rise;
i.e., a man would agree to buy stock at a future day at a stated price
with no intention of taking it up, but trusting to the market advancing
in value to make the transaction profitable. Bull is the reverse of
bear (q.v.). The term is now more frequently applied to the person
engaged in the above-mentioned tactics, i.e., to one who tries to
enhance the value of stocks by speculative purchases or otherwise. Also
used as a verb and adjective.

    b. 1671, d. 1757. Cibber, The Refusal, or The Ladies’ Philosophy.
    Granger (to Witling, who has been boasting of his gain): And all
    this out of ‘Change Alley’? Witling: Every shilling, Sir, all out
    of stocks, Pulls, Bulls, Rams, Bears, and Bubbles.

    1768. Foote, Devil upon Two Sticks, Act i. A mere bull and bear
    booby; the patron of lame ducks, brokers, and fraudulent foot
    bankrupts.

    1774. Coleman, Man of Business, IV., i., in wks. (1777) II., 179.
    My young master is the bull, and Sir Charles is the bear. He agreed
    for stock, expecting it to be up at three hundred by this time;
    but, lack-a-day, sir, it has been falling ever since.

    1817. Scott, Rob Roy, ch. iv. The hum and bustle which his approach
    was wont to produce among the bulls, bears, and brokers of Stock
    Alley.

    1860. Peacock, Gryll Grange, ch. xviii. In Stock Exchange slang,
    Bulls are speculators for a rise, Bears for a fall.

    1881. Mark Lane Express, Aug. 8, p. 1085. The speculative movement
    which has, so far, exerted a bull influence on the maize market.

On the French Bourse a bull is called un haussier; in Berlin he is
known as liebhaler; and in Vienna the term used is contremine.

4. (nautical.)—See Bull the cask or barrel.

5. (common.)—Explained by quotation.

    1887. G. R. Sims, How the Poor Live, p. 148. In these places, too,
    the lodgers divide their food frequently, and a man, seeing a
    neighbour without anything, will hand him his teapot, and say,
    ‘Here you are, mate; here’s a bull for you.’ A ‘bull’ is a teapot
    with the leaves left in for a second brew.

6. (thieves’.)—Prison rations of meat, an allusion to its toughness;
also generally used for meat without any reference to its being either
tough or tender. A French equivalent is la bidoche. [Its derivation is
suggested in the following quot.]

    1883. Echo, Jan. 25, p. 2, col. 3. Thus from the French ‘bouilli’
    we probably get the prison slang term bull for a ration of meat.

7. (American.)—A locomotive; the word is sometimes lengthened into
bullgine.

8. (Winchester College.)—Cold beef, introduced at breakfast about 1873.

Verb (American University).—At Dartmouth College to recite badly; to
make a poor recitation. [From the substantive bull, a blunder or
contradiction, or from the use of the word as a prefix, signifying
large, lubberly, blundering.]

Stale bull, subs. (Stock Exchange).—Stock held over for a long period
with profit.


Bull and Cow, subs. (rhyming slang).—A row.


Bull-Bait, verb (? nonce word).—To bully; hector; badger. [Clearly a
figurative usage of the legitimate word.]

    1860. Dickens, Great Expectations, ch. xviii., p. 82. ‘Which I
    meantersay,’ cried Joe, ‘that if you come into my place
    bull-baiting and badgering me, come out!’


Bull-Beef, subs. (old).—A frequently recurring term of contempt.
Prisoners apply it to the hard, stringy meat supplied to them, and
formerly the expression was in general use. ‘As ugly as bull-beef’; ‘as
big as bull-beef’; ‘go and sell yourself for bull-beef’; were common
colloquialisms at the end of the last and the beginning of the present
century. Sometimes contracted into bull. Cf., Bully beef.

    1579. Gosson, Apol. of the Schoole of Abuse, p. 64 (Arber). I
    vnderstand they are all in a fustian fume.... They haue eaten
    bul-bief, and threatned highly too put water in my woortes
    whensoeuer they catche me.

    1607. Rowlands, Diogines Lanthorne, p. 8 (H. Cl. Repr., 1873). How
    lookes yonder fellow? what’s the matter with him trow? has a eaten
    bul-beefe? there’s a lofty slaue indeede, hee’s in the altitudes.

    1738–1819. Wolcot (‘P. Pindar’), Rights of Kings, Ode I., in wks.
    (Dublin, 1795), vol. II., p. 219. The Cooks, Bluff on th’ occasion,
    put on bull’s-beef looks.

    1782. Wolcot, Lyric Odes, No. 3, in wks. (1809) I., 62.

        Yet thou may’st bluster like bull-beef so big.

    1860. Haliburton (‘Sam Slick’), The Season Ticket, x. Which look as
    cheap as bull-beef at one cent a pound.

    1868. Brewer, Phrase and Fable, p. 524. To look as big as
    bull-beef. To look stout and hearty, as if fed on bull-beef.
    Bull-beef was formerly recommended for making men strong and
    muscular.

    1888. Ashton, Mod. Street Ballads, p. 61.

        For soon he will his trial take,
          And hard bull-beef be munching.


Bull Calf, subs. (old).—See quot.

    1785. Grose, Dictionary of the Vulgar Tongue. Bull calf, a great
    hulkey or clumsy fellow.


Bull Chin, subs. (old).—Explained by quotation.

    1785. Grose, Dictionary of the Vulgar Tongue. Bull chin, a fat,
    chubby child.


Bull-Dance, subs. (nautical).—A dance in which only men take part. Cf.,
Stag-dance, Gander-party, Hen-party, etc.

    1867. Smyth, Sailors’ Word Book. Bull-dance. At sea it is performed
    by men only when without women. It is sometimes called a
    stag-dance.

    1887. Graphic, March 26, p. 315, col. 3. It is obliged to be a
    bull-dance. Gentlemen dance with gentlemen, and the pianist is, of
    course, a gentleman also.


Bull-Dog, subs. (old).—1. A sheriff’s officer; a bailiff.

    1698. Farquhar, Love and a Bottle, iii., 2. Mock. But pray what’s
    the matter, Mrs. Lyric?

Lyric. Nothing, sir, but a shirking bookseller that owed me about forty
guineas for a few lines. He would have put me off, so I sent for a
couple of bull-dogs, and arrested him.

2. (old.)—A pistol; in the naval service a main-deck gun. Cf., Barker
and Bull-dog blazer.

    1700. Farquhar, Constant Couple, iii., 2. He whips out his
    stiletto, and I whips out my bull-dog.

    1825. Scott, St. Ronan’s Well, ii., 191. ‘I have always a brace of
    bull-dogs about me.’... So saying, he exhibited a very handsome,
    highly-finished, and richly-mounted pair of pistols.

    1867. Smyth, Sailors’ Word Book. Bull-dog or muzzled bull-dog, the
    great gun which stands housed in the officer’s ward-room cabin.
    General term for main-deck guns.

    1881. Daily News, Oct. 27, p. 6, col. 2. Revolver cartridges of the
    ordinary ‘bull-dog’ pattern.

3. (old.)—See quot.

    1812. J. H. Vaux, Flash Dict. Bull-dog, a sugar-loaf.

4. (University.)—A proctor’s assistant or marshall. Cf., quot. from
Brewer’s Reader’s Handbook.

    1823. Lockhart, Reg. Dalton, I., x. (1842), 59. Long forgotten
    stories about proctor’s bit and bull-dogs baffled. [M.]

    1841. Lytton, Night and Morning, bk. III., ch. iii. ‘The proctor
    and his bull-dogs came up ... and gave chase to the delinquents ...
    the night was dark, and they reached the College in safety.’

    1847. Tennyson, Princess, Prologue.

                  We unworthier told
        Of college: he had climb’d across the spikes,
        And he had squeezed himself betwixt the bars,
        And he had breath’d the Proctor’s dogs.

    1880. Brewer, Reader’s Handbook. Bull-dogs, the two servants of a
    university proctor, who follow him in his rounds, to assist him in
    apprehending students who are violating the university statues,
    such as appearing in the streets after dinner without cap and gown,
    etc.

5. (University: obsolete.)—A name for a member of Trinity College,
Cambridge.


Bull-Dog Blazer, subs. (American).—A revolver. [Probably a mere
amplification of the kindred English canting term; bull-dog, a pistol,
+ blazer, an allusion to the flash attendant upon firing.] For
synonyms, see Meat in the pot.


Bull-Dose, subs. (American).—A severe castigation or flogging. Verb.—To
thrash; to intimidate; to bully. A term of Southern political origin,
originally referring to an association of negroes formed to insure, by
violent and unlawful means, the success of an election. The phrase has
now passed into general use, political and otherwise, to signify the
adoption and use of coercive measures. [The derivation is almost
literal—a bull-dose, a flogging with a strip of hide; the action itself
being represented by the verb to bulldose. Though indifferently spelt
both with single and double ‘l’ and with ‘s’ and ‘z,’ the correct
version is bulldose.] Also derivatives bulldoser (q.v.), and
bull-dosing, mutatis mutandis, of a kindred meaning.

    1876. New York Tribune, Dec. There was a bad case of ‘bulldozing’
    in Cincinnati on Monday night. A handful of bold Democrats had
    gathered to let out their pent-up desire for Tilden or blood....
    Mr. C—— was in the chair, and was warming up the faithful with an
    address, when the Republicans crowded around him in so threatening
    a manner that he mounted the table, shook his address in their
    faces, and declared, like a true hero, that he was not to be
    ‘intimidated.’

    1880. Illust. London News, vol. LXXVII., p. 587, col. 1. The
    Americans have lately been using a strange word, ‘bull-dosing,’
    which signifies, I believe, political intimidation, but not
    personal molestation.

    1881. Sat. Review, July 9, p. 40, col. 2. To ‘bull-dose’ a negro in
    the Southern States means to flog him to death or nearly to death.

    1881. Sat. Review, July 9, p. 40, col. 2. A ‘bull-dose’ means a
    large efficient dose of any sort of medicine or punishment.

    1887. Cassell’s Mag. (Art. on ‘Americanisms’), June, p. 412. To
    ‘bulldoze’ is to intimidate, and the word was originally used
    respecting the alleged interference with negro voters in Louisiana.

    1888. Detroit Evening Journal, 20 Feb. The Democrats complain of
    the amounts of money they had to face, but that was not such a
    source of trouble as the bulldozing of voters by the mining bosses.
    They were driven to the polls, and compelled to vote for Seymour.

A French equivalent is faire son fendart (fendart signifies ‘braggart’
or ‘swaggerer’; fendant in literary French means a hector or bully).


Bull-Doser, subs. (American).—1. A bully; braggart; swaggerer. Cf.,
Bull-dose. French printers call a bully un mata, an abbreviation of
matador. It is curious that this term in the original Spanish not only
signifies a killer of bulls (as in a bull-fight), but also a murderer.

    1878. N. American Review, vol. CXXVII., p. 426. The great
    ‘bulldozer’ of Europe.

    1882. New York Tribune, 3 May. The hotel where he was staying was
    visited ... by a mob of bull-dozers. [M.]

2. A pistol.

    1881. Sat. Review, July 9, p. 40, col. 2. A Californian bull-doser
    is a pistol which carries a bullet heavy enough to destroy human
    life with certainty.


Bullet. To give the bullet, verbal phr. (common).—To discharge an
employé. Cf., To give the bag, sense 2, under Bag, and Sack. [Possibly
a punning allusion to the word ‘discharge.’] The term is variously
used. To shake the bullet at anyone, is to threaten with ‘the sack,’
but not to give actual notice to leave. To get the bullet is to get
notice, while to get the instant bullet is to be discharged upon the
spot.

    1841. Savage, Dict. of Art of Printing. A workman was said to have
    got the bullet when he was discharged instanter—without the
    customary notice on either side.

    1872. Chamb. Jour., March 9, p. 147. When a fellow gets the bullet
    from his work, he mostly has a spell at cab-driving.

    1887. Punch, Sept. 17, p. 126. I have just got the ‘bullet,’
    Mate—sacked without notice.


Bullfinch, subs. (old).—1. A stupid fellow.

2. (hunting.)—A high thick hedge; one difficult to jump or rush
through. [Most authorities agree in suggesting the origin of this term
in a corruption of ‘bull-fence,’ i.e., a fence capable of preventing
cattle from straying.]

    1832. Quart. Rev., Mar., 226. The bull-finch fence ... is a
    quickset hedge of perhaps fifty years’ growth, with a ditch on one
    side or the other, and so high and strong that [one] cannot clear
    it. [M.]

    1864. G. A. Lawrence, Guy Livingstone, ch. ix. The third is a
    teaser—an ugly black bull-finch with a ditch on the landing side,
    and a drop into a ploughed field.

    1880. The Times, Nov. 2, p. 4, col. 5. They are almost invariably
    attired in double-stitched shooting coats, that will stand the
    ordeal of ‘bull-finches’ and brambles.

    1889. Man of the World, June 29. See Harrington, the belted earl,
    bear down an opponent in the jousts, charging with lance or sword
    as if he were riding at a South Notts bull-finch.


Bull-Jine, subs. (nautical).—A sailor’s term for a locomotive. [Thought
to be of American origin, New York thieves using the same term, as also
an abbreviated form—bull.]


Bull Money, subs. (harlotry).—Money extorted from or given by those who
in places of public resort have been detected in flagrante delicto with
a woman, as a bribe to silence.


Bull-Nurse, subs. (nautical).—See quot.

    1885. Graphic, April 4, p. 326, col. 3. ‘Bull-nurses.’ Perhaps we
    ought to apologise for using this word; but years ago (it may be so
    still) it was the sailors’ phrase to indicate a male-attendant on
    the sick.


Bullock, subs. (schoolboys’).—1. See quot.

    1855. J. K., in Notes and Queries, 1 S., v., 12, 3 Nov., p. 344.
    Bullock, a cheat; but as I think, only when cheating at marbles.

2. (Australian.)—A countryman or bushman. Cf., Bullock-puncher.

Verb.—To bully; to bounce over; to intimidate. [Query from bully.]

    1716. M. Davies, Ath. Brit., I., 272. Upon the evidence of that
    bullocking Fryer Campanella. [M.]

    1750. Fielding, Tom Jones, bk. II., ch. vi. ‘And then you have
    charged me with bullocking you into owning the truth.’

    1763. Foote, Mayor of Garratt, Act ii., Sc. 2. She shan’t think to
    bullock and domineer over me.

    1785. Grose, Dictionary of the Vulgar Tongue. Bullock, to hector,
    bounce, or bully.


Bullock’s Heart.—See Token.


Bullock’s Horn, verb (rhyming slang).—To pawn. For synonyms, see Pop.


Bull Party, subs. (old).—A party of men only. Cf., Bull-dance,
Stag-party, Hen-tea, etc.


Bull-Puncher.—A variant of cow-puncher (q.v.).


Bull’s Eye, subs. (schoolboys’).—1. A sweetmeat of which peppermint is
an important ingredient. [It received its name in allusion to its
globular shape.]

    1825. Hone, Every-day Bk., I., 51. Hardbake, brandy-balls, and
    bull’s-eyes. [M.]

    1882. Punch, vol. LXXXII., p. 83. Dr. Switcher (who had discovered
    bull’s eyes about, and traced them to the original donor). ‘Don’t
    you know, Muggins, there’s an old proverb that “Fools give feasts
    and Wise men eat them”’? Muggins. ‘Yes, Sir, and there’s another
    one, sir.’ The Doctor. ‘What’s that, sir? Now, Sir?’—(noticing a
    reticence)—‘What is it, Sir?’—(sternly)—‘or else—!’ Muggins (seeing
    no escape). ‘Please, Sir, “W—— wise men make proverbs and F—— Fools
    repea——.”’ [Catches it!]

2. (old.)—A five-shilling piece, otherwise known as a bull (q.v.).

    1690. B. E., Dict. Cant. Crew. [Mentioned as a cant term for a
    crown.]

    1714. Memoirs of John Hall (4 ed.), p. 11. Bull’s-eye, a Crown.

    1785. Grose, Dictionary of the Vulgar Tongue. Bull’s-eye, a crown
    piece.


Bull’s-eye Villas, subs. (military).—A nickname given to the small open
tents used by the Volunteers at their annual gathering. [An allusion to
bull’s-eye in its meaning of the centre of a target.]


Bull’s Feather. To give [or get] the bull’s feather, verbal phr.
(old).—To be made, or be a cuckold. Cf., Acteon. The French say also
planter des plumes de bœuf.

    16(?). Song of the 17th Century, quoted by Nares—‘The Bull’s
    Feather.’

        It chanced not long ago as I was walking,
        An echo did bring me where two were a talking,
        ’Twas a man said to his wife, dye had I rather,
        Than to be cornuted and wear a bull’s feather.
        Then presently she reply’d sweet, art thou jealous?
        Thou canst not play Vulcan before I play Venus;
        Thy fancies are foolish, such follies to gather,
        There’s many an honest man hath worn the bull’s feather—
        Though it be invisible, let no man it scorn,
        Though it be a new feather made of an old horn,
        He that disdains it in heart or mind either,
        May he be the more subject to wear the bull’s feather.

    1748. Richardson, Cl. Harlowe, v., 295. A good whimsical
    instrument, take it altogether! But what, thinkest thou, are the
    arms to this matrimonial harbinger?... Three crooked horns,
    smartley top-knotted with ribands; which being the ladies’ wear,
    seem to intimate that they may very probably adorn, as well as
    bestow, the bull’s-feather.


