The second letter of the English alphabet, is pronounced as in most other European languages, by pressing the whole length of the lips together, and forcing them open with a strong breath. It has a near affinity with the other labial letters, and is confounded by the Germans with P, and by the Gascons with V; from which an epigrammatist remarks, that bibere and vivere are in Gascony the same. The Spaniards, in most words, use B or V indifferently.
BABO’ON. n.s. [babouin, Fr. It is supposed by Skinner to be the augmentation of babe, and to import a great babe.] A monkey of the largest kind.
You had looked through the grate like a geminy of baboons. SHAKESPEARE’S MERRY WIVES OF WINDSOR.
He cast every human feature out of his countenance, and became a baboon. ADDISON’S SPECTATOR NO 174.
BA’CHELOR. n.s. [This is a word of very uncertain etymology, it not being well known what was its original sense. Junius derives it from βάϱiλoζ foolish; Menage, from bas chevalier, a knight of the lowest rank; Spelman, from baculus, a staff; Cujas, from buccella, an allowance of provision. The most probable derivation seems to be from bacca laurus, the berry of a laurel or bay; bachelors being young, are of good hopes, like laurels in the berry.28 In Latin, baccalaureus.]
1. A man unmarried.
Such separation
Becomes a virtuous bachelor and a maid. SHAKESPEARE’S MIDSUMMER NIGHT’S DREAM.
The haunting of those dissolute places, or resort to courtesans, are no more punished in married men than in bachelors. BACON’S NEW ATLANTIS.
A true painter naturally delights in the liberty which belongs to the bachelor’s estate. DRYDEN’S DUFRESNOY.
Let sinful bachelors their woes deplore,
Full well they merit all they feel, and more. POPE.
2. A man who takes his first degrees at the university in any profession.
Being a boy, new bachelor of arts, I chanced to speak against the pope. ASCHAM’S SCHOOLMASTER.
I appear before your honour, in behalf of
Martinus Scriblerus, bachelor of physick. ARBUTHNOT AND POPE’S MARTIN SCRIBLERUS.
3. A knight of the lowest order. This is a sense now little used.
BA’CKFRIEND. n.s. [from back and friend.] A friend backwards; that is, an enemy in secret.
Set the restless importunities of talebearers and backfriends against fair words and professions. L’ESTRANGE.
Far is our church from encroaching upon the civil power; as some who are back-friends to both, would maliciously insinuate. SOUTH.
BADGER. n.s. [bedour, Fr.] An animal that earths in the ground, used to be hunted.
That a brock, or badger, hath legs of one side shorter than the other, is very generally received not only by theorists and unexperienced believers, but most who behold them daily. BROWN’S VULGAR ERROURS, B. III.
BADGER LEGGED. adj. [from badger and legged.] Having legs of an unequal length, as the badger is supposed to have.
His body crooked all over, big-bellied, badger legged, and his complexion swarthy. L’ESTRANGE.
BA’LDERDASH. n.s. [probably of bald, Sax. bold, and dash, to mingle.] Any thing jumbled together without judgment; rude mixture; a confused discourse.
To BA’LDERDASH. v.a. [from the noun.] To mix or adulterate any liquor.
BALL. n.s. [bal, Fr. from ballare, low Lat. from βαλλiζειν, to dance.] An entertainment of dancing, at which the preparations are made at the expence of some particular person.
If golden sconces hang not on the walls,
To light the costly suppers and the balls. DRYDEN.
He would make no extraordinary figure at a ball; but I can assure the ladies, for their consolation, that he has writ better verses on the sex than any man. SWIFT.
BA’LLIARDS. n.s. [from ball and yard, or stick to push it with.] A play at which a ball is driven by the end of a stick; now corruptly called billiards.29
With dice, with cards, with balliards, far
unfit,
With shuttlecocks misseeming manly wit. HUBBERD’S TALE.
BALLO’N, BALLO’ON. n.s. [ballon, Fr.]
1. A large round short-necked vessel used in chymistry.
2. In architecture; a ball or globe placed on the top of a pillar.
3. In fireworks; a ball of pasteboard, stuffed with combustible matter, which, when fired, mounts to a considerable height in the air, and then bursts into bright sparks of fire, resembling stars.
BA’LUSTER. n.s. [according to Du Cange, from balaustrium, low Lat. a bathing place.] A small column or pilaster, from an inch and three quarters to four inches square or diameter. Their dimensions and forms are various; they are frequently adorned with mouldings; they are placed with rails on stairs, and in the fronts of galleries in churches.
This should first have been planched over, and railed about with balusters. CAREW’S SURVEY OF CORNWAL.
BA’LUSTRADE. n.s. [from baluster.] An assemblage of one or more rows of little turned pillars, called balusters, fixed upon a terras, or the top of a building, for separating one part from another.
BA’MBOO. n.s. An Indian plant of the reed kind. It has several shoots, much larger than our ordinary reeds, which are knotty, and separated from space to space by joints. They are said by some, but by mistake, to contain sugar; the bamboo being much larger than the sugar-cane. The leaves grow out of each knot, and are prickly. They are four or five inches long, and an inch in breadth, somewhat pointed, and ribbed through the whole length with green and sharp fibres. Its flowers grow in ears, like those of wheat.30
To BAMBO’OZLE. v.a. [a cant word not used in pure or in grave writings.] To deceive; to impose upon; to confound.
After Nick had bamboozled about the money, John called for counters. ARBUTHNOT’S JOHN BULL.
BA’NDOG. n.s. [from ban or band, and dog. The original of this word is very doubtful. Caiux, De Canibus Britannicis, derives it from band, that is, a dog chained up. Skinner inclines to deduce it from bana, a murderer. May it not come from ban a curse, as we say a curst cur; or rather from baund, swelled or large, a Danish word; from whence, in some counties, they call a great nut a ban-nut.] A kind of large dog.
The time of night when Troy was set on fire,
The time when screech-owls cry, and
bandogs howl. SHAKESPEARE’S HENRY VI. P. II.
Or privy, or pert, if any bin
We have great bandogs will tear their skin. SPENSER’S PASTORALS.
BA’NK-BILL. n.s. [from bank and bill] A note for money laid up in a bank, at the sight of which the money is paid.
Let three hundred pounds be paid her out of my ready money, or bank-bills. SWIFT’S LAST WILL.
BA’NKER. n.s. [from bank.] One that trafficks in money; one that keeps or manages a bank.
Whole droves of lenders croud the banker’s doors,
To call in money. DRYDEN’S SPANISH FRIAR.
By powerful charms of gold and silver led,
The Lombard bankers and the change to
waste. DRYDEN.
BA’NNOCK. n.s. A kind of oaten or pease meal cake, mixed with water, and baked upon an iron plate over the fire; used in the northern counties, and in Scotland.
BA’NTLING. n.s. [if it has any etymology, it is perhaps corrupted from the old word bairn, bairnling, a little child.] A little child: a low word.
If the object of their love
Chance by Lucina’s aid to prove,
They seldom let the bantling roar,
In basket, at a neighbour’s door. PRIOR.
BA’RBARISM. n.s. [barbarismus, Lat.]
1. A form of speech contrary to the purity and exactness of any language.
The language is as near approaching to it, as our modern barbarism will allow; which is all that can be expected from any now extant. DRYDEN’S JUVENAL, DEDICATION.
2. Ignorance of arts; want of learning.
I have for barbarism spoke more
Than for that angel knowledge you can say. SHAKESPEARE’S LOVE’S LABOUR LOST.
The genius of Raphael having succeeded to the times of barbarism and ignorance, the knowledge of painting is now arrived to perfection. DRYDEN’S DUFRESNOY, PREFACE.
3. Brutality; savageness of manners; incivility.
Moderation ought to be had in tempering and managing the Irish, to bring them from their delight of licentious barbarism unto the love of goodness and civility. SPENSER’S STATE OF IRELAND.
Divers great monarchies have risen from barbarism to civility, and fallen again to ruin. SIR J. DAVIES ON IRELAND.
4. Cruelty; barbarity; unpitying hardness of heart.31
They must per force have melted,
And barbarism itself have pity’d him. SHAKESPEARE’S RICHARD II.
To BA’RBECUE. v.a. A term used in the West-Indies for dressing a hog whole; which, being split to the back-bone, is laid flat upon a large gridiron, raised about two foot above a charcoal fire, with which it is surrounded.
Oldfield, with more than harpy throat endu’d,
Cries, send me, gods, a whole hog barbecu’d. POPE.
BARBER-CHIRURGEON. n.s. A man who joins the practice of surgery to the barber’s trade; such as were all surgeons formerly, but now it is used only for a low practiser of surgery.
He put himself into barber-chirurgeons hands, who, by unfit applications, rarified the tumour. WISEMAN’S SURGERY.
BARBER-MONGER. n.s. A word of reproach in Shakespeare, which seems to signify a fop; a man decked out by his barber.
Draw, you rogue; for though it be night, the moon shines; I’ll make a sop of the moon-shine of you; you whoreson, cullionly, barber-monger, draw. SHAKESPEARE’S KING LEAR.
BARGAINEE’. n.s. [from bargain.] He or she that accepts a bargain.
BA’RGAINER. n.s. [from bargain.] The person who profers, or makes a bargain.
BARLEY BROTH. n.s. [from barley and broth.] A low word, sometimes used for strong beer.
Can sodden water,
A drench for surreyn’d jades, their barley broth,
Decoct their cold blood to such valiant heat? SHAKESPEARE’S HENRY V.
BARLEY CORN. n.s. [from barley and corn.] A grain of barley; the beginning of our measure of length; the third part of an inch.
A long, long journey, choak’d with brakes and thorns,
Ill measur’d by ten thousand barley corns. TICKELL.
BA’RREL. n.s. [baril, Welch.]
1. A round wooden vessel to be stopped close.
It hath been observed by one of the ancients, that an empty barrel knocked upon with the finger, giveth a diapason to the sound of the like barrel full. BACON’S NATURAL HISTORY, NO 186.
Trembling to approach
The little barrel, which he fears to broach. DRYDEN’S PERSIUS.
2. A particular measure in liquids. A barrel of wine is thirty one gallons and a half; of ale, thirty two gallons; of beer, thirty six gallons, and of beer vinegar, thirty four gallons.
3. In dry measure. A barrel of Essex butter contains one hundred and six pounds; of Suffolk butter, two hundred and fifty six. A barrel of herrings should contain thirty two gallons wine measure, holding usually a thousand herrings.
Several colleges, instead of limiting their rents to a certain sum, prevailed with their tenants to pay the price of so many barrels of corn, as the market went. SWIFT.
4. Any thing hollow, as the barrel of a gun; that part which holds the shot.
Take the barrel of a long gun perfectly bored, set it upright with the breech upon the ground, and take a bullet exactly fit for it; then if you suck at the mouth of the barrel ever so gently, the bullet will come up so forcibly, that it will hazard the striking out your teeth. DIGBY ON BODIES.
5. A cylinder; frequently that cylinder about which any thing is wound.
Your string and bow must be accommodated to your drill; if too weak, it will not carry about the barrel. MOXON’S MECHANICAL EXERCISES.
6. Barrel of the ear, is a cavity behind the tympanum, covered with a fine membrane. Dictionaries.
BASILICK. n.s. [basilique, Fr. βασιλιxή.] A large hall, having two ranges of pillars, and two isles or wings, with galleries over them. These basilicks were first made for the palaces of princes, and afterwards converted into courts of justice, and lastly into churches;
Whence a basilick is generally taken for a magnificent church, as the basilick of St. Peter at Rome.
BAT-FOWLING. n.s. [from bat and fowl.] A particular manner of birdcatching in the night time, while they are at roost upon perches, trees, or hedges. They light torches or straw, and then beat the bushes; upon which the birds flying to the flames, are caught either with nets, or otherwise.
You would lift the moon out of her sphere, if she would continue in it five weeks without changing. —— We should so, and then go a bat-fowling. SHAKESPEARE’S TEMPEST.
Bodies lighted at night by fire, must have a brighter lustre given them than by day; as sacking of cities, bat-fowling, &c. PEACHAM ON DRAWING.
BATTA’LION. n.s. [bataillon, Fr.]
1. A division of an army; a troop; a body of forces. It is now confined to the infantry, and the number is uncertain, but generally from five to eight hundred men. Some regiments consist of one battalion, and others are divided into two, three or more.
When sorrows come, they come not single spies,
But in battalions. SHAKESPEARE’S HAMLET.
In this battalion there were two officers, called Thersites and Pandarus. TATLER, NO 56.
The pierc’d battalions disunited fall,
In heaps on heaps: one fate o’erwhelms them all. POPE.
2. An army. This sense is not now in use.
Six or seven thousand is their utmost power.
—— Why, our battalion trebles that account. SHAKESPEARE’S RICHARD III.
BA’TTEN. n.s. A word used only by workmen.
A batten is a scantling of wooden stuff, two, three or four inches broad, seldom above one thick, and the length unlimited. MOXON’S MECHANICAL EXERCISES.
BA’UBEE. n.s. A word used in Scotland, and the northern counties, for a halfpenny.
Tho’ in the draw’rs of my japan bureau,
To lady Gripeall I the Cæsars show,
’Tis equal to her ladyship or me,
A copper Otho, or a Scotch baubee. BRAMSTON’S MAN OF TASTE.
BA’WBLING. adj. [from bawble.] Trifling; contemptible: a word not now in use, except in conversation.
A bawbling vessel was he captain of,
For shallow draught and bulk unprized;
With which such scathful grapple did he make
With the most noble bottom of our fleet. SHAKESPEARE’S TWELFTH NIGHT.
BA’YONET. n.s. [bayonette, Fr.] A short sword or dagger fixed at the end of a musket, by which the foot hold off the horse.
One of the black spots is long and slender, and resembles a dagger or bayonet. WOODWARD ON FOSSILS.
BE’ACON. n.s. [beacon, Sax. from becn, a signal, and becnan, whence beckon, to make a signal.]
1. Something raised on an eminence, to be fired on the approach of an enemy, to alarm the country.
His blazing eyes, like two bright shining shields,
Did burn with wrath, and sparkled living fire;
As two broad beacons set in open fields,
Send forth their flames.
FAIRY QUEEN, B. I.
Modest doubt is called
The beacon of the wise.
SHAKESPEARE’S TROILUS AND CRESSIDA.
The king seemed to account of the designs of Perkin as a may-game; yet had given order for the watching of beacons upon the coasts, and erecting more where they stood too thin. BACON’S HENRY VII.
No flaming beacons cast their blaze afar,
The dreadful signal of invasive war.
GAY’S RURAL SPORTS.
2. Marks erected, or lights made in the night, to direct navigators in their courses, and warn them from rocks, shallows and sandbanks.
BEAR-GARDEN. n.s. [from bear and garden.]
1. A place in which bears are kept for sport.
Hurrying me from the playhouse, and the scenes there, to the bear-garden, to the apes, and asses, and tygers. STILLINGFLEET.
I could not forbear going to a place of renown for the gallantry of Britons, namely to the bear-garden. SPECTATOR, NO 436.32
2. Any place of tumult or misrule.
BEAR-GARDEN. adj. A word used in familiar or low phrase for rude or turbulent; as, a bear-garden fellow; that is, a man rude enough to be a proper frequenter of the bear-garden. Bear-garden sport, is used for gross inelegant entertainment.
BEAST. n.s. [beste, Fr. bestia, Lat.]
1. An animal distinguished from birds, insects, fishes, and man.
The man that once did sell the lion’s skin,
While the beast liv’d, was kill’d with hunting him. SHAKESPEARE.
Beasts of chase are the buck, the doe, the fox, the martern, and the roe. Beasts of the forest are the hart, the hind, the hare, the boar, and the wolf. Beasts of warren are the hare and cony. COWEL.
2. An irrational animal, opposed to man; as man and beast.
I dare do all that may become a man;
Who dares do more, is none. ——
—— What beast was’t then
That made you break this enterprize to me? MACBETH.
Medea’s charms were there, Circean feasts,
With bowls that turn’d enamour’d youths to beasts. DRYDEN.
3. A brutal savage man, a man acting in any manner unworthy of a reasonable creature.
BE’ASTINGS. See BEESTINGS.
BE’ATER. n.s. [from beat.]
1. An instrument with which any thing is comminuted or mingled.
Beat all your mortar with a beater three or four times over, before you use it; for thereby you incorporate the sand and lime well together. MOXON’S MECHANICAL EXERCISES.
2. A person much given to blows.
The best schoolmaster of our time, was the greatest beater. ASCHAM’S SCHOOLMASTER.
BEAU. n.s. [beau, Fr. It is sounded like bo, and has often the French plural beaux.] A man of dress; a man whose great care is to deck his person.
What, will not beaux attempt to please the fair? DRYDEN.
The water nymphs are too unkind
To Vill’roy; are the land nymphs so?
And fly they all, at once combin’d
To shame a general, and a beau? PRIOR.
You will become the delight of nine ladies in ten, and the envy of ninety-nine beaux in a hundred. SWIFT’S DIRECTIONS TO FOOTMEN.
BE’AVER. n.s. [bievre, Fr.]
1. An animal, otherwise named the castor, amphibious, and remarkable for his art in building his habitation; of which many wonderful accounts are delivered by travellers. His skin is very valuable on account of the fur.
The beaver being hunted, biteth off his stones, knowing that for them only his life is sought. HAKEWELL ON PROVIDENCE.
They placed this invention upon the beaver, for the sagacity and wisdom of that animal; indeed from its artifice in building. BROWN’S VULGAR ERROURS, C. 4.
2. A hat of the best kind; so called from being made of the fur of beaver.
You see a smart rhetorician turning his hat, moulding it into different cocks, examining the lining and the button during his harangue: A deaf man would think he was cheapening a beaver, when he is talking of the fate of a nation. ADDISON’S SPECTATOR.
The broker here his spacious beaver wears, Upon his brow sit jealousies and cares. GAY’S TRIVIA.
3. The part of a helmet that covers the face. [baviere, Fr.]
His dreadful hideous head
Close couched on the beaver, seem’d to throw,
From flaming mouth, bright sparkles firy red. FAIRY QUEEN.
Big Mars seems bankrupt in their beggar’d host,
And faintly through a rusty beaver peeps. SHAKESPEARE’S HENRY V.
He was slain upon a course at tilt, the splinters of the staff going in at his beaver. BACON’S ESSAYS, NO 36.
BEAUTY-SPOT. n.s. [from beauty and spot.] A spot placed to direct the eye to something else, or to heighten some beauty; a foil; a patch.
The filthiness of swine makes them the beauty-spot of the animal creation. GREW’S COSMOLOGIA SACRA, B. III. C. 2. §49.
TO BECA’LM. v.a. [from calm.]
1. To still the elements.
The moon shone clear on the becalmed flood. DRYDEN.
2. To keep a ship from motion.
A man becalmed at sea, out of sight of land, in a fair day, may look on the sun, or
sea, or ship, a whole hour, and perceive no motion. LOCKE.
3. To quiet the mind.
Soft whisp’ring airs, and the lark’s mattin song, Then woo to musing, and becalm the mind
Perplex’d with irksome thoughts.PHILIPS.
Banish his sorrows, and becalm his soul
With easy dreams. ADDISON’S CATO.
4. To becalm and to calm differ in this, that to calm is to stop motion, and to becalm is to with-hold from motion.
To BEDA’BBLE. v.a. [from dabble.] To wet; to besprinkle. It is generally applied to persons, in a sense including inconvenience.
Never so weary, never so in woe,
Bedabbled with the dew, and torn with briars,
I can no further crawl, no further go. SHAKESPEARE’S MIDSUMMER NIGHT’S DREAM.