Bull the Cask or Barrel, verbal phr. (nautical).—To pour water into a
rum cask when empty, with a view to keeping the wood moist and
preventing leakage. The water, receiving after some time a strong
impregnation, is very intoxicating. The authorities, not looking with
much favour upon a wholesale brewing of grog in this way, sometimes use
salt water as a deterrent, though even this ‘salt water bull’ as it is
called, when again poured out, has often proved too attractive for
seamen to resist. Again it is common to talk in the same way of
‘bulling a teapot,’ ‘coffee-pot,’ etc.; that is; after the first ‘brew’
has been exhausted, by adding fresh water, and boiling over again, to
make a second brew from the old materials. This probably was derived
from bulling the cask, but whether the bulling originally applied to
the preserving the water-tight qualities of the cask, or to the making
of the second brew is not quite certain. Taking, however, the present
acceptation of the term, together with its probable derivation (see
below), the latter would appear to be the case. [Thought to have its
origin in French boullir, whence bouilloire, a tea-kettle; bouillon, a
decoction of meat to which vegetables, salt and pepper have been
added.]

    1824. Cochrane, Narrative of a Pedestrian Journey through Russia
    and Siberian Tartary, p. 225. My liquor was at end from the effects
    of a very common sort of leak—it had been tapped too often. I could
    do nothing but bull the barrel, that is, put a little water into
    it, and so preserve at least the appearance of vookey.

    1835. Marryat, Jacob Faithful, ch. xx. ‘Why, Jacob, a bull means
    putting a quart or two of water into a cask which has had spirits
    in it.’

    1887. G. R. Sims, How the Poor Live, p. 148. In these places, too,
    the lodgers divide their food frequently, and a man, seeing a
    neighbour without anything, will hand him his teapot, and say,
    ‘Here you are, mate; here’s a bull for you.’ A ‘bull’ is a teapot
    with the leaves left in for a second brew.


Bull-Trap, subs. (American thieves’).—A personator of a police
constable.


Bully, subs. (old).—1. A ‘protector’ of a prostitute; a ‘fancy man.’
The name is often well applied, inasmuch as violence and swagger form
the main staple of the stock-in-trade of such men in levying blackmail
upon the victims enticed by their women companions.

    1706. Defoe, Jure Divino, i., 8. Mars the celestial bully they
    adore, And Venus for an everlasting whore.

French Synonyms. Poisson (familiar and popular: one who subsists on the
gains of a prostitute, the latter being known as his marmite, i.e.,
‘flesh-pot’; poisson signifies literally ‘a fish,’ and Michel says such
a one was formerly known as poisson d’avril, a punning variation of
maquereau [which see], mackerel being fit for food about that month.
Poisson d’avril properly means a trick or fool’s errand; recevoir un
poisson d’avril is to be made an April-fool); Alphonse (a French form
of Alphonso, a ‘fancy name’ for a ‘fancy man.’ Cf., Adonis for a dandy.
Alphonsisme is the calling of an Alphonse); baigne-dans-le-beurre
(popular: another allusion to mackerel which is generally served with
butter); barbise (popular); barbe (popular: lit. ‘beard’); barbille or
barbillon (a young hand at the business); barbeau (popular: properly
barbel, from L. L. barbellus, dim. from barbus, a barbel, i.e., the
fish, from barba, a beard); marlou or marlousier (general: the second
term is the oldest, and Michel derives it from marlier, formerly used
in the sense of marguillier, signifying properly ‘churchwarden.’ Cf.,
Sacristain); benoît (popular); brochet (popular: properly this is
‘pike’ or ‘jack’); dos, dos vert, and dos d’azur (general: dos = back);
casquette à trois ponts (popular: so called from a cap often worn by
such persons); chevalier du bidet (bidet = pony; Cf., Omnibus);
chevalier de la guiche (familiar); chiqueur de blanc (chiqueur =
glutton, and blanc, a street-walker. Cf., mangeuse de viande crue);
bouffeur de blanc (popular); costel (popular); cravate verte (popular);
guiche (popular); dessous (thieves’: a man for whom ‘love’ is cherished
by a prostitute); écaillé (literally ‘one with scales,’ like those of a
fish—allusive of maquereau; fish, another reference to maquereau);
foulard rouge (popular: lit. ‘red silk handkerchief’); gentilhomme sous
marin (popular); ambassadeur (popular); gonce à écailles (gonce = man;
à écailles = with scales, an allusion to maquereau); goujon (general: ?
does this come from the Gascon gouie, whence comes gouge, a
prostitute); lacromuche (popular); retrousseur (popular: retrousser
properly means ‘to turn up,’ ‘to cock’); dauphin (popular: lit.
dolphin); macchoux (popular); machabée (popular: lit. a corpse); mac or
macque (popular; abbreviations of maquereau); macrottin (familiar);
poisson frayeur (frayer [of fishes] signifies ‘to milt’); releveur de
fumeuse (popular: Cf., relever le chandelier, i.e., to lift up the
candlestick; from a practice of placing the fees of a prostitute under
a candlestick); maquignon à bidoche (popular: maquignon is properly a
‘horsedealer,’ and bidoche = meat); mangeur de blanc (general: a
devourer of prostitutes. Cf., chiqueur de blanc); tête de patère
(popular); marloupatte, marloupin (see marlou); marquant (thieves’);
mec (popular and thieves’); mec de la guiche (so called from his
kiss-curls—des guiches = kiss-curls); monsieur à nageoires (lit.
gentleman with fins); monsieur à rouflaquettes (popular: rouflaquettes
= aggerawators, q.v.); neg en viande chaude (popular: neg is an
abbreviation of négociant, i.e., merchant, dealer; viande chaude = hot
meat); patenté (popular: patente is the name of a cap worn by the
fraternity); porte-nageoires (see monsieur à nageoires); roi de la mer
(popular: lit. king of the sea. Cf., maquereau, poisson, etc.);
rouflaquette (Cf., monsieur à rouflaquettes); roule-en-cul,
soixante-six (popular: insulting terms which might be translated by
‘pensioner,’ with an obscene prefix); un qui va aux épinards (popular:
one who receives money from a prostitute, épinards = spinach. Cf., ‘to
take one’s greens’); valet de cœur (popular: the lover of a
prostitute); visqueux (properly this signifies ‘viscous,’ ‘slimy,’
‘clammy’; the term is applied to the lowest type of bullies); bibi
(popular); bras de fer (lit. ‘arm of iron’).

    1729. Gay, Polly, Act ii., Sc. 7. Jimmy: Sure never was such
    insolence! how could you leave me with this bawdy-house bully?

    1753. Adventurer, No. 100. I learned to pack cards and to cog a
    die; became a bully to whores.

    1766. Goldsmith, Vicar of Wakefield, ch. xx. The lady was only a
    woman of the town, and the fellow her bully and a sharper.

    1821. W. T. Moncrieff, Tom and Jerry, Act. ii., Sc. 4. M’L. Plaise
    your honour, I have brought before your worship a most notorious
    prostitute and common street walker, who, for her foul doings, has
    been cooped up in the Poultry Comptor, as often as there are years
    in a week.—I caught her charging these honest gentlemen (pointing
    to Tom and Jerry) in a most impositious manner, and when I civilly
    axed her, how she could think of getting drunk, and acting so, she
    called her bullies here. (Pointing to Kate and Sue.)

    1883. A. Dobson, Fielding, p. 129. Probably a professed sabreur, if
    not a salaried bully like Captain Stab in the Rake’s Progress.

    1887. Daily News, 15 July, 6, 5. It was not an uncommon thing for a
    prostitute to solicit a man, and if he refused her importunities,
    to call upon a ‘bully,’ and complain that she had been assaulted.

2. (Eton College.)—A melée at football; the equivalent of the Rugby
‘scrimmage’ and the Winchester ‘hot.’ It is where the majority of
players play.

3. (nautical.)—A term of endearment in use amongst sailors. Equivalent
to ‘pal,’ ‘mate,’ and similar terms. In this sense it has long been in
use, Shakspeare often employing it. Probably hence arose the American
and colonial adjectival use of the word in the sense of fine, ‘crack.’

4. (American thieves’.)—A weapon formed by tying a stone or a piece of
lead in a handkerchief. This is used knuckleduster fashion.

Adj. (American).—Fine; capital; crack; ‘spiff.’ Applied to persons
only, this adjective is traceable as far back as 1681; it seems,
however, to have fallen into disuetude and to have been subsequently
revived in a much more extended sense in the U.S.A., whence it has made
the circuit of the English speaking world. Now applied to anything
deserving of commendation, and used very much in the same way and with
the same shades of meaning as ‘crack.’

English Synonyms. See A1.

French Synonyms. In addition to those given under A1 may be mentioned
the following:—muche; pas piqué des hannetons (popular: literally not
bitten or stung by May-bugs or cockchafers).

    1681. Chetham, Anglers’ Vade Mecum (1689), pref. From such bully
    fishers this book expects no other reception.

    1855. Cairo City Times. The bully steamboat ‘Crystal Palace’ passed
    up to St. Louis on Monday. We have no doubt she left papers.

    1870. Meade, New Zealand, p. 331. The roof fell in, there was a
    ‘bully’ blaze.

    1875. N. Amer. Review, vol. CXX., p. 128. ‘That,’ replied Earney,
    ‘is Mercury, the god of merchants and thieves.’ ‘Good! that’s
    bully!’ exclaimed Tweed.

    1880. Bret Harte, A Lonely Ride. ‘I thought you changed horses on
    the road?’ ‘So we did. Two hours ago.’ ‘That’s odd. I didn’t notice
    it.’ ‘Must have been asleep sir. Hope you had a pleasant nap. Bully
    place for a nice quiet snooze,—empty stage, sir!’

That’s bully for you, phr. (American).—Grand or fine; this phrase,
during the Civil War, had a remarkably popular run.

    1873. Justin McCarthy, Fair Saxon, ch. xix. ‘Darling boy! I had
    thought of this already.’ ‘Bully for you, mamma! Of course you
    did.’

Bully boy or bully boy with the glass eye, phr. (American).—A good
fellow.

    1815. Scott, Guy Mannering, ch. xxxiv. ‘Well said, my hearty
    captain!’ cried Glossin, endeavouring to catch the tone of
    revelry.... ‘That’s it, my bully boy! Why, you’re alive again
    now!—’

    1817. Scott, Rob Roy, ch. viii. ‘And you, Mr. Frank Osbaldistone,
    are not the first bully-boy that has said stand to a true man.’

    1869. S. L. Clemens (‘Mark Twain’), Innocents at Home, p. 20. You
    ought to seen him get started once. He was a bully boy with a glass
    eye.


Bully-Back or Bully-Buck, subs. (old).—Thus described by Grose: A bully
to a bawdy house, one who is kept in pay, to oblige the frequenters of
the house to submit to the impositions of the mother abbess or bawd,
and who also sometimes pretends to be the husband of one of the ladies,
and under that pretence extorts money from greenhorns, or ignorant
young men, whom he finds with her. Cf., Bully-boss.

    1626. Amherst, Terræ Fil., xxxiii., 179. They have spirtual bravves
    on their side, and old lecherous bully-backs to revenge their
    cause. [M.]


Bully Beef, subs. (military).—Tinned meat. Also called iron ration
(q.v.). In the navy by bully-beef is meant boiled salt beef. [This may
either be a corruption of bull beef or from the French bouilli, boiled
meat.]

    1883. Clark Russell, Sailors’ Language, pref., xii.
    Soup-and-bouilli is another standing sea dish, and, taking it all
    round, is the most disgusting of the provisions served out to the
    merchant sailor. I have known many a strong stomach, made
    food-proof by years of pork eaten with molasses, and biscuit alive
    with worms, to be utterly capsized by the mere smell of
    soup-and-bouilli. Jack calls it ‘soap and bullion, one onion to a
    gallon of water,’ and thus fairly expresses the character of the
    nauseous compound.

    1887. Daily News, July 9, p. 6, col. 4. The rations will be of the
    kind known to Tommy Atkins as ‘bully beef.’ There may be in it a
    considerable proportion of mutton, but that makes no difference to
    him.


Bully-Boss, subs. (American).—The landlord of a brothel or thieves’
den. [From bully, sense 1 (q.v.), + boss, a master.]


Bully-Buck.—See Bully-back.


Bully Cock, subs. (old).—1. See quot.

    1785. Grose, Dictionary of the Vulgar Tongue. Bully-cock, one who
    foments quarrels in order to rob the persons quarrelling.

2. subs. (old).—A low round hat with broad brim.—See Billy-cock.

3. (old.)—A man who sets other people by the ears, so that, while they
quarrel, he may rob them with impunity.


Bullyrag or Ballyrag, verb (colloquial).—To revile; abuse; scold
vehemently—usually in vulgar or obscene language; also to swindle by
means of intimidation. [The etymology is unknown.]

French Synonyms. Arranger aux petits oignons; monter une gamme
(popular: gamme = thrashing or ‘walloping’); habiller quelqu’un de
taffetas (popular: i.e., to clothe anyone with fear; Cf., ‘clothed with
shame’); agonir (popular: ‘to haul over the coals’; properly ‘to pull
to pieces’); secouer les puces à quel-qu’un (popular: secouer = to
shake; puces = fleas. Cf., ‘to send one away with a flea in the ear’).

    1760. T. Warton, Oxford Newsman’s Verses.

        On Minden’s plains, ye meek Mounseers!
        Remember Kingsley’s grenadiers.
        You vainly thought to ballarag us,
        Like your fine squadron off Cape Lagos.

    1861. Charles Lever, One of Them, p. 36. He bullyragged me.

    1876. S. Clemens (‘Mark Twain’), Tom Sawyer, p. 118. I don’t want
    nothing better ’n this; I don’t git enough to eat gin’ally,—and
    here they can’t come and pick a feller and bullyrag him so.

    1880. Jas. Greenwood, Maids in Waiting, in Odd People in Odd
    Places, p. 143. You should have heard the bullyragging I got,
    ma’am, from the mistress and the master as well, and I was turned
    out in the shameful way I’ve already explained to you, for doing
    what was no wrong at all, but only what me good-nature tempted me
    to.

    1884. Jas. Payn, Talk of the Town, ch. v. He had never been
    ‘bally-ragged’ in his own house for ‘nothing’—except by his
    wife—before.


Bullyragging, verb, subs. (colloquial).—Scolding; abuse; and sometimes
swindling. [From bullyrag (q.v.) + ing.] For synonyms, see Wigging.

    1863. H. Kingsley, Austin Elliot, ch. xviii. ‘It would be a good
    thing for she ... if she could bully Miss Eleanor into marrying
    Captain Hertford, and then that the pair on ’em should have the
    bullying and bally-ragging of nine thousand a year.’

    1880. Mrs. Parr, Adam and Eve, xxi., 292. There’ll be more set to
    the score o’ my coaxin’ than ever ‘all be to Adam’s bully-ragging.’
    [M.]

    1882. Daily Telegraph, Oct. 19, p. 3, col. 1. ‘And you should have
    heard the bully-ragging I got, ma’am, from the mistress and the
    master as well.’


Bully-Rook or Bully-Rock, subs. (old).—Originally this term seems to
have been applied to a pleasant or boon-companion; later, however, to a
swaggerer, a bully, a bravo. [Thought by most etymologists to be a
combination of bully (q.v.) + rook (q.v.), a sharper.]

    1596. Shakspeare, Merry Wives of Windsor, Act i., Sc. 3. Why says
    my bully-rook?

    1633. Shirley, Wittie Faire One, Act iii., Sc. 4. Such in the
    spirit of sack, till we be delphic, and prophesy, my bully-rook.

    1697. Praise of Yorkshire Ale. My bully-rocks, I’ve been
    experienced long In most of Liquors. [M.]

    1754. B. Martin, Eng. Dict. (2 ed.). Bully, or bully-rock, 1. a
    boisterous, hectoring fellow.


Bully Ruffian, subs. (old).—A footpad or highwayman, who, to the injury
of robbery, added the insult of coarse invective. Cf., Bridle-cull.


Bully Trap, subs. (old).—A man who, though of mild outside demeanour,
is a match for any ruffian who may attack him. Quoted by Grose [1785].


Bully Up (Uppingham School), verb.—To hurry up. Mostly used in the
imperative.


Bum, subs. (vulgar).—1. The posteriors; or, as Jamieson puts it, ‘the
part on which we sit.’ [Considerable doubt exists as to the origin of
this familiar term. Murray thinks the guess that bum is an abbreviation
of ‘bottom’ is at variance with the historical fact that the latter, in
this sense, is found only from the eighteenth century; besides which
there are phonetic difficulties. The origin is probably onomatopoetic.]
Besides the synonyms mentioned under Blind cheeks, the following may be
cited:

English Synonyms. Bum-fiddle; bumpkin.