To BEDA’GGLE. v.a. [from daggle.] To bemire; to soil cloaths, by letting them reach the dirt in walking.
BE’DPRESSER. n.s. [from bed and press.] A heavy lazy fellow.
This sanguine coward, this bedpresser, this horseback-breaker, this huge hill of flesh.
SHAKESPEARE’S HENRY IV. P. I.
BEDSWE’RVER. n.s. [from bed and swerve.] One that is false to the bed; one that ranges or swerves from one bed to another.
She’s a bedswerver, even as bad as those,
That vulgars give bold’st titles to.
SHAKESPEARE’S WINTER’S TALE.
BEE. n.s. [beo, Saxon.]
1. The animal that makes honey, remarkable for its industry and art.
So work the honey bees,
Creatures that, by a ruling nature, teach
The art of order to a peopled kingdom. SHAKESPEARE’S HENRY V.
From the Moorish camp,
There has been heard a distant humming noise,
Like bees disturb’d, and arming in their hives.DRYDEN.
A company of poor insects, whereof some are bees, delighted with flowers, and their sweetness; others beetles, delighted with other viands. LOCKE.
2. An industrious and careful person. This signification is only used in familiar language.
BE’EMOL. n.s. This word I have found only in the example, and know nothing of the etymology, unless it be a corruption of bymodule, from by and modulus, a note; that is, a note out of the regular order.
There be intervenient in the rise of eight, in tones, two beemols, or half notes; so as, if you divide the tones equally, the eight is but seven whole and equal notes. BACON’S NATURAL HISTORY.
BEER. n.s. [bˆir, Welch.] Liquour made of malt and hops. It is distinguished from ale, either by being older or smaller.
Here’s a pot of good double beer, neighbour; drink. SHAKESPEARE’S HENRY VI. P. II.
It were good to try clarifying with almonds in new beer. BACON’S NATURAL HISTORY, NO 768.
Flow, Welsted! flow, like thine inspirer, beer;
Tho’ stale, not ripe; tho’ thin, yet never clear;
So sweetly mawkish, and so smoothly dull;
Heady, not strong; and foaming, tho’ not full. POPE.
BE’ESTINGS. See BIESTINGS.
BEETLEHE’ADED. adj. [from beetle and head.] Loggerheaded; wooden headed; having a head stupid, like the head of a wooden beetle.
A whoreson, beetleheaded, flap-ear’d knave. SHAKESPEARE’S TAMING OF THE SHREW.
To BEFO’OL. v.a. [from be and fool.] To infatuate; to fool; to deprive of understanding; to lead into errour.
Men befool themselves infinitely, when, by venting a few sighs, they will needs persuade themselves that they have repented. SOUTH.
Jeroboam thought policy the best piety, though in nothing more befooled; the nature of sin being not only to defile, but to infatuate. SOUTH.
To BEGI’N. v.n. I began, or begun; I have begun. [beginnan, Sax. from be, or by to, and gangan, gaan, or gan, to go.]
1. To enter upon something new: applied to persons.
Begin every day to repent; not that thou shouldst at all defer it; but all that is past ought to seem little to thee, seeing it is so in itself. Begin the next day with the same zeal, fear, and humility, as if thou hadst never begun before. TAYLOR.
I’ll sing of heroes and of kings;
Begin my muse. COWLEY.
2. To commence any action or state; to do the first act, or first part of an act; to make the first step from not doing to doing.
They began at the ancient men which were before the house. BIBLE EZEKIEL, IX. 6.
Of these no more you hear him speak;
He now begins upon the Greek:
These rang’d and show’d, shall, in their turns,
Remain obscure as in their urns. PRIOR.
Beginning from the rural gods, his hand
Was lib’ral to the pow’rs of high command. DRYDEN’S FABLES.
Rapt into future times, the bard begun,
A virgin shall conceive. POPE’S MESSIAH.
3. To enter upon existence; as, the world began; the practice began.33
4. To have its original.
And thus the hard and stubborn race of man,
From animated rock and flint began. BLACKMORE.
From Nimrod first the savage chase began;
A mighty hunter, and his game was man. POPE.
5. To take rise.
Judgment must begin at the house of God. BIBLE 1 PETER, IV. 17.
The song begun from Jove. DRYDEN.
All began,
All ends in love of God, and love of man. POPE.
6. To come into act.
Now and then a sigh he stole,
And tears began to flow. DRYDEN.
To BEGI’RD. v.a. I begirt, or begirded; I have begirt. [from be and gird.]
1. To bind with a girdle.
Or should she confident,
As sitting queen ador’d on beauty’s throne,
Descend, with all her winning charms begirt,
T’ enamour. MILTON’S PARADISE LOST, B. II. L. 213.34
2. To surround; to encircle; to encompass.
Begird th’ almighty throne,
Beseeching, or besieging. MILTON’S PARADISE LOST, B. V. L. 868.
At home surrounded by a servile croud,
Prompt to abuse, and in detraction loud:
Abroad begirt with men, and swords, and spears;
His very state acknowledging his fears. PRIOR.
3. To shut in with a siege; to beleaguer; to block up.
It was so closely begirt before the king’s march into the west, that the council humbly desired his majesty, that he would relieve it. CLARENDON, B. VIII.
To BEGI’RT. v.a. [This is, I think, only a corruption of begird; perhaps by the printer.] To begird. See BEGIRD.
And, Lentulus, begirt you Pompey’s house,
To seize his sons alive; for they are they
Must make our peace with him. BEN JONSON’S CATILINE.
To BEGRE’ASE. v.a. [from be and grease.] To soil or dawb with unctuous or fat matter.
To BEGRI’ME. v.a. [from be and grime. See GRIME and GRIM.] To soil with dirt deep impressed; to soil in such a manner that the natural hue cannot easily be recovered.
Her name, that was as fresh
As Dian’s visage, is now begrim’d, and black
As my own face. SHAKESPEARE’S OTHELLO.
BEHI’NDHAND. adv. [from behind and hand.]
1. In a state in which rents or profits, or any advantage, is anticipated; so that less is to be received, or more performed, than the natural or just proportion.
Your trade would suffer, if your being behindhand has made the natural use so high, that your tradesman cannot live upon his labour. LOCKE.
2. Not upon equal terms, with regard to forwardness. In this sense, it is followed by with.
Consider, whether it is not better to be half a year behindhand with the fashionable part of the world, than to strain beyond his circumstances. SPECTATOR, NO 488.
3. Shakespeare uses it as an adjective, but licentiously, for backward; tardy.
And these thy offices,
So rarely kind, are as interpreters
Of my behindhand slackness. SHAKESPEARE’S WINTER’S TALE.
BEHO’LD. interject. [from the verb.] See; lo: a word by which attention is excited, or admiration noted.
Behold! I am with thee, and will keep thee. BIBLE GENESIS, XXVIII. 15.
When out of hope, behold her! not far off,
Such as I saw her in my dream, adorn’d
With what all earth or heaven could bestow,
To make her amiable. MILTON’S PARADISE LOST, B. VIII. L. 481.
BEHO’OVEFUL. adj. [from behoof.] Useful; profitable; advantageous. This word is somewhat antiquated.
It is very behooveful in this country of Ireland, where there are waste deserts full of grass, that the same should be eaten down. SPENSER ON IRELAND.
Laws are many times full of imperfections; and that which is supposed behooveful unto men, proveth oftentimes most pernicious. HOOKER, B. IV.§14.
Madam, we have culled such necessaries
As are behooveful for our state tomorrow. SHAKESPEARE’S ROMEO AND JULIET.
It may be most behooveful for princes, in matters of grace, to transact the same publickly: so it is as requisite, in matters of judgment, punishment, and censure, that the same be transacted privately. CLARENDON.
BE’LAMIE. n.s. [bel amie, Fr.] A friend; an intimate. This word is out of use.
Wise Socrates Pour’d out his life, and last philosophy, To the fair Critias, his dearest belamie. FAIRY QUEEN B. II. C. VII.
BE’LAMOUR. n.s. [bel amour, Fr.] Gallant; consort; paramour: obsolete.
Lo, lo, how brave she decks her bounteous bow’r,
With silken curtains, and gold coverlets,
Therein to shrowd her sumptuous belamour. FAIRY QUEEN B. II.
BELA’TED. adj. [from be and late.] Benighted; out of doors late at night.
Fairy elves,
Whose midnight revels, by a forest side,
Or fountain, some belated peasant sees,
Or dreams he sees. MILTON’S PARADISE LOST, B. I. L. 781.
Or near Fleetditch’s oozy brinks, Belated, seems on watch to lie. SWIFT.
BELDA’M. n.s. [belle dame, which, in old French, signified probably an old woman, as belle age, old age.]
1. An old woman; generally a term of contempt, marking the last degree of old age, with all its faults and miseries.
Then sing of secret things that came to pass,
When beldam nature in her cradle was. MILTON.
2. A hag.
Why, how now, Hecat, you look angerly? ——
——Have I not reason, beldams, as you are?
Saucy and overbold? SHAKESPEARE’S MACBETH.
The resty sieve wagg’d ne’er the more;
I wept for woe, the testy beldam swore. DRYDEN.
To BELO’WT. v.a. [from be and lowt, a word of contempt.] To treat with opprobrious language; to call names.35
Sieur Gaulard, when he heard a gentleman report, that, at a supper, they had not only good cheer, but also savoury epigrams, and fine anagrams, returning home, rated and belowted his cook, as an ignorant scullion, that never dressed him either epigrams or anagrams. CAMDEN’S REMAINS.
BELSWA’GGER. n.s. A cant word for a whoremaster.
You are a charitable belswagger; my wife cried out fire, and you called out for engines. DRYDEN’S SPANISH FRIAR.
BENE’FICENT. adj. [from beneficus, beneficentior, Lat.] Kind; doing good. It differs from benign, as the act from the disposition; beneficence being kindness, or benignity, exerted in action.
Such a creature could not have his origination from any less than the most wise and beneficent being, the great God. HALE’S ORIGIN OF MANKIND.
But PhÆbus, thou, to man beneficent, Delight’st in building cities. PRIOR.
BENEFI’CIARY. adj. [from benefice.] Holding something in subordination to another; having a dependent and secondary possession, without sovereign power.
The duke of Parma was tempted by no less promise, than to be made a feudatory, or beneficiary king of England, under the seignory in chief of the pope. BACON’S WAR WITH SPAIN.
BENEFI’CIARY. n.s. He that is in possession of a benefice.
A benefice is either said to be a benefice with the cure of souls, or otherwise. In the first case, if it be annexed to another benefice, the beneficiary is obliged to serve the parish church in his own proper person. AYLIFFE’S PARERGON.
BENGA’L. n.s. [from Bengal in the East Indies.] A sort of thin slight stuff, made of silk and hair, for womens apparel.
To BENU’M. v.a. [benumen, Saxon.]
1. To make torpid; to take away the sensation and use of any part by cold, or by some obstruction.
So stings a snake that to the fire is brought, Which harmless lay with cold benumm’d before. FAIRFAX, B. II. STANZA 85.
The winds blow moist and keen, which bids us seek
Some better shroud,
some better warmth, to cherish
Our limbs benumm’d. MILTON’S PARADISE LOST, B. X. L. 1069.
My sinews slacken, and an icy stiffness
Benums my blood. DENHAM’S SOPHY.
It seizes upon the vitals, and benums the senses; and where there is no sense, there can be no pain. SOUTH.
Will they be the less dangerous, when warmth shall bring them to themselves, because they were once frozen and benummed with cold? L’ESTRANGE, FABLES IX.
2. To stupify.
These accents were her last: the creeping death
Benumm’d her senses first, then stopp’d her breath. DRYDEN.
To BEPI’SS. v.a. [from piss.] To wet with urine.
One caused, at a feast, a bagpipe to be played, which made the knight bepiss himself, to the great diversion of all then present, as well as confusion of himself. DERHAM’S PHYSICO-THEOLOGY.
BE’RGMASTER. n.s. [from berg, Sax. and master.] The bailiff, or chief officer, among the Derbyshire miners.
BERLI’N. n.s. [from Berlin, the city where they were first made.] A coach of a particular form.
Beware of Latin authors all!
Nor think your verses sterling,
Though with a golden pen you scrawl,
And scribble in a berlin. SWIFT.
To BESHRE’W. v.a. [The original of this word is somewhat obscure; as it evidently implies to wish ill, some derive it from beschryen, Germ. to enchant. Topsel, in his Book of Animals, deduces it from the shrew mouse, an animal, says he, so poisonous, that its bite is a severe curse. A shrew likewise signifies a scolding woman; but its origin is not known.]
1. To wish a curse to.
Nay, quoth the cock; but I beshrew us both,
If I believe a saint upon his oath. DRYDEN’S FABLES.
2. To happen ill to.
Beshrew thee, cousin, which did’st lead me forth
Of that sweet way I was in to despair. SHAKESPEARE’S RICHARD II.
Now much beshrew my manners, and my pride,
If Hermia meant to say Lysander lied. SHAKESPEARE.
To BESI’EGE. v.a. [from siege.] To beleaguer; to lay siege to; to beset with armed forces; to endeavour to win a town or fortress, by surrounding it with an army, and forcing the defendants, either by violence or famine, to give admission.
And he shall besiege thee in all thy gates, until thy high and fenced walls come down. BIBLE DEUTERONOMY, XXVIII. 52.
The queen, with all the northern earls and lords,
Intend here to besiege you in your castle.SHAKESPEARE’S HENRY VI.
BESTRA’UGHT. particip. [Of this participle I have not found the verb; by analogy we may derive it from bestract; perhaps it is corrupted from distraught.] Distracted; mad; out of one’s senses; out of one’s wits.
Ask Marian, the fat alewife, if she knew me not. What! I am not bestraught. SHAKESPEARE’S TAMING OF THE SHREW.
BET. n.s. [weddian, to wager; wed, a wager, Sax. from which the etymologists derive bet. I should rather imagine it to come from betan, to mend, encrease, or better, as a bet encreases the original wager.] A wager; something laid to be won upon certain conditions.
The hoary fool, who many days
Has struggl’d with continu’d sorrow,
Renews his hope, and blindly lays The desp’rate bet upon tomorrow. PRIOR
His pride was in piquette,
Newmarket fame, and judgment at a bet. POPE.
BE’TTY. n.s. [probably a cant word, without etymology.] An instrument to break open doors.
Record the stratagems, the arduous exploits, and the nocturnal scalades of needy heroes, describing the powerful betty, or the artful picklock. ARBUTHNOT’S HISTORY OF JOHN BULL.
To BEWILDER. v.a. [from wild.] To lose in pathless places; to confound for want of a plain road; to perplex; to entangle; to puzzle.
We parted thus; I homeward sped my way,
Bewilder’d in the wood till dawn of day. DRYDEN’S FABLES.
We no solution of our question find; Your words bewilder, not direct the mind. BLACKMORE.
Our understanding traces ’em in vain,
Lost and bewilder’d in the fruitless search. ADDISON’S CATO.
It is good sometimes to lose and bewilder ourselves in such studies. WATTS’S IMPROVEMENT OF THE MIND.
BIB. n.s. A small piece of linen put upon the breasts of children, over their cloaths.
I would fain know, why it should not be as noble a task, to write upon a bib and hanging-sleeves, as on the bulla and prætexta. ADDISON ON ANCIENT MEDALS.
To BIB. v.n. [bibo, Lat.] To tipple; to sip; to drink frequently.
He playeth with bibbing mother Meroë, as though she were so named, because she would drink mere wine without water. CAMDEN.
To appease a froward child, they gave him drink as often as he cried; so that he was constantly bibbing, and drank more in twenty four hours than I did. LOCKE.
BIBA’CIOUS. adj. [bibax, Lat.]
Much addicted to drinking. Dictionaries.36
BIBA’CITY. n.s. [bibacitas, Lat.] The quality of drinking much.
BI’BBER. n.s. [from to bib.] A tippler; a man that drinks often.
BI’BLE. n.s. [from βíβλioν, a book; called, by way of excellence, The Book.] The sacred volume in which are contained the revelations of God.
If we pass from the apostolic to the next ages of the church, the primitive christians looked on their bibles as their most important treasure. GOVERNMENT OF THE TONGUE, §3.
We must take heed how we accustom ourselves to a slight and irreverent use of the name of God, and of the phrases and expressions of the holy bible, which ought not to be applied upon every slight occasion. TILLOTSON, SERMON I.
In questions of natural religion, we should confirm and improve, or connect our reasonings, by the divine assistance of the bible. WATTS’S LOGICK.
BIBLIO’GRAPHER. n.s. [from ββλóζ z, and γá ux, to write.] A writer of books; a transcriber. Dictionaries.
BIBLIOTHE’CAL. adj. [from bibliotheca, Lat.] Belonging to a library. Dictionaries.
BI’BULOUS. adj. [bibulus, Lat.] That which has the quality of drinking moisture; spungy.
Strow’d bibulous above, I see the sands,
The pebbly gravel next, and guttur’d rocks. THOMSON.
BICA’PSULAR. adj. [bicapsularis, Lat.] A plant whose seed vessel is divided into two parts.
BICE. n.s. The name of a colour used in painting. It is either green or blue.
Take green bice, and order it as you do your blue bice, you may diaper upon it with the water of deep green. PEACHAM.
BIDE’NTAL. adj. [bidens, Lat.] Having two teeth.
Ill management of forks is not to be helped, when they are only bidental. SWIFT.
BI’ESTINGS. n.s. [bysting, Saxon.] The first milk given by a cow after calving, which is very thick.
And twice besides, her biestings never fail To store the dairy with a brimming pale. DRYDEN’S VIRGIL.
BI’GLY. adv. [from big.] Tumidly; haughtily; with a blustering manner.
Would’st thou not rather choose a small renown,
To be the may’r of some poor paltry town;
Bigly to look, and barb’rously to speak;
To pound false weights, and scanty measures break? DRYDEN’S JUVENAL, SATIRE X.
BI’LINGSGATE. n.s. [A cant word, borrowed from Bilingsgate in London, a place where there is always a croud of low people, and frequent brawls and foul language.] Ribaldry; foul language.
There stript, fair rhet’rick languish’d on the ground,
And shameful bilingsgate her robes adorn. DUNCIAD, B. IV.
BILI’NGUOUS. adj. [bilinguis, Lat.] Having, or speaking two tongues.
BI’LLIARDS. n.s. without a singular. [billard, Fr. of which that language has no etymology; and therefore they probably derived from England both the play and the name; which is corrupted from balyards; yards or sticks with which a ball is driven along a table. Thus Spenser:
Balyards much unfit,
And shuttlecocks misseeming manly wit. HUBBERD’S TALE.].
A game at which a ball is forced against another on a table.
Let it alone; let’s to billiards. SHAKESPEARE’S ANTONY AND CLEOPATRA.
Even nose and cheek, withal,
Smooth as is the billiard ball. BEN JONSON’S UNDERWOODS.
Some are forced to bound or fly upwards, almost like ivory balls meeting on a billiard table. BOYLE.
When the ball obeys the stroke of a billiard stick, it is not any action of the ball, but bare passion.LOCKE.
BIN. n.s. [binne, Sax.] A place where bread, or corn, or wine, is reposited.
The most convenient way of picking hops, is into a long square frame of wood, called a bin. MORTIMER’S HUSBANDRY.
As when from rooting in a bin,
All pouder’d o’er from tail to chin,
A lively maggot sallies out,
You know him by his hazel snout. SWIFT.
BIO’GRAPHER. n.s. [βίoς and γϱάφω.] A writer of lives; a relator not of the history of nations, but of the actions of particular persons.