French Synonyms. Le foiron (popular: from foire = diarrhœa); le tal
(popular); le garde-manger (popular: Michel says this expression is an
old one and is to be found in ‘Curiositez françoises’ in the sense of
‘a necessary house’); le naze (equivalent to ‘smeller,’ or ‘smelling
cheat’); le soufflet (popular: literally ‘a pair of bellows’); le
prouas (the same as le prose, of nautical origin); la contre-basse
(popular: the ‘double bass.’ Cf., Ars musica); le schaffouse (popular:
a play of words, the town of that name being situated on the Lower
Rhine—chute du Rhein, and chute du rein, the lower part of the back);
le gingin (popular); la tabatière (popular: literally ‘the snuff-box’);
la tire-lire (popular: Rigaud says this term is in allusion to the
means of subsistence [daily bread] of prostitutes); la giberne
(literally ‘cartridge-box’); le proye (an old canting term); le cadet
(popular); la figure (i.e., ‘the face.’ Cf., ‘cheeks’); la canonnière
(literally ‘a drain pipe’ or ‘pop-gun’); l’oignon (literally ‘the
onion’); la machine à moulures; le département du bas Rhin (‘the
department of the Lower Rhine’; rein = back—a play upon words); le
démoc; le schelingophone; le Prussien (from the Gypsy prusiatin̆i,
translated by Borrow as ‘pistol’); le panier aux crottes (panier =
basket; crottes = dung); le visage de campagne; le fignard (i.e., ‘a
one-eyed cheek’); le visage sans nez (i.e., ‘the face without a nose’);
le pétrouskin; le face du grand Turc; le tortillon; le fleurant
(popular: also ‘a nose-gay’); le pedzouille (familiar: ‘a peasant’ or
‘clod’); le cadran or le cadran lunaise (cadran = dial); le piffe
(thieves’); le médaillon (popular: literally ‘a medallion’ or
‘locket’); l’arrière-train (familiar: lit. ‘after-carriage’); le trèfle
(popular: this also signifies ‘tobacco’); messire Luc (familiar: ‘Mr.
Luke,’ sometimes also ‘Nancy.’ Cf., Mrs. Jones); le moulin à vent (lit.
the ‘windmill’); le ponant (popular); la lune (popular: lune in slang
means a large full face); le bienséant (popular); le pétard (popular
and thieves’: it also stands for sou; in the Normandy patois pétra is
used interchangeably with pétard); le ballon (popular: ballon =
balloon; the analogy is obvious); le moutardier (i.e., the
mustard-pot); le baril de moutarde (cads’: the mustard barrel);
l’obusier (lit. the howitzer).

German Synonyms. Tochas; Toges; Doges.

Italian Synonym. Rioppo.

    1387. Trevisa, Higden Rolls, 6 S., 357. It semeth that his bom is
    oute that hath that euel [ficus, i.e., piles]. [M.]

    1592. Shakspeare, Mids. Night’s Dream, ii., 1, l. 51.

        The wisest aunt telling the saddest tale,
        Sometime for three-foot stool mistaketh me;
        Then slip I from her bum, down topples she,
        And tailor cries, and falls into a couch;
        And then the whole quire hold their hips, and loffe.

    1600. Dekker, Shoemaker’s Holiday, in wks. (1873) I., 39. Art thou
    acquainted with neuer a fardingale-maker, nor a French-hood maker,
    I must enlarge my bumme.

    1609. Shakspeare, Timon of Athens, Act i., Sc. 2.

                      What a coil’s here!
        Serving of becks, and jutting out of bums!

    1614. Jonson, Bartholomew Fair, iv., 4. Your breeches sit close
    enough to your bum.

    1729. Swift, Intelligencer, No. 8, p. 83 (2 ed.).

        And first his bum you see him clap
        Upon the Queen of Sheba’s lap.

    1742. Shenstone, Schoolmistress, st. 18.

        All, but the wight of bum y-galled, he
        Abhors both bench, and stool, and fourm, and chair.

    1782. Wolcot, Lyric Odes, No. i., in wks. (1809) I., 12. That lazy
    bum-delighting thing, Ridly the Chancellor.

2. (old.)—An abbreviated form Of bum bailiff (q.v.).

    1663. Butler, Hudibras, I., i., 393.

        It had appeared with courage bolder,
        Then Sergeant Bum, invading shoulder.

    1698–1700. Ward, London Spy, pt. VII., p. 153.

        The Vermin of the Law, the Bum,
          Who gladly kept his distance,
        Does safely now in Triumph come.

    1845. Disraeli, Sybil, bk. III., ch. i. ‘Juggings has got his rent
    to pay, and is afeard of the bums.’

3. (public schools’.)—A birching; ‘hiding’ or ‘tanning.’ For synonyms,
see Tanning. Cf., also Bash and Baste.

Verb (old).—To arrest. [An obvious allusion to the duty of a bum or
bum-bailiff (q.v.).]

Cherry Bums, subs. (military).—The 11th Hussars. Cherry-bum is a
corruption of Cherubim; but the obvious reference is to the scarlet
trowsers worn by this branch of the service. A similar nickname is
given to the French Chasseurs—Culs rouges.—See Cherubim.

To toe one’s bum, phr. (low).—An implied threat of physical
castigation, rarely, however, carried out literally; to put or ‘chuck’
out; to show the door to—either will explain the meaning. Sometimes the
phrase occurs as ‘to hoof one’s bum.’

French Synonyms. Sauter sur la contrebasse (popular); filer un coup de
trottinet dans l’oignon (thieves’); boucher la lumière (popular:
properly ‘to stuff up the touch-hole’); enlever le ballon à quelqu’un
(popular: the allusion is to raising an air balloon with the foot);
donner un coup de pied juste au bon endroit (popular: ‘to give a kick
just in the right part’); botter (popular: literally ‘to make’ or
‘supply anyone with boots’); détacher un coup de pinceau dans la
giberne (popular: coup de pinceau = ‘a kick,’ or ‘a blow with the
foot’; giberne = cartridge-box or, in slang, the breech); crever un œil
à quelqu’un (popular: ‘to stave in one’s eye.’ Cf., Cyclops); graisser
le train derrière (i.e., ‘to grease the hinder carriage.’ Cf., Eng.
Basting); détruire le faubourg à quelqu’un (popular: properly faubourg
= suburb or outskirt); enlever le schelingophone à quelqu’un (popular).


Bum Bags, subs. (popular).—Trowsers. [From bum, the posteriors, + bags
(q.v.).]


Bum Bailiff, also Bum Baily, subs. (old).—An opprobrious name for a
bailiff or sheriff’s officer. Frequently contracted into bum or bummy.
[Thought to be derived from bum (q.v.), an allusion to the proximity of
such gentry to debtors’ backs, + bailiff; there is no reason to
suppose, as suggested, that the term is a corruption of bound-bailiff.
The French have pousse cul, and it is curious that this term is also,
in common use, abbreviated to cul, answering to the English
contraction, bum.]

    1602. Shakespeare, Twelfth Night, Act iii., Sc. 4. Sir Jo. Go, Sir
    Andrew; scout me for him at the corner of the orchard like a
    bum-baily.

    1628. H. Shirley, Martyr’d Souldier, Act v. I was first a Varlet,
    then a Bum-baily, now an under Jailor.

    1761. Dr. Hawkesworth, Edgar and Emmeline, ii., 1. By the heavens!
    she has the gripe of a bum-bailiff.

    1822. Scott, Fortunes of Nigel, ch. xvii. ‘We are in right
    opposition to sign and seal, writ and warrant, serjeant and
    tipstaff, catch-poll and bum-bailey.’

    1869. Mrs. H. Wood, Roland Yorke, ch. xxxii. ‘You know the state we
    were in all the summer: Gerald next to penniless, and going about
    in fear of the bum-bailies.’


Bum Bass, subs. (old).—Explained by quot.

    1809. S. Pegge, Anonymiana, p. 415 (ed. 1809). The humble-bee ought
    rather, perhaps, to be called the bumble-bee as it is in some
    parts, from the deepness of the note, just as the violoncello is
    called by the vulgar a bum-bass.


Bumble, subs. (common).—A beadle. [This term originated in the name of
the beadle in Dickens’ Oliver Twist, although it may be noted that in
the seventeenth century bumble signified a confusion, a jumble. Hence
bumbler, an idle fellow, or blunderer. A French equivalent is
chasse-coquin (literally a beggar driver). Cf., Bumble-crew and
Bumbledom.]

    1883. Punch, August 4, p. 51, col. 1.

        A helpless ‘nuisance’ shunned by the Inspector,
        Ignored by bumbles and by Boards of Works.


Bumble-Crew, subs. (popular).—A collective name for corporations,
vestries, and other official bodies. [From bumble (q.v.) + crew.]—See
Bumbledom.


Bumbledom, subs. (popular).—A term applied to the spirit of collective
petty officialism; red tape fussiness and pomposity. [From bumble
(q.v.) + dom.]

    1856. Saturday Review, II., p. 12, col. 1. The collective Bumbledom
    of Westminster. [M.]

    1884. Daily News, Dec. 27, p. 6, col. 1. Our scheme is unfolded to
    the chief officer—not the slightest trace of bumbledom about him—a
    kind-hearted, genial, happy-faced individual.


Bumble Puppy, subs. (popular).—Family whist, i.e., ‘unscientific’
whist. Also applied, says Hotten, to a game played in public houses on
a large stone, placed in a slanting direction, on the lower end of
which holes are made, and numbered like the holes in a bagatelle-table.
The player rolls a stone ball, or marble, from the higher end, and
according to the number of the hole it falls into the game is counted.
It is undoubtedly the very ancient game of Troule-in-madame.

    1886. Daily News, Dec. 25, p. 5, col. 2. Christmas cards, and
    mince-pies, and another helping of turkey, and family whist, or
    bumble puppy.


Bumbles, subs. (general).—Coverings for the eyes of horses that shy in
harness. Cf., Blinkers.


Bumbo, subs. (West Indian.)—1. The female pudenda; a term applied by
negroes. For synonyms, see Monosyllable.

2. (old.)—Smollett, in a note to the first quotation as follows, says
bumbo was a liquor composed of ‘rum, sugar, water, and nutmeg.’ Grose
gives it as ‘brandy, water, and sugar’—the component parts seem to vary
according to taste.

    1748. Smollett, Rod. Random, ch. xxxiv. Who were making merry in
    the ward-room, round a table well stored with bumbo and wine.

    1756. Diary of a Sussex Tradesman, in Sussex Arch. Coll., IX., 188,
    quoted in N. and Q., 7 S., i., 194. 1756, April 28. I went down to
    Jones’, where we drank one bowl of punch and two muggs of bumboo,
    and I came home again in liquor.

    1882. Northumbrian Minstrelsy, etc., p. 113, quoted in N. and Q., 7
    S., i., 195.

        The pitmen and the keelmen trim,
        They drink bumbo made of gin.


Bum-Brusher, subs. (schoolboys’).—A schoolmaster; also applied to an
usher. [From bum, the posteriors, + brusher, in allusion to the office
a schoolmaster is sometimes called upon to perform by way of
punishment.]

English Synonyms. Flaybottom; haberdasher of pronouns.

French Synonyms. Un marchand de soupe (marchand = merchant; soupe =
soup); un chien de cour (i.e., ‘a watch-dog’); un fouette-cul (a
literal translation of bum-brusher).

    1704. T. Brown, wks. (1760) II., 86. [Dionysius] was forced to turn
    bum-brusher.

    1788. New London Magazine, p. 137. A successor was immediately
    called from that great nursery of bum-brushers, Appleby School.

    1832. Blackwood’s Mag., Oct., p. 426. To protract existence ... in
    the shape of bum-brushers, and so forth, after the fashion of the
    exalted emigrés of 1792?

    1838. Comic Almanac, Dec. [School-master’s Letter signed] Barnabas
    Bom-brush.


Bum Charter, subs. (thieves’).—Explained by quot.

    1819. J. H. Vaux, Memoirs. Bum-charter is the name given to bread
    steeped in hot water by the first unfortunate inhabitants of the
    English Bastile, where this miserable fare was their daily
    breakfast, each man receiving with his scanty portion of bread a
    quart of boiled water from the Cook’s Coppers.


Bumclink, subs. (provincial).—In the Midland counties the inferior beer
brewed for hay-makers and harvest labourers. [Derivation obvious.] For
synonyms, see Swipes.


Bum Curtain, subs. (Cambridge Univ.).—1. An academical gown when worn
scant and short; especially applied to the short black gown worn till
1835 by members of Caius College. Cf., Bum-perisher.

    1835. (Quoted in Whibley’s Three Centuries of Cambridge Wit
    [1889].)

        ’Tis the College of Caius—’tis the land where the ‘Bum
        Curtain’ lately was sported by each jolly chum,
        But now black and blue are the gowns that they wear
        Like the eye of a drunkard returned from a fair.


Bumf, subs. (schooboys’).—Paper. [An abbreviation of bum-fodder (q.v.),
an obvious allusion to toilet paper.]


Bumfhunt, subs. (Wellington College).—A paper-chase. [Derived from the
popular schoolboy name for paper, i.e., bumf (q.v.).]


Bum Fiddle, subs. (old).—The posteriors. For synonyms, see Blind cheeks
and Bum.


Bum Fidget, subs. (old).—A restless individual. [Obviously from bum,
the posterior, + fidget, i.e., one who cannot sit still.]


Bum Fodder, subs. (old).—1. Low class worthless literature; a term once
in literary use.—See sense 2.

    1653. Urquhart, Rabelais, I., xiii. Torche-culs, arsewisps, bum
    fodders.

    1753. Scots’ Magazine, April, p. 208, col. 1 (title). Bum fodder
    for the ladies. [M.]

2. (low.)—Toilet paper, otherwise known as curl paper (q.v.). Cf. Bumf.

    1785. Grose, Dictionary of the Vulgar Tongue. Bum fodder, soft
    paper for the necessary house, or torche-cul.


Bummaree, subs. (common).—A Billingsgate middle-man. These men, who are
not recognised as regular salesmen by the trade, are speculative buyers
of large quantities of fish, which they re-sell in smaller lots. [The
origin of the name is unknown, though some have speculated that it may
be from the French bon marée; others, however, think that it is akin to
bomerie, a French word for what in England is known as ‘bottomry,’
i.e., the act of borrowing money and pledging the bottom of the ship,
i.e., the ship itself, for the re-payment of the money. It is argued
that the leading idea in thus borrowing money on a ship’s keel is the
hazarding all on a single venture: hence possibly its application to
other transactions, especially those connected with the sea; such as
wholesale purchases of fish, in which a large risk is run with an
uncertain prospect of return—which is, it must be confessed, a somewhat
far-fetched derivation.] This wholesale retailing of fish is also
called bummareeing it.

    1786. Report of Committee of City of London on Price of Provisions,
    31. The bomarees will buy up half the fish the Salesmen have, and
    sell to the Fishmongers. [M.]

    1851. Mayhew, London Labour and London Poor, I., 71. In
    Billingsgate the ‘forestallers’ or middle men are known as
    bummarees.... The bummaree is the jobber or speculator on the fish
    exchange.

    1859. Sala, Twice Round the Clock, 4 a.m., p. 17. Any one can be a
    bumbaree.... The process of bumbareeing is very simple. It consists
    in buying as largely as your means will afford of an auctioneer,
    hiring a stall for sixpence, and retailing the fish at a swingeing
    profit.


Bummed, ppl. adj. (old).—Arrested. Cf. verb, Bum and Bum-bailiff.


Bummer, subs. (old.)—1. A bum-bailiff (q.v.).

2. (turf.)—A heavy loss; a severe pecuniary reverse.

3. (American.)—An idler; loafer; sponger; looter (see quots.). [From
the German bummler, with a somewhat similar meaning, save that the term
is used good naturedly, and has not altogether the offensive meaning of
the American equivalent.] The term came into general use at the time of
the Civil War, when it was specially applied to a straggler, hanger-on,
or free-lance, particularly in connection with General Sherman’s famous
march from Atlanta to the sea. Besides its political signification,
bummer is used as a general term of reproach in the same way as rascal,
blackleg, etc., are used in England. Other equivalents are heeler,
striker, stuffer, and practical politician.

    a. 1865. Major Nichols, Sherman’s Great March. Look hyar, Captain,
    we bummers ain’t so bad after all. We keep ahead of the skirmish
    line allers; we let’s ’em know when an enemy’s a comin’, and then
    we ain’t allus away from the regiment. We turns over all we don’t
    want ourselves, and we can lick five times as many Rebs as we are
    any day.

    1872. S. L. Clemens (‘Mark Twain’), Roughing It, ch. xxiv. The
    auctioneer stormed up and down the streets on him for four days,
    dispersing the populace, interrupting business, and destroying
    children, and never got a bid—at least never any but the
    eighteen-dollar one he hired, a notoriously substanceless bummer,
    to make. The people only smiled pleasantly, and restrained their
    desire to buy, if they had any.

    1872. Sacramento Weekly Union, Feb. 24, p. 2. All the boys to be
    trained as scriveners, tape-measurers, counter-hoppers, clerks,
    pettifoggers, polite loafers, street-hounds, hoodlums, and bummers.

    1875. Scribner’s Magazine, p. 274. San Francisco is the Elysium of
    bummers. Nowhere can a worthless fellow, too lazy to work, too
    cowardly to steal, get on so well. The climate befriends him, for
    he can sleep out of doors four-fifths of the year. He can gorge
    himself daily for a nominal sum, and get a dinner that a king might
    envy for fifty cents.

    1877. W. Black, Green Past. and Picc., ch. xiii. Then the great
    crowd of bummers and loafers, not finding the soil teeming with
    nuggets, stampeded off like a herd of buffalo.

    1888. Philadelphia Press, Jan. 29. Coy is the chairman of the
    Democratic Central Committee in Marion County, and has wielded
    great power in politics as the boss of the bummers.

    1888. Detroit Free Press, May 16. He finds that ten per cent. of
    the men who patronise these places have a collegiate education;
    forty per cent. are self-supporting, but prefer this precarious
    mode of living to anything more respectable; ten per cent. earn
    excellent wages, and twenty per cent. are chronic bums, who beg or
    steal the price of their lodgings.

Hence bummerism, to express habits of loafing and petty stealing, and
bummerish (adj.).


Bumming, verb, subs. (Wellington College).—A thrashing, or licking.
Cf., Bum, sense 1.