Our Grubstreet biographers watch for the death of a great man, like so many undertakers, on purpose to make a penny of him. ADDISON’S FREEHOLDER, NO 35.
BI’RTHDAY. n.s. [from birth and day.]
1. The day on which any one is born.
Orient light, Exhaling first from darkness,
they beheld
Birthday of heaven and earth. MILTON’S PARADISE LOST, B. VII.
2. The day of the year in which any one was born, annually observed.
This is my birthday; as this very day
Was Cassius born. SHAKESPEARE’S JULIUS CÆSAR.
They tell me, ’tis my birthday, and I’ll keep it
With double pomp of sadness:’
Tis what the day deserves, which gave me breath. DRYDEN.
Your country dames,
Whose cloaths returning birthday claims. PRIOR.
BI’RTHNIGHT. n.s. [from birth and night.]
1. The night in which any one is born.
Th’ angelick song in Bethlehem field,
On thy birthnight, that sung the Saviour born. PARADISE REGAIN’D.
2. The night annually kept in memory of any one’s birth.
A youth more glitt’ring than a birthnight beau. POPE.
BIT. n.s. [from bite.]
1. As much meat as is put into the mouth at once.
How many prodigal bits have slaves and peasants
This night englutted? SHAKESPEARE’S TIMON OF ATHENS.
Follow your function, go and batten on cold bits. SHAKESPEARE.
The mice found it troublesome to be still climbing the oak for every bit they put in their bellies. L’ESTRANGE.
By this the boiling kettle had prepar’d,
And to the table sent the smoaking lard,
A sav’ry bit, that serv’d to relish wine. DRYDEN’S FABLES.
John was the darling; he had all the good bits, was crammed with good pullet, chicken, and capon. ARBUTHNOT’S JOHN BULL.
2. A small piece of any thing.
Then clap four slices of pilaster on’t,
That, lac’d with bits of rustick, makes a front. POPE.
He bought at thousands, what with better wit
You purchase as you want, and bit by bit. POPE’S EPISTLES.
His majesty has power to grant a patent for stamping round bits of copper, to every subject he hath. SWIFT.
3. A Spanish West Indian silver coin, valued at sevenpence halfpenny.
4. A bit the better or worse. In the smallest degree.
There are few that know all the tricks of these lawyers; for aught I can see, your case is not a bit clearer than it was seven years ago. ARBUTHNOT’S HISTORY OF JOHN BULL.
BLAB. n.s. [from the verb.] A teltale; a thoughtless babbler; a treacherous betrayer of secrets.
The secret man heareth many confessions; for who will open himself to a blab, or babbler? BACON, ESSAY 6.
To have reveal’d
Secrets of man, the secrets of a friend,
Contempt and scorn of all, to be excluded
All friendship, and avoided as a blab. MILTON’S AGONISTES.
Whoever shews me a very inquisitive body,
I’ll shew him a blab, and one that shall make privacy as publick as a proclamation. L’ESTRANGE.
I should have certainly gone about shewing my letters, under the charge of secrecy, to every blab of my acquaintance. SWIFT’S LETTERS.
BLACK-GUARD. adj. [from black and guard.] A cant word amongst the vulgar; by which is implied a dirty fellow; of the meanest kind.
Let a black-guard boy be always about the house, to send on your errands, and go to market for you on rainy days. SWIFT.
BLACK-LEAD. n.s. [from black and lead.] A mineral found in the lead-mines, much used for pencils; it is not fusible, or not without a very great heat.
You must first get your black-lead sharpened finely, and put fast into quills, for your rude and first draught. PEACHAM.
BLA’CKSMITH. n.s. [from black and smith.] A smith that works in iron; so called from being very smutty.
The blacksmith may forge what he pleases. HOWEL.
Shut up thy doors with bars and bolts; it will be impossible for the blacksmith to make them so fast, but a cat and a whoremaster will find a way through them. SPECTATOR, NO 205.
BLADE. n.s. [blæð, bleð, Sax. bled, Fr.] The spire of grass before it grows to seed; the green shoots of corn which rise from the seed. This seems to me the primitive signification of the word blade; from which, I believe, the blade of a sword was first named, because of its similitude in shape; and, from the blade of a sword, that of other weapons or tools.
There is hardly found a plant that yieldeth a red juice in the blade or ear, except it be the tree that beareth sanguis draconis. BACON.
Sends in his feeding flocks betimes, t’ invade
The rising bulk of the luxuriant blade. DRYDEN’S GEORGICKS.
If we were able to dive into her secret recesses, we should find that the smallest blade of grass, or most contemptible weed, has its particular use. SWIFT ON THE FACULTIES OF THE MIND.
Hung on every spray, on every blade
Of grass, the myriad dewdrops twinkle round. THOMSON.
To BLAME. v.a. [blâmer, Fr.]
1. To censure; to charge with a fault: it generally implies a slight censure.
Our pow’r
Shall do a court’sy to our wrath, which men
May blame, but not controul.
SHAKESPEARE’S KING LEAR.
Porphyrius, you too far did tempt your fate;
’Tis true, your duty to me it became;
But praising that, I must your conduct blame. DRYDEN’S TYRANNICK LOVE.
Each finding, like a friend,
Something to blame, and something to commend. POPE.
2. To blame has usually the particle for before the fault.
The reader must not blame me for
making use here, all along of the word sentiment. LOCKE.
3. Sometimes, but rarely, of.
Tomoreus he blam’d of inconsiderate rashness, for that he would busy himself in matters not belonging to his vocation. KNOLLES’S HISTORY OF THE TURKS.
BLAME. n.s. [from the verb.]
1. Fault; imputation of a fault.37
In arms, the praise of success is shared amongst many; yet the blame of misadventures is charged upon one. SIR J. HAYWARD.
They lay the blame on the poor little ones, sometimes passionately enough, to divert it from themselves. LOCKE.
2. Crime; that which produces or deserves censure.
Who would not judge us to be discharged of all blame, which are confest to have no great fault, even by their very word and testimony, in whose eyes no fault of ours hath ever hitherto been accustomed to seem small. HOOKER, B. V. §27.
I unspeak mine own detraction; here abjure
The taints and blames I laid upon myself,
For strangers to my nature. SHAKESPEARE’S MACBETH.
3. Hurt.
Therewith upon his crest, With rigour so outrageous he smit,
That a large share it hew’d out of the rest,
And glancing down his shield, from blame him fairly blest. FAIRY QUEEN, B. I. CANT. II. STANZA 18.
4. There is a peculiar structure of this word, in which it is not very evident whether it be a noun or a verb; but I conceive it to be the noun. To blame, in French, à tort.
You were to blame, I must be plain with you,
To part so slightly with your wife’s first gift. SHAKESPEARE’S MERCHANT OF VENICE.
I do not ask whether they were mistaken; but, on supposition they were not, whether they were to blame in the manner. STILLINGFLEET.
Now we should hold them much to blame,
If they went back before they came. PRIOR.
To BLA’NDISH. v.a. [blandior, Lat.] To smooth; to soften. I have met with this word in no other passage.
Must’ring all her wiles,
With blandish’d parleys, feminine assaults, Tongue-batteries, she surceas’d not day nor night, To storm me over-watch’d, and weary’d out. MILTON’S AGONISTES, L. 402.
BLI’NDMAN’S buff. n.s. A play in which some one is to have his eyes covered, and hunt out the rest of the company.
Disguis’d in all the mask of night,
We left our champion on his flight:
At blindman’s buff to grope his way,
In equal fear of night and day. HUDIBRAS, P. III. C. II.
He imagines I shut my eyes again; but surely he fancies I play at blindman’s buff with him; for he thinks I never have my eyes open. STILLINGFLEET’S DEFENCE OF DISCOURSE ON ROMISH IDOLATRY.
BLI’NDWORM. n.s. [from blind and worm.] A small viper, the least of our English serpents, but venemous.38
You spotted snakes, with double tongue,
Thorny hedgehogs, be not seen;
Newts and blindworms, do no wrong;
Come not near our fairy queen. SHAKESPEARE’S MIDSUMMER NIGHT’S DREAM.
The greater slow worm, called also the blindworm, is commonly thought to be blind, because of the littleness of his eyes. GREW’S MUS<UM.
BLI’NKARD. n.s. [from blink.]
1. One that has bad eyes.
2. Something twinkling.
In some parts we see many glorious and eminent stars, in others few of any remarkable greatness, and, in some, none but blinkards, and obscure ones. HAKEWELL ON PROVIDENCE.
BLO’BBER. n.s. [from blob.] A word used in some counties for a bubble.
There swimmeth also in the sea a round slimy substance, called a blobber, reputed noisome to the fish. CAREW.
BLO’CKHEAD. n.s. [from block and head.] A stupid fellow; a dolt; a man without parts.
Your wit will not so soon out as another man’s will; it is strongly wedged up in a blockhead. SHAKESPEARE’S CORIOLANUS.
We idly sit like stupid blockheads,
Our hands committed to our pockets. HUDIBRAS, P. III. C. II.
A blockhead rubs his thoughtless skull,
And thanks his stars he was not born a fool. POPE.
BLOOD-LETTER. n.s. [from blood-let.] A phlebotomist; one that takes away blood medically.
This mischief happening to aneurisms, proceedeth from the ignorance of the blood-letter, who, not considering the errour committed in letting blood, binds up the arm carelessly. WISEMAN’S SURGERY.
BLOODY-MINDED. adj. [from bloody and mind.] Cruel; inclined to bloodshed.
I think you’ll make me mad: truth has been at my tongue’s end this half hour, and I have not the power to bring it out, for fear of this bloody-minded colonel. DRYDEN’S SPANISH FRIAR.
BLO’OMY. adj. [from bloom.] Full of blooms; flowery.
O nightingale! that on yon bloomy spray Warblest at eve, when all the woods are still. MILTON.
Departing spring could only stay to shed
Her bloomy beauties on the genial bed,
But left the manly summer in her stead. DRYDEN.
Hear how the birds, on ev’ry bloomy spray, With joyous musick wake the dawning day. POPE.
BLO’SSOM. n.s. [blosme, Sax.] The flower that grows on any plant, previous to the seed or fruit. We generally call those flowers blossoms, which are not much regarded in themselves, but as a token of some following production.
Cold news for me:
Thus are my blossoms blasted in the bud,
And caterpillars eat my leaves away. SHAKESPEARE’S HENRY IV.
Merrily, merrily shall I live now,
Under the blossom that hangs on the bough. SHAKESPEARE’S TEMPEST.
The pulling off many of the blossoms of a fruit tree, doth make the fruit fairer. BACON’S NATURAL HISTORY, NO 449.
To his green years your censure you would suit,
Not blast the blossom, but expect the fruit. DRYDEN.
Sweeter than spring,
Thou sole surviving blossom from the root,
That nourish’d up my fortune. THOMSON’S AUTUMN.
To BLOTE. v.a. To smoke, or dry by the smoke; as bloted herrings, or red herrings.
BLO’WER. n.s. [from blow.] A melter of tin.
Add his care and cost in buying wood, and in fetching the same to the blowing-house, together with the blowers, two or three months extreme and encreasing labour. CAREW’S SURVEY.
BLU’NDERBUSS. n.s. [from blunder.] A gun that is charged with many bullets, so that, without any exact aim, there is a chance of hitting the mark.
There are blunderbusses in every loop-hole, that go off of their own accord, at the squeaking of a fiddle. DRYDEN.
BLU’NDERER. n.s. [from blunder.] A man apt to commit blunders; a blockhead.
Another sort of judges will decide in favour of an authour, or will pronounce him a mere blunderer, according to the company they have kept. WATTS’S IMPROVEMENT OF THE MIND.
To BOARD. v.n. To live in a house, where a certain rate is paid for eating.
That we might not part,
As we at first did board with thee,
Now thou wouldst taste our misery. HERBERT.
We are several of us, gentlemen and ladies, who board in the same house; and, after dinner, one of our company stands up, and reads your paper to us all. SPECTATOR, NO 961.
BOARD-WAGES. n.s. [from board and wages.] Wages allowed to servants to keep themselves in victuals.
What more than madness reigns,
When one short sitting many hundreds drains,
And not enough is left him, to supply
Board-wages, or a footman’s livery. DRYDEN’S JUVENAL’S SATIRES I.
BOAT. n.s. [bat, Saxon.]
1. A vessel to pass the water in. It is usually distinguished from other vessels, by being smaller and uncovered, and commonly moved by rowing.
I do not think that any one nation, the Syrian excepted, to whom the knowledge of the ark came, did find out at once the device of either ship or boat, in which they durst venture themselves upon the seas. RALEIGH’S ESSAYS.
An effeminate scoundrel multitude!
Whose utmost daring is to cross the Nile,
In painted boats, to fright the crocodile. TATE’S JUVENAL’S SATIRES XV.
2. A ship of a small size; as, a passage boat, pacquet boat, advice boat, fly boat.
BOB. n.s. [from the verb neuter.]
1. Something that hangs so as to play loosely; generally an ornament at the ear; a pendant; an ear-ring.
The gaudy gossip, when she’s set agog,
In jewels drest, and at each ear a bob. DRYDEN’S JUVENAL’S SATIRES VI.
2. The word repeated at the end of a stanza.
To bed, to bed, will be the bob of the song.L’ESTRANGE.
3. A blow.
I am sharply taunted, yea, sometimes with pinches, nips, and bobs. ASCHAM’S SCHOOLMASTER.39
BO’BCHERRY. n.s. [from bob and cherry.] A play among children, in which the cherry is hung so as to bob against the mouth.
Bobcherry teaches at once two noble virtues, patience and constancy; the first, in adhering to the pursuit of one end; the latter, in bearing a disappointment. ARBUTHNOT AND POPE’S MARTIN SCRIBLERUS.
BO’BWIG. n.s. [from bob and wig.] A short wig.
A young fellow riding towards us full gallop, with a bobwig and a black silken bag tied to it, stopt short at the coach, to ask us how far the judges were behind. SPECTATOR, NO 129.
BO’ILARY. n.s. [from to boil.] A place at the salt-works where the salt is boiled.
BOLD. adj. [bald, Saxon.]
1. Daring; brave; stout; courageous; magnanimous; fearless; intrepid.
The wicked flee when no man pursueth; but the righteous are bold as a lion. BIBLE PROVERBS, XXVIII. 1.
I have seen the councils of a noble country grow bold, or timorous, according to the fits of his good or ill health that managed them. TEMPLE.
2. Executed with spirit, and without mean caution.
These, nervous, bold; those, languid and remiss.ROSCOMMON.
The cathedral church is a very bold work, and a masterpiece in Gothick architecture. ADDISON ON ITALY.
3. Confident; not scrupulous; not timorous.
We were bold in our God to speak unto you the gospel of God with much contention. BIBLE 1 THESSALONIANS, II. 2.
I can be bold to say, that this age is adorned with some men of that judgment, that they could open new and undiscovered ways to knowledge. LOCKE.
4. Impudent; rude.
In thy prosperity he will be as thyself, and will be bold over thy servants. If thou be brought low, he will be against thee. BIBLE ECCLESIASTICUS, VI. 11.
5. Licentious; such as shew great liberty of fiction.40
Which no bold tales of Gods or monsters swell,
But human passions, such as with us dwell. WALLER.
6. Standing out to the view; striking to the eye.
Catechreses and hyperboles are to be used judiciously, and placed in poetry, as height-enings and shadows are in painting, to make the figures bolder, and cause it to stand off to sight. DRYDEN’S STATE OF INNOCENCE, PREFACE.
7. Open; smooth; even; level: a sailor’s term.
Her dominions lie scattered, and have bold accessible coasts. HOWEL’S VOCAL FOREST.
8. To make bold. To take freedoms: a phrase not grammatical, though common. To be bold is better; as, I was bold to speak.
I have made bold to send to your wife; My suit is, that she will to Desdemona Procure me some access. SHAKESPEARE’S OTHELLO.
Making so bold,
My fears forgetting manners, to unseal Their grand commission. SHAKESPEARE’S HAMLET.
And were y’ as good as George a Green, I shall make bold to turn agen. HUDIBRAS, P. II. C. II.
I durst not make thus bold with Ovid, lest some future Milbourn should arise. DRYDEN’S FABLES, PREFACE.
Some men have the fortune to be esteemed wits, only for making bold to scoff at these things, which the greatest part of mankind reverence. TILLOTSON.
To BO’LSTER. v.a. [from the noun.]
1. To support the head with a bolster.
2. To afford a bed to.
Mortal eyes do see them bolster, More than their own. SHAKESPEARE’S OTHELLO.
3. To hold wounds together with a compress.
The practice of bolstering the cheeks forward, does little service to the wound, and is very uneasy to the patient. SHARP.
4. To support; to hold up; to maintain. This is now an expression somewhat coarse and obsolete.
We may be made wiser by the publick persuasions grafted in men’s minds, so they be used to further the truth, not to bolster errour. HOOKER, B. III. §4.
The lawyer sets his tongue to sale for the bolstering out of unjust causes. HAKEWELL ON PROVIDENCE.
It was the way of many to bolster up their crazy, doating consciences with confidences. SOUTH.
BO’LTHEAD. n.s. A long strait-necked glass vessel, for chymical distillations, called also a matrass, or receiver.
This spirit abounds in salt, which may be separted, by putting the liquour into a bolthead, with a long and narrow neck. BOYLE’S SCEPTICAL CHYMISTRY.
BO’LUS. n.s. [βóλoς.] A form of medicine, in which the ingredients are made up into a soft mass, larger than pills, to be swallowed at once.
Keep their bodies soluble the while by clysters, lenitive boluses of cassia and manna, with syrup of violets. WISEMAN.
By poets we are well assur’d,
That love, alas! can ne’er be cur’d;
A complicated heap of ills,
Despising boluses and pills. SWIFT.
BO’NESETTER. n.s. [from boneset.] A chirurgeon; one who particularly professes the art of restoring broken or luxated bones.
At present my desire is only to have a good bonesetter. DENHAM’S SOPHY.
BO’NNY. adj. [from bon, bonne, Fr. It is a word now almost confined to the Scottish dialect.]
1. Handsome; beautiful.
Match to match I have encounter’d him,
And made a prey for carrion kites and crows,
Ev’n of the bonny beast he lov’d so well. SHAKESPEARE’S HENRY VI.
Thus wail’d the louts in melancholy strain, Till bonny Susan sped across the plain. GAY’S PASTORALS.
2. Gay; merry; frolicksome; cheerful; blithe.
Then sigh not so, but let them go, And be you blithe and bonny. SHAKESPEARE’S MUCH ADO ABOUT NOTHING.
3. It seems to be generally used in conversation for plump.
BOOKLE’ARNED. adj. [from book and learned.] Versed in books, or literature: a term implying some slight contempt.
Whate’er these booklearn’d blockheads say,
Solon’s the veri’st fool in all the play. DRYDEN’S PERSIUS.
He will quote passages out of Plato and Pindar, at his own table, to some booklearned companion, without blushing. SWIFT.
BO’OTCATCHER. n.s. [from boot and catch.] The person whose business at an inn is to pull off the boots of passengers.
The ostler and the bootcatcher ought to partake. SWIFT.
BO’OTY. n.s. [buyt, Dutch; butin, Fr.]
1. Plunder; pillage; spoils gained from the enemy.
One way a band select from forage drives A herd of beeves, fair oxen, and fair kine, Their booty. MILTON’S PARADISE LOST, B. XI. L. 650.
His conscience is the hue and cry that pursues him; and when he reckons that he has gotten a booty, he has only caught a Tartar. L’ESTRANGE.