Bump, subs. (University).—When one boat touches another in a race it is
said to ‘make a bump,’ and technically beats its opponent. Cf., verbal
sense, and Bumping race.

Verb.—To overtake and touch an opposing boat, thus winning the heat or
race.

    1849. Thackeray, Pendennis, ch. iii. He listened, and with respect
    too, to Mr. Foker’s accounts of what the men did at the University
    of which Mr. F. was an ornament, and encountered a long series of
    stories about boat-racing, bumping, College grass-plats, and
    milk-punch.

    1860. Macmillan’s Magazine, March, p. 331. The chances of St.
    Ambrose’s making a bump the first night were weighed.

    1865. Sketches from Cambridge, p. 7. I can still condescend to give
    our boat a stout when it makes a bump.

    1886–7. Dickens, Dictionary of Cambridge, p. 11. Any boat which
    overtakes and bumps another ... before the winning post is reached,
    changes place with it for the next race.


Bumper, subs. (common).—1. Anything of superlative size, whether a ‘big
lie,’ horse, house, or woman. Cf., Corker, Whopper, and Thumper.

2. (theatrical).—A full or crowded house.

    1838. Dickens, Nich. Nickleby, ch. xxiv., p. 192. ‘In the
    confidence that our fellow-towsmen have not lost that high
    appreciation of public utility and private worth, for which they
    have long been so pre-eminently distinguished, we predict that this
    charming actress will be greeted with a bumper.’

3. (cards’.)—When, in long whist, one side has scored eight before the
other has scored a point, a bumper is the result.


Bum-Perisher, Bum-Shaver, subs. (common).—A short-tailed coat; a
jacket. [From bum, the posteriors, + perisher, a slang variant of that
which ‘perishes,’ or fails to protect (from cold, etc.).] Cf., Bum
curtain.


Bumping Race, subs. (University).—Eight-oared inter-Collegiate races,
rowed in two divisions of fifteen and sixteen boats respectively,
including a sandwich boat (q.v.), i.e., the top boat of the second
division, which rows bottom of the first. The boats in each division
start at a distance apart of 175 feet from stern to stern in the order
at which they left off at the last preceding race, and any boat which
overtakes, and bumps another (i.e., touches it in any part) before the
winning post is reached, changes place with it for the next race.


Bumpkin, subs. (old).—A humorous term for the posteriors.

    1658. [In Nares] Wit Restored.

        And so I take my leave; prithee, sweet Thumkin,
        Hold up thy coats, that I may kisse thy bumkin.


Bump-Supper, subs. (University).—A supper to commemorate the fact of
the boat of the college having, in the annual races, ‘bumped’ or
touched the boat of another college immediately in front. Cf., Bumping
race.


Bumptious, adj. (colloquial).—Arrogant; self-sufficient; on good terms
with oneself. [Murray puts this down as a formation from bump on the
model of ‘fractious.’ It is of recent introduction.]

    1803. Mad. D’Arblay, Diary and Letters, vi., 324. No, my dearest
    Padre, bumptious! no, I deny the charge in toto. [M.]

    1849. Dickens, D. Copperfield, ch. vi., p. 53 (C.D.). I heard that
    Mr. Sharp’s wig didn’t fit him, and that he needn’t be so
    ‘bounceable’—somebody else said ‘bumptious’—about it, because his
    own red hair was very plainly to be seen behind.

    1883. Hawley Smart, Hard Lines, ch. xiii. It was all very well
    while he was fresh, and having things pretty much as he liked. So
    long he was bumptious enough.


Bumptiousness, subs. (colloquial).—Self-assertiveness; arrogance;
self-conceit. [From bumptious (q.v.) + ness.]

    1865. Sala, Trip to Barbary, p. 150. Poor Albert Smith, than whom,
    with all his occasional bumptiousness, an honester and more
    clear-sighted hater of snobbery and shams never lived.


Bum Roll, subs. (old).—A pad or cushion worn by women to extend the
dress at the back—an equivalent of the modern bustle or dress-improver.
[From bum, the posteriors, + roll, in the sense of pad or cushion.] At
one time these were called cork rumps, but for synonyms, see Bird-cage.

    1601. Ben Jonson, The Poetaster, II., i. Nor you nor your house was
    so much as spoken of, before I disbased myself from my hood and my
    farthingal, to these bum-rowls, and your whale-bone bodice.

    1663. Killigrew, Parson’s Wedding, Old Plays, XI., 460. Those
    worthies [of a bawd] rais’d her from the flat petticoat and
    kercher, to the gorget and bum-roll.


Bumsquabbled, ppl. adj. (American).—Discomfitted; defeated; stupified.
Cf., Bum-fiddled, in first quot.

    1620. Fletcher, The Chances, I., v. And am I now bum-fiddled with a
    bastard?

    1835–40. Haliburton, The Clockmaker, p. 251 (ed. 1862). No sooner
    said than done, Mount Sheer Bullfrog gave the case in our favour in
    two twos, said Eyetaliano had got too much already, cut him off the
    other two-thirds, and made him pay all costs. If he didn’t look
    bumsquabbled it’s a pity.


Bum Sucker, subs. (general).—A sponger; toady; lick-spittle; hanger-on.
[From bum + sucker, allusion obvious.] Cf., Bum. A French equivalent is
une lèche-cul.


Bum Trap, subs. (old).—A bailiff. Cf., Bum-bailiff.

    1750. Fielding, Tom Jones, bk. VII., ch. iii. The noble bum-trap,
    blind and deaf to every circumstance of distress, greatly rises
    above all the motives to humanity, and into the hands of the jailor
    resolves to deliver his miserable prey.


Bun, subs. (American).—1. A sponger; one who cannot be shaken off.

2. (common).—The female pudenda. For synonyms, see Monosyllable.

To take or yank the bun, verbal phr. (general).—To take first place; to
obtain first honours. A variant of take the cake.—See Cake. The French
say décrocher la timballe.


Bunce, Bunse or Bunt, subs. (old).—Originally money, a signification
which it still retains; more generally, however, profit, gain, anything
to the good. [Thought to be a corruption of bonus.]—See quot., 1851.
For synonyms in the sense of money, see Actual.

    1719. D’Urfey, Pills, 278. If cards come no better. Oh! oh! I shall
    lose all my buns. [M.]

    1851–61. H. Mayhew, London Lab. and Lon. Poor, vol. I., p. 37.
    There are still other ‘agents’ among the costermongers, and these
    are the ‘boys’ deputed to sell a man’s goods for a certain sum, all
    over that amount being the boys’ profit or bunts. Ibid., p. 526.
    There are a great number of boys ... engaged by costermongers or
    small tradesmen, to sell upon commission, or, as it is termed, for
    bunse (probably a corruption of bonus, bone being the slang for
    good).... The mode is this: a certain quantity of saleable
    commodities is given to a boy whom a costermonger knows and perhaps
    employs, and it is arranged that the young commission-agent is to
    get a particular sum for them, which must be paid to the
    costermonger; I will say 3s. For these articles the lad may ask and
    obtain any price he can, and whatever he obtains beyond the
    stipulated 3s., is his own profit or bunse. Ib., p. 36. But you see
    the boys will try it on for their bunts.

    1881. A Chequered Career, p. 270. In the stable, and particularly
    in livery-stables, there is a box into which all tips are placed.
    This is called bunt.


Buncer, subs. (common).—One who sells on commission, as described under
bunce (q.v.).


Bunch of Fives, subs. (common).—The hand or fist. [An obvious allusion
to the five fingers gathered or bunched together on the hand.]

    1847. Lytton, Lucretia, pt. II., ch. vii. ‘Is this a h-arm, and
    this a bunch of fives?’

    1863. C. Reade, Hard Cash, ch. xxxiv. ‘Now look at that bunch of
    fives,’ continued the master; and laid a hand, white and soft as a
    duchess’s, on the table.

    1882. Punch, vol. LXXXII., p. 133, col. 1. He smote crashingly down
    ... with a lead-weighted truncheon he held in his dexter bunch of
    fives.

    1888. Daily Telegraph, April 30, p. 3, col. 2. The fingers are bent
    into such an ungraceful bunch of fives, as to be suggestive both of
    chalkstones and of sausages.

English Synonyms. Mauley; cornstealer; fam or fem (this is said to be
of Gypsy origin, and to mean five, i.e., five fingers, but see Fehm in
German synonyms); famble (see preceding); picker; goll (a seventeenth
century term—‘make them hold up their spread golls,’ says Ben Jonson,
in the Poetaster); fin; daddle; flipper.

German Synonyms. Fehm or Vehm, or Vehn (more correctly Fem. This
appears to be the same word as the English seventeenth century
colloquialism for the hand [see preceding], and is most likely derived
from the Swedish and Danish fem = five, than from the Gypsy which
indeed contains no such word); Griffling or Greifling (from greifen, to
seize); Jad (Hebrew jad, the hand); Kaf (from the Hebrew kaph; the
[hollow] hand).

Italian Synonyms. Tarantola (an allusion to the many tentacles and
close grip of the tarantula spider); cerra; calchi dell’ ala (literally
the foot of the arm. Cf., French doigts du pied); grettina (properly a
small sandbank).

Spanish Synonyms. Labradora (this, it is curious to note, is an
obsolete Spanish term signifying literally a laborious or hard-working
woman, and the inference from this fact is obvious); anclas (literally
anchors).


Bunco or Bunco Game, subs. (American).—A swindling game played either
with cards or dice, not unlike three card monté. [From the Italian
banco, a bench or bank].

    1883. Philadelphia Times, No. 289, 2. 2. Tom’s method of bunco was
    the well-known lottery game. [M.]

    1888. Daily Inter-Ocean, Feb. 2. Robert B. Barnet, a plumber doing
    business in Grant Street, this city, was arrested in Allegheny
    to-night, on the charge of being implicated in the recent bunco
    game in which William Murdoch, an old and prominent citizen, was
    robbed of 10,000 dols.

Verb.—1. To rob, cheat, or swindle by means of the bunco game; or by
what in England is known as the confidence trick, etc.

    1887. Cincinnati Enquirer. Detectives Kirby and Funk last night
    spotted J. P. Ramby, the person accused of having bunkoed Ex-County
    Commissioner Stephens, of Greene County, out of 2,300 dols. in
    Xenia recently.

    1888. Chicago Daily Inter-Ocean, April 14. John Brothers, a farmer
    living near Canton, Ohio, was bunkoed out of 2,000 dols. to-day by
    two sharpers who escaped.

2. From the primary meaning, the verb to bunco has come to be
synonymous with any attempt at swindling.

So also with various derivatives, bunco-case, bunco-man, bunco-steerer
(q.v.).


Bunco-Steerer, Bunko-Steerer, subs. (American).—A swindler;
confidence-trick man. The means these men adopt to win confidence are
always varied and sometimes unique. They are extremely wary, and it is
oftentimes with considerable difficulty that the arm of the law, long
as it is assumed to be, can lay hold of them. A bunco-steerer may be
well known to the police as a professional swindler, and he may be seen
talking to his intended victim, but, unless caught in an overt act, he
cannot be interfered with. People whom bunco-steerers lay their snares
for, are generally men who stand high in their communities;
consequently it is almost impossible to get victims to become
complainants, as they do not care to figure in the police courts, and
the thieves get practically a free field for their operations.

    1876. Besant and Rice, Golden Butterfly, p. 235. The bunco-steerer
    ... will find you out the morning after you land in Chicago or St.
    Louis. He will accost you—very friendly, wonderful friendly—when
    you come out of your hotel, by your name, and he will remind
    you—which is most surprising, considerin’ you never set eyes on his
    face before—how you have dined together in Cincinnati, or it may be
    Orleans, or perhaps Francisco, because he finds out where you came
    from last; and he will shake hands with you; and he will propose a
    drink; and he will pay for that drink; and presently he will take
    you somewhere else, among his pals, and he will strip you so clean,
    that there won’t be left the price of a four-cent paper to throw
    around your face and hide your blushes. In London ... they do the
    confidence trick.

    1888. Daily Inter-Ocean, Feb. 14. Andrew Carnegie fell into the
    hands of a bunco-steerer in Pittsburg, Saturday night, but was
    rescued by a detective before he lost anything.


Bundle, verb (old).—To practise bundling (q.v.).

    1781. S. Peters, Gen. Hist. Connecticut. It is thought but a piece
    of civility to ask [a lady] to bundle.

    1797. Sewell. Queeston is an odd way of wooing usual in some sea
    towns or Isles of Holland, after this manner. When the wench is
    gone to bed, the fellow enters the room and lays himself down in
    his clothes upon the blankets, next unto her, with one window of
    the room open, and thus he talks with her, very innocently—as it is
    reported.

    1809. W. Irving, Knickerbocker History of New York. Van Corlear
    stopped occasionally in the villages to ... dance at country
    frolics, and bundle with the Yankee lasses.

    1871. Schele De Vere, Americanisms, p. 448. To bundle, a custom
    still prevalent in Wales, and not unfrequently practised in the
    West, of men and women sleeping with all their clothes on, when
    there is not house-room to provide better accommodation.


Bundling or Bundling Up, subs. (old).—A custom now obsolete, but
formerly in vogue where bed accommodation was scarce, of men and women
sleeping on the same bed together without having removed their clothes.
The practice is mentioned by Wright as having been customary in Wales,
and it will be remembered that Washington Irving alludes to it in his
Knickerbocker History of New York. Whatever may have been the case in
former times, it does not appear to be a habit either in the Mother
Country or the New World at the present day, even in the districts most
remote from civilization. No question of immodesty seems to have
attached to the custom; indeed, attempts were made to prove that
bundling was very right and proper. On this point, however, opinions
will vary considerably. Also used in verbal form to bundle. Cf., Caulk.

    1809. W. Irving, Knickerbocker History of New York. Among other
    hideous customs they [the Yankees] attempted to introduce that of
    bundling, which the Dutch lasses of the Nederlandts, with their
    eager passion for novelty and for the fashions, natural to their
    sex, seemed very well inclined to follow, but that their mothers,
    being more experienced in the world and better acquainted with men
    and things, discountenanced all such outlandish innovations.

    1814. Quarterly Review, X., 517. [The custom spoken of in.]

    1842. C. Masson, Journal Balochistan, etc., III., 287. Many of the
    Afghan tribes have a custom in wooing, similar to what in Wales is
    known as bundling-up.

    1868. W. H. Dixon, Spiritual Wives, vol. II., p. 31. An old custom,
    which exists (I believe) in Wales as well as in parts of
    Pennsylvania and New England, permits under the name of ‘bundling,’
    certain free, but still innocent endearments to pass between lovers
    who are engaged.

    1871. H. R. Styles, Bundling; its Origin, Progress, and Decline in
    America, title. [Contains also its history in England, Wales,
    Holland, curious songs, etc.]

    1878. C. Wake, Evol. Moral., I., 401. The custom of bundling ...
    among Celtic peoples. [M.]


Bung, Bong, Boung, subs. (old cant.)—1. A purse. [One of the oldest
cant terms in the language, the origin of which is entirely unknown,
though, says Murray, ‘its resemblance to the O.E. pung, “a purse,” is
worth notice.’] Also called skin or poge (q.v.). A French thieves’ term
is la plotte.

    1567. Harman, Caveat (1814), p. 65. Boung, a purse. Ibid., p. 86.

    1591. Greene, Second Part Conny-catching, in wks., vol. X., p. 96.
    The Nip vseth his knife, and if he see a Boung lie faire, strikes
    the stroke.

    1610. Rowlands, Martin Mark-all, p. 37 (H. Club’s Repr., 1874).
    Bung is now vsed for a pocket, heretofore for a purse.

    c. 1658. Cleveland, Cleivelandi Vindiciæ, p. 99 (ed. 1677). He is
    in the Inquisition of the Purse an Authentick Gypsie, that nips
    your Bung with a canting Ordinance.

    1671. R. Head, English Rogue, pt. I., ch. v., p. 47. Boung, a
    Purse.

    1706. E. Coles, Eng. Dict. Bung, a purse.

2. (old.)—A pickpocket. Cf., Bung, sense 1. Bung-nipper (q.v.) was in
general usage later.

    1598. Shakspeare, King Henry IV., ii., 4. Doll. Away, you cut-purse
    rascal! you filthy bung, away! By this wine, I’ll thrust my knife
    in your mouldy chaps, an’ you play the saucy cuttle with me.

    1658. An Age for Apes, p. 232. My bung observing this, takes hold
    of time, Just as this lord was drawing for a prime, And smoothly
    rims his purse that lay beside him.

3. (common.)—A brewer; landlord of a public house, etc. [An allusion to
the bungs, or large corks used in the ‘mouths’ of beer barrels.]

    1863. Cornhill Magazine (The Inner Life of a Man-of-War), Feb. From
    time immemorial these gentlemen [master’s assistants] have had to
    stand at the grog-butt and see the grog served out—an important
    duty, the discharge of which has invested them, such is the
    playfulness of naval humour, with the title of bungs.

    1884. Graphic, Feb. 23, p. 170, col. 1. That Sir Wilfrid Lawson had
    turned bung, and applied for a spirit licence.

Verb (pugilistic).—1. Generally bung up, i.e., to close or shut up the
eyes by means of a blow that causes a swelling. Formerly used of the
mouth, ears, etc., and in literary use, but now regarded as a
vulgarism. Cf. verb, sense 2.

    1593. G. Harvey, Pierces Super., in wks. (Grosart) II., 128. That
    will bung-up their mouthes with a Collyrium of all the stale iestes
    in a country.

    1599. Nashe, Lenten Stuffe, in wks. V., 247. The waies beyond sea
    were so bungd vp with your dayly oratours or Beadsmen and your
    crutchet or crout-chant friers ... that a snaile coulde not wriggle
    in her homes betwixt them.

    1835. Haliburton, Clockmaker, 1 S., ch. xix. ‘I bunged up both eyes
    for him.’

2. (old.)—To give; pass; hand over; drink; or to perform almost any
action. ‘Bung over the rag,’ hand over the money. Used by Beaumont and
Fletcher, and Shakspeare. Also, to deceive one by a lie, to Cram, which
see.


Bungay. Go to Bungay! phr. (general).—A euphemistic objurgation
equivalent to consignment to a region the climate of which is tropical
in character. For analogous phrases, see Go to hell.


Bung-Eyed, comp. ppl. adj. (common).—1. Drunk; fuddled; Screwed, which
see for synonyms. [Derivation uncertain: possibly from the Scotch
‘bung,’ a low word quoted by Jamieson as meaning tipsy or fuddled, with
perhaps an indirect allusion to the bunged or crooked distorted eye,
the result of a fight or squabble.—See sense 2.]

    1858. A. Mayhew, Paved with Gold, bk. III., ch. iii., p. 268. One
    coarse-featured fellow, who was nearly bung-eyed over his beer (as
    they call being drunk).

2. Cross-eyed; unable to see straight; ‘boss-eyed’ or ‘squinny-eyed’
(q.v.).


Bungfunger, verb (American).—To startle; to confuse. Compare with
bumbsquabbled. Also used as an adjective for ‘confounded.’

    1835–40. Haliburton, The Clockmaker, p. 91 (ed. 1862). ‘Well,
    father, I thought he’d a fainted too, he was so struck up all of a
    heap; he was completely bung-fungered.’


Bung-Juice, subs. (thieves’).—Porter, or beer. [From bung, a stopper
for casks in which beer is kept, + juice. Cf., Cow-juice for milk,
etc.] For synonyms, see Drinks and Swipes.


Bung Knife or Boung Knife, subs. (old).—Considerable uncertainty exists
as to the nature or use of this implement. It has however been
conjectured that as boung was an old cant word for a purse, that boung
knife may therefore have been a knife kept in the purse or girdle, but
concerning this nothing definite can be stated.

    1592. Greene, Quip for Upstart Courtier (Hart. Misc., V., 407). One
    of them had on ... a skeine like a bruer’s boung-knife.


Bung Nipper or Boung Nipper, subs. (old).—A cut-purse; a sharper. [From
bung (q.v.), an old canting term for a purse, + nipper, a thief, i.e.,
one who nips or steals.] In French, to nip a bung is couper une queue
de rat, i.e., literally to cut off a rat’s tail; but for synonyms, see
Area-sneak and Thieves.


Bung Upwards, adv. phr. (old).—Said of a person lying on his face.


Bunk, subs. (common).—Hasty departure. Cf., Bunk, verb. [Of unknown
derivation.]

    c. 1870. Broadside Ballad, ‘Peck’s Bad Boy.’


        Of course you’re heard of Peck’s bad boy, that dreadful Yankee
            lad,
        Who’s bothered his poor parents so they’ve both gone raving
            mad,

        He put a pound of old Scotch snuff into poor Buddha’s trunk,
        The keeper tried to catch him, but the bad boy did a bunk.


Verb (common).—1. To be off; to decamp. For synonyms, see Amputate.

    c. 1872. Broadside Ballad, ‘Oh, we are a getting on.’

        A stocking used a ‘bank’ to be,
          In the good old days of old,
        They didn’t run such risks as we
          Do now of getting sold.
        No sooner does a bank go queer,
          You hear the same old strain,
        There’s another bald-headed Manageer,
          Has bunked across to Spain.

    1885. Referee, Feb. 16, p. 7, col. 3.

        It was just such a parcel, bless him! he’d clasped to his noble
        breast,
        And bunked with out o’ the building.

    1887. Fun, 9 Nov., p. 201. ‘What is a vanishing point?’ said the
    schoolmaster to little Billy. ‘The corner you bunks round when the
    “slops” after yer,’ warbled the golden-haired child.

2. (Wellington College.)—To expel [from the school].


Bunker, subs. (common).—Beer. For synonyms, see Drinks and Swipes.


Bunkum, Buncombe, Buncome, subs. (American).—Talking merely for
talking’s sake; claptrap of all kinds; gas; tall talk. The employment
of the word in its original sense of insincere political speaking or
claptrap is ascribed to a member of Congress, Felix Walker, from
Buncombe County, North Carolina, who explained that he was merely
talking for buncombe, when his fellow members could not understand why
he was making a speech. Judge Haliburton (Sam Slick) in explaining this
word says that ‘all over America, every place likes to hear of its
member of Congress, and see their speeches; and, if they don’t, they
send a piece to the paper, inquirin’ if their members died a natural
death, or was skivered with a bowie-knife, for they hante seen his
speeches lately, and his friends are anxious to know his fate. Our free
and enlightened citizens don’t approbate silent members; it don’t seem
to them as if Squashville, or Punkinsville, or Lumbertown was right
represented, unless Squashville, or Punkinsville, or Lumbertown makes
itself heard and known, ay, and feared too. So every feller, in bounden
duty, talks, and talks big too, and the smaller the State, the louder,
bigger, and fiercer its members talk. Well, when a critter talks for
talk’s sake, jist to have a speech in the paper to send to home, and
not for any other airthly puppus but electioneering, our folks call it
bunkum.’

The term is now universal on both sides of the water, and, indeed,
wherever English is spoken. So much is this the case that the
expression may now fairly claim a permanent place in the language. The
primary meaning has been somewhat enlarged. ‘That’s all buncombe’ is
equivalent to ‘That’s all nonsense’ or ‘an absurdity.’

Also used attributively; for example, a bunkum proclamation, bunkum
logic, bunkum politicians, etc.

    1841. Richmond Compiler, Aug. 17. He was not speaking to the House
    but to bunkum.

    1859. Sala, Tw. Round the Clock, 2 a.m., par. 9. These tales, full
    of sound and fury, told by honourable idiots full of unutterable
    ‘bunkum’ (an Americanism I feel constrained to use, as signifying
    nothingness, ineftably inept and irremediably fire-perforated
    windbaggery, and sublimated cucumber sunbeams hopelessly eclipsed
    into Dis)—

    1861. Blackwood’s Mag., April. ‘This parable, explaining the origin
    of buncombe, would form a very useful text to set up, handsomely
    illustrated, over the Speaker’s chair in Parliament.’

    1862. New York Tribune, Feb. 11. Despatch from Kansas. General
    Sibley was within thirty miles of Fort Craig, with twenty-five
    hundred Texans, with artillery, and had issued a bunkum
    proclamation.

    1884. Echo, May 12, p. 4, col. 2. It will be seen that the
    wonderful tales about the favourites were like the reports about
    Richmond’s lameness, all bunkum.

    1888. Daily Inter-Ocean, March 3. This thing of trying to rule a
    husband is all buncombe; it can’t be done. You can coax most men,
    bribe some, and govern a very few, but that vulgar rubbing of the
    fur the right way wins every time.

    1889. Pall Mall Gazette, 18 Oct., p. 6, col. 2. His explanation was
    contained in the three words, ‘Bosh, rubbish, and bunkum.’ Was it
    not time, asked the speaker, that the ‘great unwashed’ should
    declare that the ‘great unpaid’ were no longer at liberty to
    oppress them?


Bunky, adj. (Christ’s Hospital).—Awkward; ill-finished.


Bunnick, verb (common).—To settle; to dispose of.

    1886. Punch, 17 July, p. 25. ’Owsom-ever we’ve bunnicked up
    Gladsting, a barney all patriots enjoy.


Bunny Grub, subs. (Cheltenham College).—Green vegetables, such as
cabbage, lettuce, and the like. [Obviously from bunny, a pet name for a
rabbit, + grub, a slang term for provender, i.e., food akin to that
upon which rabbits are fed.] At the Royal Military Academy and other
schools an equivalent is grass (q.v.).


Bunse.—See Bunce.


Bun-Struggle or Bun-Worry, subs. (military).—A tea meeting given to
soldiers. For synonymous terms, see Tea fight.


Bunt.—See Bunce.


Bunter, subs. (harlotry).—1. A prostitute; one who adds theft to her
other vocation; also a term of contempt for any low woman. See,
however, quot. from Dyche, 1748, and Mayhew, 1851. For analogous terms,
see Barrack-hack.

    1705–7. E. Ward, Hudibras Rediv., II., ii. (1715), 25. Punks,
    Strolers, Market Dames, and Bunters. [M.]

    1748. Smollett, Rod. Random, ch. xlvii. And asked with some heat,
    if he thought I had spent the evening in a cellar with chairmen and
    bunters.

    1748. T. Dyche, Dictionary (5 ed.). Bunter (s.), one who goes about
    the streets to gather rags, bones, etc.

    1759. Walpole, Parish Register.

        Here Fielding met his bunter Muse,
        And, as they quaff’d the fiery juice,
        Droll Nature stamp’d each lucky hit,
        With unimaginable wit.

    1763. British Magazine, vol. IV., p. 542. I heard a bunter at the
    Horse-Guards ... swear she would not venture into the Park.

    1765. Goldsmith, Essays, x. The bunters who swagger in the streets
    of London.

    1851–61. H. Mayhew, London Lab. and Lon. Poor, vol. II., p. 158.
    They were known by the name of bunters, which signifies properly
    gatherers of rags.

2. Explained by quotation. [Bunter here may be a confused variant of
bunker, one who runs away or ‘slopes.’]

    1851. H. Mayhew, London Lab. and Lon. Poor, IV., 223. There is a
    class of women technically known as bunters, who take lodgings, and
    after staying some time run away without paying their rent.


Burdon’s Hotel, subs. (thieves’).—Whitecross Street Prison, of which
the Governor was a Mr. Burdon. Almost every prison has a nickname of
this kind, either from the name of the Governor, or from some local
circumstance. The Queen’s Bench has an immense number of names—spike,
park, etc.; and every Chief-Justice stands godfather to it. For full
list of such names, see Cage.

    1861. Dutton Cook, Paul Foster’s Daughter, ch. ii. ‘David, be
    respectable, whatever you are, be respectable, and Burdon’s hotel
    is not for you to sojourn at.’


Burick or Burerk, subs. (old).—Latterly applied to any woman or ‘lady,’
especially one showily dressed, but formerly a thief’s term for a
prostitute.

    1819. J. H. Vaux, Memoirs. Burick is a prostitute, or common woman.

    1851. Mayhew, London Labour and London Poor, I., p. 262. If they
    can meet with the burerk (mistress) or the young ladies, etc.

    1889. Answers, July 20, p. 121, col. 2. Let him ask the loafer what
    his ‘Monekear’ (name) is; whether he can drink a ‘shant of patter’
    (pint of beer); whether he finds the ‘bone’ or ‘gammy’—that is good
    or bad as regards begging; and which sex gives him most—the
    ‘burerks’ (ladies), or the ‘Toffs’ (gentlemen).

Amongst French equivalents for a well-dressed woman may be mentioned
une panuche (this name is also applied to a prostitute living in a
brothel); une dubuge; une faraude (the masculine form, un faraud,
signifies a vulgar fellow proud of smart clothes—a snob, a swell).


Burke, verb (military).—To dye the moustache and whiskers. [Burke
properly is to smother or hush up, and the allusion in the military
term is to the practice which once prevailed in smart regiments of
dyeing or smothering the natural colour of the hair for the sake of
uniformity. The regulations at one time as regards the style of wearing
the hair were very stringent and precise.]


Burn, verb (thieves).—To cheat; to swindle.


Burnanded, verb (? nonce word).—To pilfer plots (of plays, novels,
etc.). [Probably only a nonce word; a formation on the same lines as
‘Burke,’ ‘Boycott,’ etc., from the name of Mr. F. Burnand, the editor
of Punch.]

    1882. Echo, Feb. 11, p. 3. The American papers continue to attack
    the play [The Colonel] vigorously. One of the journals there has
    invented a new verb to signify the pilfering of plots. ‘Burnanded’
    is the term.


Burn Crust, subs. (old).—A jocular name for a baker. Cf., Master of the
mint for a gardener; Bung for a brewer; Ball of wax for a shoemaker;
Quill-driver for a clerk; Snip for a tailor, etc.


Burned. To be burned, verb (old).—To be infected with a venereal
disease.—See Burning.

    1785. Grose, Dictionary of the Vulgar Tongue. He was sent out a
    sacrifice, and came home a burnt offering; saying of seamen who
    have caught the venereal disease abroad.


Burner, subs. (old).—1. A card-sharper.

2. (old.)—The same as burning (q.v.).


Burning, verb, subs. (old).—A venereal disease. Shakspeare alludes to
it in King Lear, ‘No heretics burn’d, but wenches’ suitors.’


Burning Shame.—An obscene practice.—See Grose.


Burning the Parade, phr. (old).—Thus explained by Grose: ‘Warning more
men for a guard than were necessary, and excusing the supernumeraries
for money. This was a practice formerly winked at in most garrisons,
and was a very considerable perquisite to the adjutants and sergeant
majors; the pretence for it was to purchase coal and candle for the
guard, whence it was called burning the parade.’


Burn My Breeches! phr. (old).—A mild kind of oath. A few latter day
‘fancies’ of the same kind will be found under Oaths.

    1819. Moore, Tom Crib’s Memorial, p. 46.

            ... (Bill Gibbons ne’er
        In all his days was known to swear,
        Except light oaths, to grace his speeches,
        Like ‘dash my wig,’ or ‘burn my breeches.’)


Burn the Ken, verbal phr. (old).—To live at an inn or tavern without
paying for one’s quarters. [From burn (q.v.), to cheat, + ken, an inn,
tavern, or place.]


Burr, subs. (old).—A hanger on; a dependent; one who sponges. [An
allusion to field burrs or prickly seed pods, which when once attached
to the clothing are difficult to remove.]

Verb (Marlborough College).—To fight; scrimmage or ‘rag.’


Burst, subs. (general).—1. A spree; drunken frolic; big feed; blow out
(q.v.). Usually on the burst, an extension of the figurative usage of
the word signifying a violent outburst.—See Bust.

    1880. Blackwood’s Mag., June, p. 775. He became a madman when
    drunk. Once ‘on the burst,’ as he phrased it, money, horses, cows,
    furniture, even his wife’s wearing apparel, went to feed the
    insatiable and cruel demon who possessed him.

    1881. Praed, Policy and Passion, vol. I., p. 228. When his men go
    on the burst, what can he do but make his daughters help?

2. (sporting.)—A sudden and vigorous access or display of energy; a
lively pace or spurt.


Bursted, ppl. adj. (general).—Hard up. [From burst, failure or
collapse, + ed.]

    1873. Chicago Daily Tribune, June 30. At the far end [of the room]
    four lank and bursted frontiersmen sang with a doleful want of
    melody or attention the celebrated ballad by John Hay on the fate
    of Little Breeches.


Burster, subs. (racing).—1. A heavy fall; a ‘cropper.’

    1863. Evening Standard, 24 April. Benedict came down a burster, and
    was out of the race.

2. See also Buster, sense 1.


Bury. Go bury yourself! phr. (American).—A Californianism which has
more of the fortiter than the suaviter in its composition. Equivalent
to ‘Go! hide your diminished head.’ Cf., Carry me out and bury me
decently.

To bury or dig up the hatchet, verbal phr. (American).—Amongst Indian
tribes certain symbolic ceremonies are connected with the war-hatchet
or tomahawk, which are equivalent to a declaration of war, or a compact
of peace.—To bury the hatchet is the emblem of the putting away of
strife and enmity; on the other hand, the red skin, before he commences
hostilities, digs up afresh the fateful symbol. This picturesque
imagery has passed into the colloquial inheritance of the American
people, and the expressions of burying or digging up the hatchet are
frequently applied to the affairs of everyday life. This symbolism
though new in form is old in idea. Shakspeare in The Tempest, v., 1,
55, says, ‘I’le breake my staffe, bury it certaine fadomes in the
earth.’

    1855–59. Washington Irving, Life of Washington, I., p. 361. ‘They
    smoked the pipe of peace together, and the colonel claimed the
    credit of having, by his diplomacy, persuaded the sachem to bury
    the hatchet.’

    1855. Longfellow, Hiawatha, 13.

        Buried was the bloody hatchet;
        Buried was the dreadful war-club;
        Buried were all warlike weapons,
        And the war-cry was forgotten;
        Then was peace among the nations.

    1873. Carleton Ballads.

        I don’t know what you’ll think, sir—I didn’t come to inquire—
        But I picked up that agreement and stuffed it in the fire;
        And I told her we’d bury the hatchet alongside of the cow;
        And we struck an agreement never to have another row.

To bury a moll, phr. (general).—To desert or forsake a wife or
mistress. [Moll = woman, wife, or prostitute.]

French Synonyms. Envoyer une ouistiti (ouistiti signifies properly a
striated monkey); lâcher une femme (literally to cast off a woman);
balancer une largue.

To bury a Quaker, phr. (Irish slang).—To evacuate; to ease oneself.

English Synonyms. To go to the crapping castle, casa, or ken (castle,
casa, and ken are old canting terms for a place or house); to the West
Central (a punning allusion to the initials W.C. for water closet); to
Mrs. Jones; to the chapel-of-ease; to Sir Harry; to the bog-house,
rear, dunnock, coffee-shop; to see one’s aunt; to crap; to go and sing
‘sweet violets’; to go where the queen always goes on foot.