For, should you to extortion be inclin’d,
Your cruel guilt will little booty find. DRYDEN’S JUVENAL’S SATIRES, VIII.
2. Things gotten by robbery.41
If I had a mind to be honest, I see, fortune would not suffer me; she drops booties in my mouth. SHAKESPEARE’S WINTER’S TALE.
3. To play booty. To play dishonestly, with an intent to lose. The French use, Je suis botte, when they mean to say, I will not go.
We understand what we ought to do; but when we deliberate, we play booty against ourselves: our consciences direct us one way, our corruptions hurry us another. L’ESTRANGE.
I have set this argument in the best light, that the ladies may not think I write booty. DRYDEN.
BOPE’EP. n.s. [from bo and peep.] To look out, and draw back as if frighted,42 or with the purpose to fright some other.
Then they for sudden joy did weep,
And I for sorrow sung,
That such a king should play bopeep,
And go the fools among. SHAKESPEARE’S KING LEAR.
Rivers,
That serve instead of peaceful barriers,
To part th’ engagements of their warriours,
Where both from side to side may skip,
And only encounter at bopeep. HUDIBRAS, up. III. C. III.
There the devil plays at bopeep, puts out his horns to do mischief, then shrinks them back for safety. DRYDEN’S SPANISH FRIAR.
BOTCH. n.s. [bozza, pronounced botza, Ital.]
1. A swelling, or eruptive discoloration of the skin.
Time, which rots all, and makes botches pox,
And, plodding on, must make a calf an ox, Hath made a lawyer. DONNE.
Botches and blains must all his flesh imboss,
And all his people. MILTON’S PARADISE LOST, B. XII. L. 180.
It proves far more incommodious, which, if it were propelled in boils, botches, or ulcers, as in the scurvy, would rather conduce to health. HARVEY ON CONSUMPTIONS.
2. A part in any work ill finished, so as to appear worse than the rest.
With him,
To leave no rubs or botches in the work,
Fleance, his son, must embrace the fate. SHAKESPEARE’S MACBETH.
3. An adscititious, adventitious part clumsily added.
If both those words are not notorious botches, I am much deceived; though the French translator thinks otherways. DRYDEN’S DEDICATION, ÆNEID.
A comma ne’er could claim
A place in any British name;
Yet, making here a perfect botch,
Thrusts your poor vowel from his notch. SWIFT.
BO’TTLESCREW. n.s. [from bottle and screw.] A screw to pull out the cork.
A good butler always breaks off the point of his bottlescrew in two days, by trying which is hardest, the point of the screw, or the neck of the bottle. SWIFT.
BO’UNCER. n.s. [from bounce.] A boaster; a bully; an empty threatner.
BOURN. n.s. [borne, Fr.]
1. A bound; a limit.
Bourn, bound of land, tilth, vineyard, none. SHAKESPEARE’S TEMPEST.
That undiscover’d country, from whose bourn
No traveller e’er returns. SHAKESPEARE’S HAMLET.
False,
As dice are to be wish’d, by one that fixes
No bourn ’twixt his and mine. SHAKESPEARE’S WINTER’S TALE.
I know each lane, and every alley green,
And every bosky bourn from side to side. MILTON.
2. [from burn, Saxon.] A brook; a torrent: whence many towns, seated near brooks, have names ending in bourn. It is not now used in either sense; though the second continues in the Scottish dialect.
Ne swelling Neptune, ne loud thund’ring Jove,
Can change my cheer, or make me ever mourn;
My little boat can safely pass this perilous bourn. FAIRY QUEEN.
BO’UTISALE. n.s. [I suppose from bouty, or booty, and sale.] A sale at a cheap rate; as booty or plunder is commonly sold.
To speak nothing of the great boutisale of colleges and chantries. SIR J. HAYWARD.
BOWL. n.s. [buelin, Welch; which signifies, according to Junius, any thing made of horn, as drinking cups anciently were. It is pronounced bole.]
1. A vessel to hold liquids, rather wide than deep; distinguished from a cup, which is rather deep than wide.
Give me a bowl of wine;
I have not that alacrity of spirit,
Nor cheer of mind, that I was wont to have. RICHARD III.
If a piece of iron be fastened on the side of a bowl of water, a loadstone, in a boat of cork, will presently make into it. BROWN’S VULGAR ERROURS, B. II. C. III.
The sacred priests, with ready knives, bereave
The beasts of life, and in full bowls receive
The streaming blood. DRYDEN’S ÆNEID.
While the bright Sein, t’ exalt the soul, With sparkling plenty crowns the bowl, And wit and social mirth inspires. FENTON TO LORD GOWER.
2. The hollow part of any thing.
If you are allowed a large silver spoon for the kitchen, let half the bowl of it be worn out with continual scraping. SWIFT’S DIRECTIONS TO THE COOK.
3. A basin, or fountain.
But the main matter is so to convey the water, as it never stay either in the bowl or in the cistern. BACON’S ESSAYS.
BRAID. adj. [To brede, in Chaucer, is to deceive.] An old word, which seems to signify deceitful.
Since Frenchmen are so braid,
Marry ’em that will. I’ll live and die a maid. SHAKESPEARE’S ALL’S WELL THAT ENDS WELL.
BRA’INSICK. adj. [from brain and sick.] Diseased in the understanding; addleheaded; giddy; thoughtless.
Nor once deject the courage of our minds,
Because Cassandra’s mad; her brainsick raptures
Cannot distaste the goodness of a quarrel. TROILUS AND CRESSIDA.
They were brainsick men, who could neither endure the government of their king, nor yet thankfully receive the authours of their deliverance. knolles’s history of the turks.
BRA’INSICKLY. adv. [from brain-sick.] Weakly; headily.
You do unbend your noble strength to think So brainsickly of things. SHAKESPEARE’S MACBETH.
BRA’INSICKNESS. n.s. [from brainsick.] Indiscretion; giddiness.
BRA’NGLE. n.s. [uncertainly derived.] Squabble; wrangle.
The payment of tythes in this kingdom, is subject to many frauds, brangles, and other difficulties, not only from papists and dissenters, but even from those who profess themselves protestants. SWIFT.
To BRA’NGLE. v.n. [from the noun.] To wrangle; to squabble.
When polite conversing shall be improved, company will be no longer pestered with dull story-tellers, nor brangling disputers. SWIFT’S INTRODUCTION TO GENTEEL CONVERSATION.
BRA’NGLEMENT. n.s. [from brangle.] The same with brangle.
BRASS. n.s. [bras, Sax. pres, Welch.]
1. A yellow metal, made by mixing copper with lapis calaminaris. It is used, in popular language, for any kind of metal in which copper has a part.
Brass is made of copper and calaminaris. BACON.
Men’s evil manners live in brass, their virtues
We write in water. SHAKESPEARE’S HENRY VIII.
Let others mold the running mass
Of metals, and inform the breathing brass. DRYDEN.
2. Impudence.
BRA’VO. n.s. [bravo, Ital.] A man who murders for hire.
For boldness, like the bravoes and banditti, is seldom employed, but upon desperate services. GOVERNMENT OF THE TONGUE.
No bravoes here profess the bloody trade, Nor is the church the murd’rer’s refuge made. GAY’S TRIVIA.
BRAWN. n.s. [of uncertain etymology.]
1. The fleshy or musculous part of the body.
The brawn of the arm must appear full, shadowed on one side, then shew the wristbone thereof. PEACHAM.
But most their looks on the black monarch bend,
His rising muscles and his brawn commend;
His double biting ax, and beamy spear,
Each asking a gigantick force to rear. DRYDEN’S FABLES.
2. The arm, so called from its being musculous.
I’ll hide my silver beard in a gold beaver,
And in my vantbrace put this wither’d brawn. SHAKESPEARE.
I had purpose
Once more to hew thy target from thy brawn. SHAKESPEARE.
3. Bulk; muscular strength.
Thy boist’rous hands are then of use, when I,
With this directing head, those hands apply;
Brawn without brain is thine. DRYDEN’S FABLES.
4. The flesh of a boar.
The best age for the boar is from two years to five years old, at which time it is best to geld him, or sell him for brawn. MORTIMER.
5. A boar.
BREAD-CHIPPER. n.s. [from bread and chip.] One that chips bread; a baker’s servant.43
No abuse, Hal, on my honour; no abuse. —— Not to dispraise me, and call me pantler, and bread-chipper, and I know not what? SHAKESPEARE’S HENRY IV. P. II.
BRE’AKNECK. n.s. [from break and neck.] A fall in which the neck is broken; a steep place endangering the neck.
I must
Forsake the court; to do’t or no, is certain
To me a breakneck.
SHAKESPEARE’S WINTER’S TALE.
BRE’AKPROMISE. n.s. [from break and promise.] One that makes a practice of breaking his promise.
I will think you the most atheistical break-promise, and the most hollow lover. SHAKESPEARE’S AS YOU LIKE IT.
BRE’ASTCASKET. n.s. [from breast and casket.] With mariners. The largest and longest caskets, which are a sort of strings placed in the middle of the yard.
BRE’ASTKNOT. n.s. [from breast and knot.] A knot or bunch of ribbands worn by women on the breast.
Our ladies have still faces, and our men hearts, why may we not hope for the same atchievements from the influence of this breastknot? ADDISON’S FREEHOLDER, NO 11.
BREED. n.s. [from the verb.]
1. A cast; a kind; a subdivision of species.
I bring you witnesses,
Twice fifteen thousand hearts of England’s breed. SHAKESPEARE.
The horses were young and handsome, and of the best breed in the north. SHAKESPEARE’S HENRY VIII.
Walled towns, stored arsenals, and ordnance; all this is but a sheep in a lion’s skin, except the breed and disposition of the people be stout and warlike. BACON’S ESSAYS, NO 30.
Infectious streams of crowding sins began,
And through the spurious breed and guilty nation ran. ROSCOMMON.
Rode fair Ascanius on a fiery steed,
Queen Dido’s gift, and of the Tyrian breed. DRYDEN.