French Synonyms. Mousser (popular: literally to foam or effervesce);
enterrer son colonel (Cf., to bury a Quaker); aller faire une ballade à
la lune (i.e., ‘to go and sing to the moon’; also ballade = stroll,
walk, or lounge; likewise in French slang lune = posteriors); mouler un
sénateur (popular); mouler une Venus (artists’); gazonner (literally to
‘cover with turf’); aller au numero cent (a play upon the word sent);
déponer (Michel thinks that though at first sight this word would seem
to be directly derived from the Latin deponere, yet it really either
comes from the old French ponant, signifying posteriors, or from the
verb poner, used in the thirteenth century in the sense of pondre,
i.e., to lay eggs); débourrer sa pipe (popular); défalquer (popular);
tarter or tartir (popular and thieves’: in Latin alvum deponere. Cf.,
Italian Fourbesque tartire); faire une moulure (moulure in architecture
= moulding); aller quelque part (lit. to go somewhere); aller à ses
affaires (lit. ‘to go to one’s business’); aller où le roi va à pied
(i.e., to go where the king goes on foot. Cf., to go where the queen
always goes on foot); filer (properly to spin); aller chez Jules (to go
to Julius. Cf., to go and see one’s aunt); ierchem (low: chier, a
disguised obscenity, + em); flasquer (thieves’); touser (this word
comes from tourtouse and signifies properly faire de la corde); faire
corps neuf (properly to take a new lease of one’s life); déposer une
médaille de papier volant, or des Pays-Bas (obsolete); faire des cordes
(des cordes = strings); mettre une lettre à la poste (lit. to go and
post a letter); faire le grand (grand = an opprobrious epithet); faire
une commission (to run an errand); fogner (popular); flaquer (popular:
literally ‘to dash’ [water or any other liquid]); écrire à un Juif
(literally to write to a Jew); déposer une pêche (popular); poser une
pépin (popular: poser = to place or cast down; pépin, in botany a
kernel or pip); poser un factionnaire (popular: factionnaire is
properly a sentinel or sentry); poser une sentinelle (popular: with
same meaning as foregoing); envoyer une depèche à Bismarck (popular:
this may be a contemptuous usage of the German Chancellor’s name,
although in French slang couleur Bismarck = brown colour); aller où le
roi n’envoie personne (lit. to go where the king sends no one);
flaquader (flaque = excrement); fuser (properly to dissolve); gâcher du
gros (popular); galipoter (another slang meaning of this word is ‘to
smear’); pousser son rond (popular); faire ronfler la chaire
percée—Thomas—le bourrelet—la chaise percée (faire ronfler = to cause
to or make snore, chaire = Bishop’s throne, chaire percée =
close-stool, and bourrelet = padded cushion with hole in centre, Thomas
= bedroom chamber); aller voir Bernard (Cf., aller chez Jules); aller
au buen-retiro (buen retiro properly = a private place of retirement,
but in this sense is an ironical allusion to a W.C.); faire un pruneau
or poser un pruneau (Michel thinks this expression is derived from clos
Bruneau, a facetious name given to the posteriors about the sixteenth
century); filer le cable de proue (Michel gives this as of nautical
origin—seamen’s latrines being situated in the fo’cas’le).

Italian Fourbesque. Tartire (properly to lighten or ease one’s
conscience by confessing to a Priest).

To bury a wife, verbal phr. (old).—To feast and make merry, an
expression used in connection with the jollifications frequently
indulged in by apprentices on the completion of their term of
indenture, when they became ‘full blown’ craftsmen.


Bus or Buss, subs. (theatrical).—1. A variant of business (q.v.), of
which it is an abbreviation. Pronounced biz.

2. (common.)—A contraction of ‘omnibus.’

    1832. Ht. Martineau, Weal and Woe, i., 14. If the station offers me
    a place in a buss. [M.]

    1852. Dickens, Bleak House, p. 93. He proposed that they should go,
    per buss, a little way into the country.

    1861. Thackeray, Adventures of Philip, II., p. 316. We were
    mortified to see that of the five persons conveyed by the ’bus, one
    was a tradesman, etc.

    1869. Black, In Silk Attire, II., p. 205. Annie Brunel got out of
    the Hampstead ’bus, and found herself in the muddy highway.

Verb (American).—To punch [one’s head].


Bush or Be Bushed, verb (Australian).—Primarily to camp out in the
bush; or to get lost in the bush. Hence a slang usage in which the
expression is applied to a person in any mental or physical difficulty
or muddle.

    1887. All the Year Round, July 30, p. 68. An Australian says that
    he is bushed just as an Englishman, equally characteristically,
    declares that he is fogged.

    1889. B. L. Farjeon, In Australian Wilds. ‘We shall have to bush
    it, mate,’ I said. ‘That’s so,’ said Lilly Trot, unconcernedly; but
    looking about him sharply, despite his apparent carelessness, for a
    suitable spot to camp on. Ibid. We were on horseback, with blankets
    before us on our saddles, to provide for our getting bushed. We
    were prepared for rough times. I carried my revolver, and Lilly
    Trot had a villainous-looking black life-preserver up his sleeve,
    ready at a moment’s notice for any emergency.


Bushed, ppl. adj. (old).—Hard up; without money; destitute.

    1812. J. H. Vaux, Flash Dictionary. Bush’d, poor; without money.


Bushed On, verbal phr. (common).—Pleased; delighted.


Bushel Bubby, subs. (old).—A full and large breasted woman. [From
bushel, a (large) measure, + bubby (q.v.), a breast.] Cf., Bubber.


Bushwhacker, subs. (American political).—In politics, as in war, simply
a ‘free-lance.’ During the Rebellion deserters from the ranks of both
armies infested the country, bands of these marauders making raids upon
defenceless houses and even going the length of sacking whole towns.
Originally the term was harmless enough in meaning. At a time when
water-communication was the chief means of locomotion, and the rivers,
streams, and creeks of densely wooded regions were alive with the
advance guards of civilization, bushwhacking was the name given to the
means by which lumbermen propelled their craft up and down stream. This
was accomplished by pulling the bushes growing by the water side; or,
on land, by the cutting away of a thicket in order to obtain a passage.
The man who did this, and the instrument—a kind of scythe or cutlass
with which, in the latter case, he thus forced his way—were alike
called bushwhackers. The word has gone through yet another transition.
Since the war it has also come to mean a ‘country bumpkin,’ a
‘clod-pole,’ or any other person of a ‘verdant’ character.


Bushy Park, subs. (rhyming slang).—A lark.

To be in Bushy Park, phr. (old).—To be poor.


Business, subs. (old).—1. Sexual intercourse. For synonyms, see Greens.

    1630. Taylor, Workes. And Lais of Corinth, ask’d Demosthenes One
    hundred crownes for one night’s businesse.

    1654. Wits Recreations.

        What Crispulus is that in a new gown,
        All trim’d with loops and buttons up and down,
        That learns there on his arm in private chat
        With thy young wife, what Crispulus is that?
        He’s proctor of a court, thou say’st and does
        Some business of my wives: thou brainless goose,
        He does no business of thy wives, not he,
        He does thy business (Coracine) for thee.

2. (theatrical.)—Dramatic action; bye-play.

    1753. The World, No. 26. We are too much enamoured with what is
    called intrigue, business, and bustle, in our plays.

    1820. Scott, The Abbot, ch. xxvii. (III., p. 6). The ... went,
    came, and returned, mingling in every scene of the piece, and
    interrupting the business.

    1860. Cornhill Magazine, Dec., p. 749. So well do performers
    understand this principle, that they give the literary composition
    the utmost contemptuous title of ‘words,’ while they dignify the
    movements of the characters with the name of business.

    1876. C. Hindley, Life and Adventures of a Cheap Jack, p. 282. Tom
    observed, I never saw such business before; how do you do it with
    that board thing, for I can’t manage it? I have knocked and bruised
    some of my people about so that they swear they would sooner leave
    than have such another day.

    1880. Punch, Sept. 18, 130. ‘Quite in his Line.’ Stout Major (to
    Professional Actor, who has been asked down to coach the Garrison
    Amateurs): ‘Aw—we played The Bells at our last Theatricals, of
    which I’ve the Management. I—aw—played Irving’s part myself.
    Aw—immense Success!’ Professional (drily): ‘Of course you’ve seen
    him in it?’ Major: ‘Ya-as—but—aw—I didn’t copy him in the
    least—aw—my own ‘Business.’ Aw—Entirely different reading. In fact,
    every one said it wasn’t a bit like him!’

    1883. H. Irving, in Good Words, Jan., p. 34. Then consider what
    scope the ‘business’ of the scene gives to the actor’s purpose.

To do one’s business for one, phr. (common).—To kill; to cause one’s
death.

    1880. Jas. Greenwood, Grandmother Cooper, in Odd People in Odd
    Places, p. 4. ‘They said it was his hurts as killed him,’ said the
    old lady, ‘but it was no use ’em telling me that. It was the bricks
    and mortar that did his business, poor chap.’


Business End [of a thing], subs. (American).—The practical part.


Busk It, verb (vagrants’).—To sell obscene songs and books at the bars
and in the tap-rooms of public houses. Sometimes it implies selling
other articles. Also to ‘work’ public houses and certain spots as an
itinerant musician or vocalist. So also busking, verb subs. and ppl.
adj. and busker, a man who thus sings and performs in public houses: an
itinerant.

    1851. Mayhew, London Labour and London Poor, III., p. 234. From a
    furniture-carter of this description I received some most shocking
    details of having to busk it, as this taking about goods for sale
    is called by those in the trade. Ibid, I., p. 229. They obtained a
    livelihood by busking, as it is termed, or in other words, by
    offering their goods for sale only at the bars or in the tap-rooms
    and parlours of taverns. Ibid, III., p. 216. Busking is going into
    public houses and playing and singing and dancing. Ibid, p. 222. I
    now thought I’d try what is termed busking, that is going into
    public houses and cutting likenesses of the company.

    1883. Advt. in Echo, May 10, p. 4, col. 6. Busking.—A player on the
    harp and violin wants a mate.

    1887. Referee, August 21, p. 3, col. 2. Mac himself ... will appear
    in the Racecourse scene as a busker.


Busker.—See under Busk.


Busking.—See under Busk.


Busnapper.—See Buz-napper.


Busnapper’s Kinchin.—See Buz-napper’s Kinchin.


Buss.—See Bus.


Buss Beggar, subs. (old).—An old prostitute of the lowest type; a
beggar’s trull.


Bust, subs. (vulgar).—A corrupted form of burst. So also busting
(adj.); busted (ppl. adj.), etc., etc.

    1837. Dickens, Oliver Twist, p. 219. A kind of busting noise.

2. (thieves’.)—A burglary.

    18(?79). Horsley, Jottings from Jail. ‘Fatty Bill, from City Road,
    rem. for a bust ex. two years,’ means that William ... has been
    compelled to leave his congenial haunts in the City Road, as he is
    remanded for a burglary, and anticipates two years’ hard labour.

3. (general.)—A frolic; a spree; a drunken debauch. Cf., To go on the
bust.

    1860. Bartlett (quoted in), A Californian Song.

        And when we get our pockets full
          Of this bright, shinin’ dust,
        We’ll travel straight for home again,
          And spend it on a bust.

4. (American.)—A failure; a fizzle.

Verb (vulgar).—1. To burst; explode.

    1838. Dickens, Nicholas Nickleby, II., p. 366. His genius would
    have busted.

    1843. Dickens, Martin Chuzzlewit, I., p. 286. Keep cool, Jefferson
    ... don’t bust! Ibid, II., p. 124. If the biler of this vessel was
    Toe bust, Sir, ... and Toe bust now, it would be a festival day in
    the calendar of despotism.

2. (thieves’.)—To commit a burglary.

3. (thieves’.)—To inform against an accomplice. A slang variant of
‘split’ (turn king’s evidence, impeach). The person who does this
splits or bursts the whole concern.

4. (American.)—To fail in business or transactions of any kind.

5. (general.)—To put out of breath; to ‘wind.’

    c. 1880. Broadside Ballad, ‘Taking out the Baby.’ Spoken—And they
    had all been taking out the baby, and all had had such a doing—that
    boy o’ mine nearly busted me—and of course they all think they
    deserve a glass of beer.

6. (American.)—To indulge in a drunken frolic; to go on the spree. Cf.,
To go on the bust.

    1869. New Orleans Picayune, Feb. 14. ‘Because I was a good-natured
    fellow, I had to go with them, rollicking, teaparting,
    excursioning, and busting generally.’

7. (American.)—To destroy; to commit suicide; to ‘set aside’; to
expose.

    1880. Bret Harte, Chiquita, p. 22. Did you know Briggs of Tuolumne?
    Busted hisself in White Pine, and blew out is brains.

    1883. North of England Advertiser, Sept. 1. Then he got the Moabite
    pottery which Mr. Clement Ganneau busted.

Bust me! phr. (common).—A mild oath—blow me! jigger me! (q.v.)—See also
Oaths.

    1859. Dickens, Tale of Two Cities, bk. I., ch. iii. ‘Bust me if I
    don’t think he’d been a drinking!’

To go on the bust, phr. (common).—To go on a frolic or spree. For
synonyms, see Paint the town red.


Buster, subs. (common).—1. A small new loaf; also a coarse cake or bun
of large size that fills or blows out the stomach of the eater. [From
bust, a vulgar form of ‘burst,’ + er.] Cf., Starver.

    1821. W. T. Moncrieff, Tom and Jerry, Act ii., Sc. 3. Bob: Now,
    landlord, ‘arter that ere drap of max, suppose we haves a drain o’
    heavy wet, just by way of cooling our chaffers—mine’s as dry as a
    chip—and, I say, do you hear, let’s have a twopenny burster, half a
    quartern of beesvax, a ha’p’orth o’ ingens, and a dollop o’ salt
    along vith it, vill you? Mace: Bellay! a burster and beesvax—and
    salt here. (Calling as he fetches the porter from the side wing,
    l.) Now, then, here you are, Master Grimmuzzle.

    1841. Comic Almanacks, 1835–43 (Hotten), p. 295.

        ‘Cut us a slap-up slice of Cheshire cheese,
        And tip’s a twopenny burster if you please.’

    1849. Bell’s Life. [From Baumann.] A burster with a slice of
    beeswax.

    1876. Hindley, Life and Adventures of a Cheap Jack, p. 192. Mo and
    his man were having a great breakfast one morning at Newcastle, off
    a twopenny buster and a small bit of butter, with some wishy-washy
    coffee....

    c. 1882. Broadside Ballad, ‘I can’t get at it.’

        I can’t get at it, I can’t get at it,
          I like the faggots tho’ they smell,
          But now the penny’s down the well,
        I can’t get at it, I can’t get at it,
        I thought I’d have a ‘buster’ but it’s all no go!

2. (thieves’.)—A burglar. For synonyms, see Area-sneak. Cf., Bust,
subs., sense 2, and verb, sense 2.

    1879. J. W. Horsley, ‘Autobiography of a Thief,’ in Macm. Mag.,
    XL., 582. Busters and screwsmen (burglars).

3. (common.)—Anything of superior size; that has unusual capacity; that
causes admiration; a spurt. Hence to ‘come an awful buster,’ ‘to fall
heavily,’ ‘to come a cropper’; ‘in for a buster,’ prepared, ready or
determined for a spree.

    1852. H. B. Stowe, Uncle Tom’s Cabin, ch. x. ‘Lor, Pete,’ said
    Mose, triumphantly, ‘han’t we got a buster of a breakfast!’ at the
    same time catching at a fragment of the chicken.

    1860. Dickens, Great Expectations, ch. vii., p. 28. ‘At such time
    as when your sister is on the Ram-page, Pip,’ Joe sank his voice to
    a whisper, and glanced at the door, ‘candour compels fur to admit
    that she is a Buster.’

    1870. Popular Song on Franco-German War.

        ... Thank God, my dear Augusta,
        We’ve had another awful buster,
        Ten thousand Frenchmen sent below,
        Praise God from whom all blessings flow!

    c. 1880. Broadside Ballad, ‘I’ll never go courting again.’

        A lawyer’s niece, next, I admired,
          But brief he made my wooing spec;
        To a banker’s ward then, I aspired,
          But got from the banker a check (cheque).
        A publican said, other measures
          For his girl he’d to carry out,
        And a baker he gave me a ‘buster,’
          With a ‘brick,’ sent me rolling about.

4. (Australian.)—A heavy storm from the south. Otherwise called in
Sydney a brick fielder (q.v.).

    1885. Household Words, 10 Oct., p. 463. In anxious expectation we
    now awaited the result of this curious phenomenon of darkest night
    in day, which, accustomed to the portents that sometimes herald in
    the terrific busters of these southern seas, as most of us were,
    all declared they had never seen it equalled.


Busting, verb, subs. (thieves’.)—Informing against accomplices; turning
Queen’s evidence. Cf., Bust, verb, sense 3. For synonyms, see Peaching.


Bustle, subs. (common).—1. A pad, roll, or wire contrivance worn by
women at the back in order to extend the dress, and also with a view to
setting off the smallness of the waist. [Origin uncertain.] For
synonyms, see Birdcage.

    1788. T. Monro, in Olla Podrida, No. 40. Such locks the nymphs now
    wear (in silks who rustle), In rich luxuriance reaching to the
    bustle. [M.]

    1835. Sketches by Boz, p. 323. Whether she was pretty, whether she
    wore much bustle, etc. Ibid, p. 488. ‘Did you ever,’ said a little
    coquette with a large bustle.

    1857. Trollope, Barchester Towers, ch. xlv., p. 384. Bertie
    finished off the countess’s bustle.

2. (old.)—Money. A full list of synonyms will be found under Actual.

    1812. J. H. Vaux, Flash Dictionary. Bustle, a cant term for money.
    Ibid. Any object effected very suddenly, or in a hurry, is said to
    be done on the bustle.

Verb (general).—To confuse; confound; perplex.—See previous quot.

    1876. Hindley, Life and Adventures of a Cheap Jack, p. 237. ‘Now
    bustle him,’ said Tom Maley; ‘you have got him to-rights now. Let
    go your left straight.’


Bust-Maker, subs. (common).—A molrower; a ‘loose fish’; a seducer. For
synonyms, see Molrower. [From bust, a protuberance, + maker.]


Busy-Sack, subs. (common).—A carpet bag. Called in America a grip-sack.


Butcher, subs. (cards’).—1. The king in playing-cards. When
card-playing in public houses was common, the kings were called
butchers, the queens bitches, and the knaves jacks. The latter term is
now in general use. In French slang the king is un bœuf.

2. (American.)—A peripatetic ‘small-boy’ vendor of ‘varieties’ and
‘notions’ on railway cars—at once a convenience and a ‘terror.’

3. (thieves’.)—The prison doctor. For synonyms, see Crocus.


Butcher About, verb (Wellington College).—To make a great noise; to
humbug about.


Butcher’s Mourning, subs. (common).—A white hat with a black mourning
hat-band.


Butteker, subs. (old).—A shop.


Butter, subs. (popular).—Fulsome flattery; unctuous praise; ‘soft
soap.’ A French equivalent is le cirage. Cf., verb, sense 1. Also
buttering-up.

    1819. Moore, Tom Crib’s Memorial to Congress, p. 40.

        For, knowing how, on Moulsey’s plain,
          The champion fibb’d the Poet’s nob,
        This buttering-up against the grain,
        We thought was curs’d genteel in Bob.

    1823. Blackwood’s Magazine, XIV., p. 309. You have been daubed over
    by the dirty butter of his applause.

    1857. A. Trollope, Three Clerks, ch. i. The quantity of butter
    which he poured over Mr. Hardline’s head and shoulders with the
    view of alleviating the misery which such a communication would be
    sure to inflict, was very great.

    1880. World, 13 Oct. A lavish interchange of compliments, the
    butter being laid on pretty thick.

Verb (common).—1. To flatter fulsomely; to indulge in rhodomantic
praise. French cirer.

    1700. Congreve, Way of World, prol. (1866), 259. The squire that’s
    buttered still is sure to be undone. [M.]

    1725. New Canting Dictionary. To butter signifies also to cheat or
    defraud in a smooth and plausible manner.

    1816. Scott, Antiquary, ch. xxxviii. ‘Keep him employed, man, for
    half-an-hour or so—butter him with some warlike terms—praise his
    dress and address.’

    1839. Lever, Harry Lorrequer, ch. xii. ‘He first butthers them up
    and then slithers them down!’

    1857. C. Kingsley, Two Years Ago. I’ll butter him, trust me.
    Nothing comforts a poor beggar like a bit of praise when he is
    down.

    1884. Saturday Review, 5 July, p. 27, col. 1. The Lord Chief
    Justice of England made a tour through America, and generously
    buttered the natives.

2. (old.)—Jamieson says, ‘to increase the stakes every throw or every
game.’

    1690. B. E., Dictionary of Canting Crew. Butter, to double or
    treble the bet or wager to recover all losses.

    1785. Grose, Dictionary of the Vulgar Tongue. Butter a bet, to
    double or triple it.

To look as if butter would not melt in one’s mouth, phr. (old).—A
contemptuous saying of a person of somewhat simple demeanour. Murray
traces back this familiar phrase to 1530, but a reference to it appears
in French literature at a much earlier date.

    1475. Les Evangiles des Quenouilles—Vme Journée. Edition
    Elzevirienne. Paris (1855), p. 72. A cette parolle mist dame
    Mehault ses mains à ses costez et en grant couroux luy respondy
    que, etc., et que, Dieu merci, aincoires fondoit le burre en sa
    bouche, combien qu’elle ne peust croquier noisettes, car elle
    n’avoit que un seul dent.

    1530. Palgrave, 620, 1. He maketh as thoughe butter wolde not melte
    in his mouth. [M.]

    1562. Latimer, Serm. Lord’s Prayer, V., ii., 79. These fellows ...
    can speak so finely, that a man would think butter should scant
    melt in their mouths.

    1687. Sedley, Bellamira. Sil. He look’d so demurely, I thought
    butter wou’d not have melted in his mouth, I hope you will make
    sure work with him before you send him again.

    1738. Swift, Polite Conversation, i. She looks as if butter would
    not melt in her mouth, but I warrant cheese won’t choak her.

    1825. Scott, St. Ronan’s Well, ch. xxviii. (III., p. 26). I am
    beginning to think ye are but a queer ane, ye look as if butter
    wadna melt in your mouth, but I sall warrant cheese no choak ye.

    1850. Thackeray, Pendennis, I., p. 149. Telling her landlady how
    ... the Mayor was ... a nice, soft-spoken old gentleman; that
    butter wouldn’t melt in his mouth, etc.

Will cut butter when it’s hot, phr. (common).—Said of a knife when
blunt. An obvious allusion.

Butter and eggs, subs. (common).—Explained by quotations.

    1862. Macmillan’s Mag., Jan., p. 238. And I can do butter-and-eggs
    all down the slide.... The feat of butter-and-eggs consists in
    going down the slide on one foot and beating with the heel and toe
    of the other at short intervals.

Compare the foregoing with the following.

    1836. Dickens, Pickwick Papers, II., p. 9. Sam Weller, in
    particular, was displaying that beautiful feat of fancy sliding
    which is currently denominated ‘knocking at the cobblers’ door,’
    and which is achieved by skimming over the ice on one foot, and
    occasionally giving a two-penny postman’s knock upon it, with the
    other.


Butter-Bag or Butter-Box, subs. (old).—Opprobrious epithets for a
Dutchman. [? In allusion to Holland producing large quantities of
butter. Cf., quot., 1811.]

    1600. Dekker, Gentle Craft, wks. (1873) I., 21. We have not men
    enow, but wee must entertaine every butter-box. [M.]

    1650. Howell, Familiar Letters. And for the latter strength we may
    thank our countryman Ward, and Dansker the butterbag Hollander,
    which may be said to have bin two of the fatallest and most
    infamoust men that ever Christendom bred.

    1811. Lexicon Balatronicum. Butter-box. A Dutchman, from the great
    quantity of butter eaten by the people of that country.


Butter-Boat. To empty the butter-boat, phr. (common).—To lavish praise;
to battle. [From butter-boat, a table utensil employed for serving
melted butter.]

    1865. Sat. Review, 7 Jan., p. 16, col. 2. That kind of praise which
    feels like the butter-boat down one’s back. [M.]

    1866. J. H. Skinner, After Storm, I., 181. He praised some things
    and gave advice about others, using the butter-boat less freely
    than is customary at volunteer inspections. [M.]


Butter-Box.—See Butter-bag.


Buttercups, subs. (common).—A graceful pet name for children.

    1877. E. L. Linton, World Well Lost, ch. vii. Hilda was still in
    the schoolroom, and seldom appeared even at afternoon tea; which in
    general is licensed to include ‘buttercups.’


Buttered, ppl. adj. (old).—1. Whipped. Cf., Dusted, Tanned, etc.
(q.v.).

2. (common.)—Flattered.—See Butter, sense 1.


Buttered Bun, subs. (old).—A mistress; also a prostitute, especially
one who submits to the sexual embrace in quick succession with
different men. [In this latter sense, if not in former, from buttered =
greased + bun (q.v.), the female pudenda.] For synonyms, see
Barrack-hack.

    1679. Cullen, W., Flock of Court Misses, in Roxburgh Ballads
    (1884), V., 126. This is the day ... that sets our Monarch free
    From Buttered Buns [i.e., Louise de Quérouaille] and Slavery.

    1811. Lexicon Balatronicum. One lying with a woman that has just
    lain with another man, is said to have a buttered bun.


Butter-Fingered, comp. ppl. adj. (common).—Apt to let things fall;
greasy or slippery-fingered. The nickname of butter-fingers is hence
given to those who let things slip easily from their grasp.

    1615. Markham, English Housewife, II., ii. (1668), 51. She must not
    be butter-fingered, sweet-toothed, nor faint-hearted; for the first
    will let everything fall, etc.

    1857. Hood, Pen and Pencil Pictures, p. 141. He was a slovenly
    player, and went among the cricket lovers by the sobriquet of
    butter-fingers.

    1861. G. Meredith, Evan Harrington. The long-hit-off, he who never
    was known to miss a catch—butter-fingered beast!—he has let the
    ball slip through his fingers.

    1883. Miss Braddon, Golden Calf, ch. xiv. ‘I never allow no
    butter-fingered girls in this room, except to sweep or scrub, under
    my own eye. There’s not many ornaments, but what there is is
    precious, and the apple of master’s eye.’


Butter-Flap, subs. (rhyming slang).—A trap—i.e., a light cart.


Butterfly, subs. (nautical).—1. A river barge.

2. (cabmen’s.)—The guard for the reins affixed to the top of a hansom
cab.

    1883. Standard, March 6, p. 6, col. 3. The box covered the whole
    roof of the cab, preventing him [the cabman] from seeing the
    butterfly. [M.]


Butternuts, subs. (American.)—The sympathisers with the South in the
North and the Middle States during the American Civil War; the term was
derived from the colour of the uniforms worn in the early part of the
war by Confederate soldiers in the West, which, being homespun, were
dyed brown with the juice of the butternut (Juglans cinerea).


Butter-Print, subs. (old).—A child; usually one that is illegitimate.
Cf., Buttercup.

    1620. Fletcher, Chances, I., v. You will be wiser one day, when you
    have purchased A bevy of these butter-prints. [M.]

    1639. Beaumont and Fletcher, Wit Without Money, V., iv. I hope she
    has brought me no butter-print along with her to lay to my charge.
    [M.]

    1709. Brit. Apollo, II., No. 46, p. 3, col. 2. Her Girl and her
    Boy, For Patterns employ, To make little Butter-Prints by. [M.]


Buttock, subs. (old).—A common prostitute. For synonyms, see
Barrack-hack, and Cf., File.

    1674. R. Head, Canting Academy, 105. The Bawds and the Buttocks
    that lived there round.

    1688. Shadwell, Squire of Alsatia, I., wks. (1720) IV., 17. What
    ogling there will be between thee and the Blowings!... Every
    buttock shall fall down before thee.

    1690. B. E., Dictionary of the Canting Crew. Buttock and file, both
    whore and pickpocket.


Buttock and File, subs. phr. (old).—A prostitute and her companion;
sometimes bulk and file. Occasionally, too, buttock and file is used of
a single individual—one who unites the roles of a thief and prostitute.
[From buttock (q.v.), a whore, + file (q.v.), a pickpocket.]

    1671. R. Head, English Rogue, pt. I., ch. v., p. 48 (1874). Bulk
    and File the Pickpocket and his mate.

    1754. Fielding, Jonathan Wild, bk. I., ch. v. The same capacity
    which qualifies a mill-ben, a bridle-cull, or a buttock and file to
    arrive at any degree of eminence in his profession would likewise
    raise a man in what the world esteem a more honourable calling.

    1811. Lexicon Balatronicum. Buttock and file, a common whore and a
    pickpocket.


Buttock and Tongue, subs. (old).—A scolding woman; a shrew.


Buttock and Twang, subs. (old).—A common prostitute, but who refrains
from theft. Cf., Buttock and file.


Buttock Ball, subs. (old).—1. A dance attended by prostitutes. Cf.,
Ballum rancum and Buff ball.

    1687. T. Brown, Lib., Consc., in Dk. Buckingham’s Wks. (1705), II.,
    131. Why not into a Bibbing-house, as well as a Dancing School, a
    buttoc-ball, or the like.

2. (old.)—The sexual embrace; cohabitation. Cf., Bawdy banquet and
Buttock banquetting.

    1811. Lexicon Balatronicum. Buttock-ball, the amorous congress.


Buttock Banquetting, subs. (old).—Harlotry.

    1555. Fardle Facions, II., viii., 167. Whiche [wiues] maie
    neuerthelesse vse buttocke banquetyng abrode.


Buttock-Broker, subs. (old).—A procuress; a bawd; an abbess (q.v.).


Buttocking Shop, subs. (old).—A brothel; a house of ill fame used by
the lowest class of public women.


Button, subs. (old).—1. A shilling. Formerly this applied to good
currency; it now only signifies counterfeit coin. For synonyms, see
Below.

2. A decoy of any kind, whether the confederate of confidence trick
men, or a sham buyer at an auction. Frequently called a buttoner
(q.v.). Cf., Bunco-steerer. Fr. un allumé.

    1851–61. H. Mayhew, London Lab. and Lon. Poor, vol. I., p. 358.
    They [cheap Jacks] have a man, or more generally a boy ... at a
    fair, to hank, or act as a button (a decoy), to purchase the first
    lot of goods put up. Ibid, III., p. 121. Then he (the
    thimble-rigger) turns round to the crowd, and pretends to be
    pushing them back, and whilst he is saying, ‘Come gentlemen, stand
    more backwarder,’ one of the confederates, who is called a
    ‘button,’ lifts up one of the thimbles with a pea under it, and
    laughs to those around, as much as to say, ‘We’ve found it out.’

    1877. Besant and Rice, Son of Vulcan, ix. The button, that is the
    confederate who egged on the flats.

Verb.—To decoy; to act as confederate in swindles. Fr. aguicher.

Not to care a button—brass button, etc., phr. (common).—A very old
colloquialism indicative of small value. It has been in continuous use
from the beginning of the fourteenth century down to the present time.
Americans say ‘not worth a cent or a red cent,’ while among variants in
common use in England may be mentioned ‘not to care a fig—a pin—or a
sou.’


Button Burster or Button Buster, subs. (theatrical).—A low comedian.
[The derivation is sufficiently obvious, that is, one who causes his
auditors to laugh so that by a figure of speech their buttons are
regarded as bursting off their clothes.]


Button-Catcher, subs. (general).—A tailor. There may be mentioned among

English Synonyms, snip; cabbage contractor; steel-bar driver; goose
persuader; sufferer; ninth part of a man, etc.

French Synonyms. Un gobeprune (thieves’); un emmailloteur (popular); un
mangeur de prunes (general); un pique-poux; un pique-prunes; un
pique-puces; un croque-prunes; un frus-quineur. (Most of these are
offensive terms, as will be seen when it is stated that puces = fleas;
poux = lice, and so on.)


Buttoner, subs. (thieves’).—A card-sharper’s decoy, an equivalent of
button, subs., sense 2. For synonyms, see Decoy-duck.

    1841. Blackwood’s Mag., L., 202. Buttoners are those accomplices of
    thimble-riggers ... whose duty it is to act as flat-catchers or
    decoys, by personating flats. [M.]

    1857. Snowden, Mag. Assistant (3 ed.), p. 446. To entice another to
    play—buttoner.

    1860. Cornhill Mag., II., 334. Enticer of another to play—buttoner.
    [M.]


Button-On. To have a button on, phr. (printers’).—To have a fit of the
blues; to be despondent.—See Chopper on.


Button Pound, subs. (provincial).—Money. For synonyms generally, see
Actual.


Buttons, subs. (common).—A page; sometimes rendered by boy in buttons.
[In allusion to the numerous buttons which usually adorn the front of a
page’s jacket.]

    1860. Thackeray, Lovel the Widower, p. 289. [Herein quoted as the
    name of a page.]

    1873. Chambers’ Jour., p. 605. Even the smallest boy in buttons
    would have been a retainer too costly for us.

    1874. H. Mayhew, London Characters, p. 311. Others limit their
    views to a page, or ‘buttons.’

    1885. Ill. Lon. News, April 11, p. 376, col. 1. Such a man is only
    fit to be dressed like a buttons, and set to open the door to
    visitors who come to call on his family.

Dash or damn my buttons—wig, etc., phr. (general).—A mild oath, the
word ‘damn’ often being represented by a dash. Ordinarily employed to
express vexation or surprise.—See Oaths.

    1860. Wm. Howard Russell, My Diary in India, I., p. 26. Darn my
    buttons if I haven’t jest a mind to....

Not to have all one’s buttons, phr. (common).—To be deficient in
intellect; slightly cracky; to have a bee in one’s bonnet.—See
Apartments to let.

To have a soul above buttons, phr. (common).—To be above one’s work or
duty; to think one’s ability superior to one’s position. [The quotation
for 1795 to which Murray calls special attention would seem to indicate
the possible origin of the phrase.]

    1795. G. Colman, Sylv. Daggerwood, I. (1808), 10. My father was an
    eminent Button-Maker ... but I had a soul above buttons ... I
    panted for a liberal profession. [m.].

    1833. Marryat, Peter Simple, ch. i. But my father, who was a
    clergyman of the Church of England, and the youngest brother of a
    noble family, had a lucrative living and a soul above buttons, if
    his son had not.

    1855. Thackeray, Newcomes, III., p. 93. If I were to say to Captain
    Crackthorpe, ‘What pretty buttons!’ he would be delighted. But
    you—you have a soul above buttons, I suppose.

To make buttons, phr. (old).—To look sorry; sad; to be in great fear.

    1593. G. Harvey, Pierces Supererog., in wks. II., 238. Thy witt
    already maketh buttons.

    1653. Middleton, Sp. Gipsy, IV., iii. Sam. O Soto, I make buttons!


Button Up, verb (American stockbrokers’).—When a broker has bought
stock on speculation and it falls suddenly on his hands, whereby he is
a loser, he keeps the matter to himself, and is reluctant to confess
the ownership of a share. This is called buttoning up.


Butty, subs. (common).—A comrade or partner. Properly and specifically
a miner who raises coal or ore by contract at a special price per ton,
employing others to do the actual work. Perhaps more provincial than
slang, although a writer in Notes and Queries, July 30, 1870, suggests
its origin in the Romany: he says in the gipsy dialect booty is the
term for work. Booty-pal is a fellow-workman (literally work-brother).
As usual when a polysyllable is imported into ordinary use, it loses
its tail; so booty-pal, in the mouths of navvies ignorant of its
origin, would soon be cut down to booty or butty.

    1845. Disraeli, Sybil, wks. III., ch. i. Suppose we were to make a
    shift for a month or six weeks, ... and have no tommy out of the
    shop, what would the butty say to me? [A note to foregoing explains
    that a butty in the mining districts is a middleman: a Doggy is his
    manager. The butty generally keeps a Tommy or Truck shop and pays
    the wages of the labourers in goods.] Ibid, p. 385. The butty has
    given notice to quit in Parker’s field this se’nnight. Ibid, p.
    389. The enemies of the people: all butties, doggies, dealers in
    truck and tommy.

    1859. H. Kingsley, Geoffrey Hamlyn, ch. xxxi. ‘He and I cottoned
    together, and found out that we had been prisoners together
    five-and-twenty years agone. And so I shouted [stood drinks] for
    him, and he for me, and at last I says, “Butty,” says I, “who are
    those chaps round here on the lay?”’

    1876. C. Hindley, Life and Adventures of a Cheap Jack, p. 101.
    William Carrol was his partner, or butty, in the ‘lollipop’
    business—a dismal looking man, who had always a burnt short clay
    pipe in his mouth.


Buvare, subs. (strolling players’).—Explained by quotation. Cf., also
Beware.

    1851–61. H. Mayhew, London Lab. and Lon. Poor, vol. III., p. 201.
    [Ethiopian serenader loq.] ‘We could then, after our “nunyare” and
    “buvare” (that’s what we call eat and drink, and I think it’s
    broken Italian), carry home our 5/– or 6/– each, easy.’


Buy a Prop, phr. (Stock Exchange).—A term used to signify that the
market has gone flat, and that there is no one to support it.


Buz or Buzz, subs. (common).—A parlour game which is thus described by
Hotten, who, however, erroneously limited it to public-houses:—The
leader commences saying ‘one,’ the next on the left hand ‘two,’ the
next ‘three,’ and so on to seven, when ‘buz’ must be said. Every seven
and multiple of 7, as 14, 17, 21, 27, 28, etc., must not be mentioned,
but ‘buz’ instead. Whoever breaks the rule pays a fine.

    1868. Miss Alcott, Little Women, ch. iii. They ... were in the
    midst of a quiet game of ‘buzz’ with two or three other young
    people who had strayed in, when Hannah appeared.

Verb (general).—1. Some uncertainty exists as to whether to buz
signifies to drain a bottle or decanter to the last drop, or whether it
means to share equally the last of a bottle of wine, when there is not
enough for a full glass to each of the party. [See, however, quot.
1795.] Annandale and Hotten incline to the latter; Grose and Murray to
the former view, and the following quotations appear to favour the
explanation of the word first noticed as buzza by the burly
lexicographer of the ‘Vulgar Tongue.’ [? A corruption of booze or
bouze, i.e., to drink a bumper or to excess.] The Scotch say bouse a’,
drink all.

    1785. Grose, Dictionary of the Vulgar Tongue. To buzza one, is to
    challenge him to pour out all the wine in the bottle into his
    glass, undertaking to drink it, should it prove more than the glass
    would hold; it is commonly said to one who hesitates to empty a
    bottle that is nearly out.

    1795. Gent. Mag., p. 118. Briskly pushed towards me the decanter
    containing a tolerable bumper, and exclaimed, ‘Sir, I’ll buzz you:
    come, no heel taps!’

    1821. W. T. Moncrieff, Tom and Jerry, Act ii., Sc. 1. Cribb. ...
    I’ll give you, ‘May the best man win.’ (All drink.) May the best
    man win. Green. May the best man vin. Log. With all my heart; but,
    zounds! we’ve almost buzz’d the bowl. Let’s have another, and d’ye
    hear, Tom, serve it up in your prize cup; Jerry hasn’t seen it, and
    we mustn’t omit that.

    1846–48. Thackeray, Vanity Fair, II., 138. ‘Get some more port,
    Bowls, old boy, whilst I buzz this bottle here—what was I saying?’
    ‘I think you were speaking of dogs killing rats,’ Pitt remarked
    mildly, handing his cousin the decanter to buzz.

    1871. Archibald Forbes, My Experiences of the War between France
    and Germany, I., p. 234. The Hotel which I had seen a few days
    before, where Von Tümpling’s staff were buzzing the bottles.

2. To pick pockets. [Probably an allusion to buzz in the sense of to
talk busily. The victim in buzzing or buz-faking (q.v.) is generally
engaged in conversation with a confederate, while the buzzer (q.v.) is
committing the robbery.] For synonyms, see Prig.

    1789. Geo. Parker, Life’s Painter, p. 158. In order to give them an
    opportunity of working upon the prig and buz, that is, picking of
    pockets.

    1857. Snowden, Mag. Assistant, 3 ed., p. 445. To pick pockets—to
    buzz.

    1876. C. Hindley, Life and Adventures of a Cheap Jack, p. 261. In
    my young days there used to travel about in gangs, like men of
    business, a lot of people called ‘Nobblers,’ who used to work the
    ‘thimble and pea rig’ and go buzzing, that is, picking pockets,
    assisted by some small boys.

3. (American thieves’.)—To search for; to look about one.


Buz-Bloke.—See Buz-napper.


Buz-Cove.—See Buz-napper.


Buz-Gloak.—See Buz-napper.


Buz-Man, subs. (thieves’).—1. A pickpocket. Cf., Buz-napper.

    1856. H. Mayhew, Gt. World of London, p. 111. The London buzman
    (swell mobsman) can keep his pony by abstracting ‘skins’ (purses)
    from gentlemen’s pockets.

2. (thieves’.)—An informer. [From buzz, to talk or whisper, + man.] For
synonyms, see Nark.

    1877. W. Black, Green Past. and Picc., ch. xi. What was all this
    about ‘Billy Rowland,’ ‘Scotland Yard,’ ‘Spy,’ ‘Buzman,’ and the
    rest?


Buz-Napper, subs. (old).—1. A pickpocket. [From buz, to pick pockets, +
napper or nabber, one who seizes or snatches. ‘Buz-bloke,’ ‘buz-cove,’
‘buz-gloak,’ ‘buz-man,’ and ‘buzzer,’ are all variants of buz-napper;
‘bloke,’ ‘cove,’ and ‘gloak,’ are old canting terms for a man.] For
synonyms, see Area-sneak.

    1781. G. Parker, View of Society, II., 174. A young fry of boys ...
    follow the profession of a buz-napper.

    1819. J. H. Vaux, Memoirs of Convict Life in Australia. Buz-cove or
    buz-gloak, a pickpocket; a person who is clever at this practice is
    said to be a ‘good buz.’

    1834. H. Ainsworth, Rookwood, bk. III., ch. v.


        Until at last there was none so knowing,
        No such sneaksman or buz-gloak going.


    1856. H. Mayhew, Gt. World of London, p. 46. Those who plunder by
    stealth, as ... ‘buzzers,’ who pick gentlemen’s pockets.

    1859. Sala, Twice Round the Clock, 3 p.m., par. 10. Where these
    ruffiani, these copper captains and cozening buz-gloaks, are to be
    found during the day, or even up to midnight ... must remain a
    secret.

    1862. Mayhew, Crim. Prisons, 46. Buzzers who pick gentlemen’s
    pockets, and ‘wires’ who pick ladies’ pockets.

    1867. Galaxy, p. 634. While the [New York] police had no right to
    arrest pickpockets unless they caught them committing a theft, yet
    as they had the power to do so, they exercised it, and many were
    the car-buzzers they led captives to police headquarters.


Buz-Napper’s Academy, subs. (old).—A school in which young thieves were
trained. Figures were dressed up, and experienced tutors stood in
various difficult attitudes for the boys to practise upon. When clever
enough they were sent on the streets. Dickens gives full particulars of
this old style of ‘business’ in Oliver Twist.

    1781. G. Parker, View of Society, II., 173. [A Buz-napper’s Academy
    is named and described in this work.]


Buz-Napper’s Kinchin, subs. (old).—A watchman. Synonymous terms in the
sense of police will be found under beak (q.v.).


Buzzer.—See Buz-napper.


Buzzing or Buz-Faking, subs. (thieves’).—Pocket-picking. Cf., Buz,
verb, sense 2.


By-Blow, subs. (old).—An illegitimate child. [An allusion to the
unacknowledged status of the mother, and the ‘accident’ of the birth of
such children.] Also called by-chop and by-slip.

    1594. Barnfield, Affectionate Shepherd. In such a ladies lappe, at
    such a slipperie by-blow, That in a world so wide could not be
    found such a wilie Lad; in an age so old, could not be found such
    an old lad.

    1625. Massinger, Parl. of Love, II., i. Give to each by-blow, I
    know mine, a farm.

    1678. C. Cotton, Scarronides, bk. I., p. 21 (ed. 1725).

        Now Venus was Æneas Mother,
        In the behalf then of her by-blow,
        Which had endured many a dry-Blow,
        She weeping came, sighing and throbbing.

    1705–7. Ward, Hudibras Redivivus, vol. II., pt. II., p. 19.

        The poor Man’s House abound with Brats,
        As country Barn with Mice and Rats;
        And Parishes be fill’d with by-blows
        As thick as Butchers’ Stalls with Fly-blows.

    1748. T. Dyche, Dictionary (5 ed.). By-blow (s.), a bastard or
    illegitimate child.

    1868. Browning, Ring and Bk., iv., 612. A drab’s brat, A beggar’s
    bye-blow.

    1875. Ouida, Signa, vol. I., ch. iii., p. 34. The one who held the
    child turned his light on the little wet face;... ‘And whose
    by-blow is this?’ said he. ‘The devil knows,’ said he who knelt by
    the mother. ‘But it is Pippa.’


By-Chop.—See By-blow.

    1632. Jonson, Magnetic Lady, iv., 2.

                First I have sent
        By-chop away; the cause gone, the fame ceaseth.


By Cracky! intj.—A meaningless ejaculation conveying no idea beyond
that of general surprise.—See Oaths.

    1888. Superior Inter-Ocean. Say, haint Tubbs a Methodist? By
    cracky! here’s where it is, and in we walked.


Bye-Drink, subs. (common).—Liquid refreshment taken at other than
meal-times. [From bye = not in regular course + drink.]

    1766. Kenrick, Falstaff’s Wedding, i., 1. I could wish,
    nevertheless, old white wine stood higher in his lordship’s favour;
    that I may not be stinted at table, or in my by-drinkings.

    1883. Daily Telegraph, Jan. 10, p. 5, col. 3. Our business men—and
    many others who are not men of business—take, as it is, a great
    many more ‘bye-drinks’ in the way of ‘sherry’ and ‘whiskey cold’
    than is good for them.


By George! intj. phr. (popular).—An ejaculation signifying either
surprise, or anger, or used without any special meaning. Phrases of the
kind are very numerous, and are mainly employed by those whose poverty
of language is otherwise very marked. [By George! may either be a
reference to St. George, the patron saint of England, or to the
predominant Christian name of the early sovereigns of the Brunswick
dynasty.]

    1731. Fielding, Grub Street Opera, Act iii., Sc. 7. By George, I’ll
    make an example of him.

    1737. Bacchus and Venus, p. 117. ’Fore George, I’d knock him down.

    1852. Dickens, Bleak House, ch. xxxviii. ‘I—er—a little subject to
    this sort of thing—er—By George!’


By Goldam! intj. phr. (American).—A semi-veiled oath. The Yankee is
peculiarly fertile in variations on the name of God, and gives a
striking proof of his ingenuity in inventing new forms for the
forbidden I swear. He has his by Gorram! by Goldam! and by Goshdang! by
the side of the English oath by Golly! which occurs as early as
1743.—See Oaths.


By Golly! intj. phr. (popular).—A euphemistic phrase for by God!—See
Oaths.

    1743. W. Warren, Five Arguments against Tythes. ‘The first person
    consulted a gentleman-farmer, and declared that he never read
    anything so good in his life. “By golly,” says he, “he ’as mauled
    the parsons.”’

    1851–61. H. Mayhew, London Lab. and Lon. Poor, vol. III., p. 204.
    Then I turn round to him and say, ‘By golly, if you don’t leave
    off, I’ll broke you over de jaw.’


By Gorram!—See By Goldam!


By Gosh! intj. phr. (popular).—A compromise for By God!

    1804. C. K. Sharpe, in Correspondence (1888), I., 210. I promise,
    by Gosh (which is the most elegant and classical oath imaginable).

    1877. W. Black, Green Past. and Picc., ch. xxxv. ‘If this goes on,’
    said he suddenly, ‘by Gosh, I’ll heave!’


By Gum! By Gummy! intj. phr. (American).—Both these expletives are
extracts from the great American Dictionary of Oaths and Cuss Words,
compiled by descendants of the Puritan Fathers.—See Oaths.

    1860. Haliburton (‘Sam Slick’), The Season Ticket, No. ix. ‘By gum,
    Squire Shegog, we have had the greatest bobbery of a shindy in our
    carriage you ever knowed in all our born days.’


By Hook or By Crook.—See Hook.


By Hooky, intj. phr. (popular).—A mild form of swearing.—See Oaths.

    1882. Jas. Payn, For Cash Only, ch. xxii. ‘Pay me what you owe me,’
    says I, ‘or, by hooky, I’ll tell your father.’


Byng, Bing, verb (old).—To go. Bynge-awaste, to go away.

    1567. Harman, Caveat, or Warening for Commen Cursetors, p. 86. Man.
    What, stowe your bene, cofe, and cut benat whydds, and byng we to
    rome vyle, to nyp a bong; so shall we haue lowre for the bousing
    ken and when we byng back to the deuseauyel, we wyll fylche some
    duddes of the Ruffemans, or myll the ken for a lagge of dudes.
    [i.e.] What, holde your peace, good fellowe, and speake better
    wordes, and go we to London, to cut a purse; then shall we haue
    money for the ale house, and when wee come backe agayne into the
    country, we wyll steale some lynnen clothes of one hedges, or robbe
    some house for a bucke of clothes.

    1610. Rowlands, Martin Mark-all, p. 37 (H. Club’s Repr., 1874).
    Bing a wast, get you hence.

    1785. Grose, Dictionary of the Vulgar Tongue. Binged avast in a
    darkmans, stole away in the night. Bing we to Rumeville, shall we
    go to London?

    1815. Scott, Guy Mannering, ch. xxviii. ‘Bing out and tour [go out
    and watch] ye auld devil, and see that nobody has scented.’

    1822. Scott, Fortunes of Nigel, ch. xvii. ‘I smell a spy,’ replied
    the other, looking at Nigel.... ‘Bing avast, bing avast!’ replied
    his companion.


By-Scape, subs. (old).—A bastard. Cf., By-blow.

    1646. Earl Monm., Biondi’s List., VI., ix., 197. For his being
    God-son to her Brother, and ... for that (being very fair) she
    thought him a by-scape of his. [M.]


By-Slip, subs. (old).—A bastard. See By-blow.

    1692. Hacket, Life of Williams, ii., 37. As Pope Paul the Third
    carried himself to his ungracious by-slips (an Incubus could not
    have begot worse), who made no further inquisition after their
    horrid facts but to say, They learnt it not of him.


Byte.—See Bit.


By the Ever-Living Jumping Moses! intj. phr.—An effective ejaculation
and moral waste-pipe for interior passion or wrath is seen in the
exclamation, by the ever-living jumping Moses!—a harmless phrase, that
for its length expends a considerable quantity of fiery anger.—Hotten.


By the Living Jingo! or By Jingo!—See Jingo.


By the Wind, phr. (nautical).—Hard up; in difficulties. [In reference
to the wind being formerly the most important element of success in a
sailor’s calling.]


                        END OF VOL. I.








LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS, SIGNS, ETC.


    Adj. = Adjective.
    Adj. phr. = Adjectival phrase.
    Adv. = Adverb.
    Adv. phr. = Adverbial phrase.
    C. c. = Circa, about.
    Cf. cf. = Confer, compare.
    f. = feminine.
    F. or Fr. = French.
    Heb. = Hebrew.
    imp. = imperative.
    int. = interjection.
    intr. = intransitive.
    It. = Italian.
    lit. = literally.
    [M.] = Murray (quoted from New English Dictionary).
    m. = masculine.
    M.E. = Middle English.
    M.H.G. = Middle High German.
    [N.] = Nares (quoted from).
    O.E. = Old English.
    O.H.G. = Old High German.
    ppl. = participial or participle.
    phr. = phrase.
    pl. = plural.
    pop. = popular.
    ppl. adj. = participial adjective.
    (q.v.) = quod vide, which see.
    subs. = substantive.
    trans. = transitive.
    U.S. or U.S.A. = United States of America.


When a word is printed in small capitals it should be referred to for
further information.









*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 78263 ***