A cousin of his last wife’s was proposed; but
John would have no more of the breed. ARBUTHNOT’S HISTORY OF JOHN BULL.
2. Progeny; offspring.
If thou wilt lend this money, lend it not
As to thy friend; for when did friendship take
A breed of barren metal of his friend? SHAKESPEARE’S MERCHANT OF VENICE.
3. A number produced at once; a hatch.
She lays them in the sand, where they lie till they are hatched; sometimes above an hundred at a breed. GREW’S MUSÆUM.
BRE’EDBATE. n.s. [from breed and bate.] One that breeds quarrels; an incendiary.
An honest, willing, kind fellow, as ever servant shall come in house withal; and, I warrant you, no teltale, nor no breedbate. SHAKESPEARE’S MERRY WIVES OF WINDSOR.
BRIBE. n.s. [Bribe, in French, originally signifies a piece of bread, and is applied to any piece taken from the rest; it is therefore likely, that a bribe originally signified, among us, a share of any thing unjustly got.] A reward given to pervert the judgment, or corrupt the conduct.
You have condemn’d and noted Lucius Pella,
For taking bribes here of the Sardians. SHAKESPEARE’S JULIUS CÆSAR.
Nor less may Jupiter to gold ascribe,
When he turn’d himself into a bribe. WALLER.
If a man be covetous, profits or bribes may put him to the test. L’ESTRANGE.
There’s joy when to wild will you laws prescribe,
When you bid fortune carry back her bribe. DRYDEN.
BRI’DEMEN, BRI’DEMAIDS. n.s. The attendants on the bride and bridegroom.
BRI’DLEHAND. n.s. [from bridle and hand.] The hand which holds the bridle in riding.
In the turning, one might perceive the bridlehand something gently stir; but, indeed, so gently, as it did rather distil virtue than use violence. SIDNEY, B. II.
The heat of summer put his blood into a ferment, which affected his bridlehand with great pain. WISEMAN’S SURGERY.
BRI’LLIANT. adj. [brillant, Fr.] Shining; sparkling; splendid; full of lustre.
So have I seen in larder dark
Of veal a lucid loin,
Replete with many a brilliant spark,
As wise philosophers remark,
At once both stink and shine. DORSET.
BRI’LLIANT. n.s. A diamond of the finest cut, formed into angles, so as to refract the light, and shine more.
In deference to his virtues, I forbear
To shew you what the rest in orders were;
This brilliant is so spotless and so bright,
He needs not foil, but shines by his own proper light. DRYDEN.
BRI’MMER. n.s. [from brim.] A bowl full to the top.
When healths go round, and kindly brimmers flow,
Till the fresh garlands on their foreheads glow. DRYDEN.
BRI’MSTONY. adj. [from brimstone.] Full of brimstone; containing sulphur; sulphureous.
BRISK. adj. [brusque, Fr.]
1. Lively; vivacious; gay; sprightly; applied to men.
Pr’ythee, die, and set me free,
Or else be
Kind and brisk, and gay like me. SIR J. DENHAM.
A creeping young fellow, that had committed matrimony with a brisk game-some lass, was so altered in a few days, that he was liker a sceleton than a living man. L’ESTRANGE.
Why shou’d all honour then be ta’en
From lower parts, to load the brain:
When other limbs we plainly see,
Each in his way, as brisk as he? PRIOR.
2. Powerful; spirituous.
Our nature here is not unlike our wine;
Some sorts, when old, continue brisk and fine. DENHAM.
Under ground, the rude Riphæan race
Mimick brisk cyder, with the brake’s product wild,
Sloes pounded, hips, and servis’ harshest juice. PHILIPS.
It must needs be some exteriour cause, and the brisk acting of some objects without me, whose efficacy I cannot resist. LOCKE.
3. Vivid; bright.44
Objects appeared much darker, because my instrument was overcharged; had it magnified thirty or twenty five times, it would have made the object appear more brisk and pleasant. NEWTON’S OPTICKS.
BRI’STOL STONE. A kind of soft diamond found in a rock near the city of Bristol.
Of this kind of crystal are the better and larger sort of Bristol stones, and the Kerry stones of Ireland. WOODWARD.
To BRO’ADEN. v.n. [from broad.] To grow broad. I know not whether this word occurs, but in the following passage.
Low walks the sun, and broadens by degrees,
Just o’er the verge of day. THOMSON’S SUMMER, L. 1605.
BRO’KEN MEAT. Fragments; meat that has been cut.
Get three or four chairwomen to attend you constantly in the kitchen, whom you pay at small charges; only with the broken meat, a few coals, and all the cinders. SWIFT.
BRO’WNBILL. n.s. [from brown and bill.] The ancient weapon of the English foot; why it is called brown, I have not discovered; but we now say brown musket from it.
And brownbills, levied in the city,
Made bills to pass the grand committee. HUDIBRAS.
BRO’WNSTUDY. n.s. [from brown and study.] Gloomy meditations; study in which we direct our thoughts to no certain point.
They live retired, and then they doze away their time in drowsiness and brownstudies; or, if brisk and active, they lay themselves out wholly in making common places. NORRIS.
To BROWSE. v.a. [brouser, Fr.] To eat branches, or shrubs.
And being down, is trod in the durt
Of cattle, and broused, and sorely hurt. SPENSER’S PASTORALS.
Thy palate then did deign
The roughest berry on the rudest hedge:
Yea, like the stag, when snow the pasture sheets,
The barks of trees thou browsedst. SHAKESPEARE’S ANTONY AND CLEOPATRA.
To BRUISE. v.a. [briser, Fr.] To crush or mangle with the heavy blow of something not edged or pointed; to crush by any weight; to beat into gross powder; to beat together coarsely.
Fellows in arms, and my most loving friends,
Bruis’d underneath the yoke of tyranny. SHAKESPEARE’S RICHARD III.
And fix far deeper in his head their stings,
Than temporal death shall bruise the victor’s heel,
Or theirs whom he redeems. PARADISE LOST, B. XII. L. 433.
As in old chaos heav’n with earth confus’d,
And stars with rocks together crush’d and bruis’d. WALLER.
They beat their breasts with many a bruising blow,
Till they turn’d livid, and corrupt the snow. DRYDEN’S FABLES.
BRUISE. n.s. [from the verb.] A hurt with something blunt and heavy.
One arm’d with metal, th’ other with wood,
This fit for bruise, and that for blood. HUDIBRAS.
I since have labour’d
To bind the bruises of a civil war,
And stop the issues of their wasting blood. DRYDEN.
BRUNE’TT. n.s. [brunette, Fr.] A woman with a brown complexion.
Your fair women therefore thought of this fashion, to insult the olives and the brunettes.
ADDISON’S GUARDIAN, NO 109.
To BRUSH. v.n.
1. To move with haste: a ludicrous word, applied to men.
Nor wept his fate, nor cast a pitying eye,
Nor took him down, but brush’d regardless by. DRYDEN.
The French had gather’d all their force,
And William met them in their way;
Yet off they brush’d, both foot and horse. PRIOR.
2. To fly over; to skim lightly.
Nor love is always of a vicious kind,
But oft to virtuous acts inflames the mind,
Awakes the sleepy vigour of the soul,
And, brushing o’er, adds motion to the pool. DRYDEN’S FABLES.
BRU’TENESS. n.s. [from brute.] Brutality; a word not now used.
Thou dotard vile,
That with thy bruteness shend’st thy comely age. FAIRY QUEEN.
To BRU’TIFY. v.a. [from brute.] To make a man a brute.
O thou salacious woman! am I then brutified? Ay; feel it here; I sprout, I bud, I blossom, I am ripe horn mad. CONGREVE’S OLD BATCHELOR.
BUB. n.s. [a cant word.] Strong malt liquour.
Or if it be his fate to meet
With folks who have more wealth than wit,
He loves cheap port, and double bub,
And settles in the humdrum club. PRIOR.
To BU’BBLE. v.n. [from the noun.]
1. To rise in bubbles.
Alas! a crimson river of warm blood,
Like to a bubbling fountain stirr’d with wind,
Doth rise and fall. SHAKESPEARE’S TITUS ANDRONICUS.
Adder’s fork, and blindworm’s sting,
Lizard’s leg, and owlet’s wing:
For a charm of pow’rful trouble,
Like a hellbroth boil and bubble. SHAKESPEARE’S MACBETH.
Still bubble on, and pour forth blood and tears. DRYDEN.
2. To run with a gentle noise.
For thee the bubbling springs appear’d to mourn,
And whispering pines made vows for thy return. DRYDEN.
The same spring suffers at some times a very manifest remission of its heat: at others, as manifest an increase of it; yea, sometimes to that excess, as to make it boil and bubble with extreme heat. WOODWARD’S NATURAL HISTORY.
Not bubbling fountains to the thirsty swain,
Not show’rs to larks, or sunshine to the bee,
Are half so charming as thy sight to me. POPE.
To BU’BBLE. v.a. To cheat: a cant word.
He tells me, with great passion, that she has bubbled him out of his youth; and that she has drilled him on to five and fifty. ADDISON’S SPECTATOR, NO 89.
Charles Mather could not bubble a young beau better with a toy.
ARBUTHNOT’S HISTORY OF JOHN BULL.
BU’BBLER. n.s. [from bubble.] A cheat.
What words can suffice to express, how infinitely I esteem you, above all the great ones in this part of the world; above all the Jews, jobbers, and bubblers. DIGBY TO POPE.
BUCANI’ERS. n.s. A cant word for the privateers, or pirates, of America.
To BUDGE. v.n. [bouger, Fr.] To stir; to move off the place: a low word.
All your prisoners
In the lime grove, which weatherfends your cell,
They cannot budge till your release. SHAKESPEARE’S TEMPEST.
The mouse ne’er shun’d the cat, as they did budge
From rascals worse than they. SHAKESPEARE’S CORIOLANUS.
I thought th’ hadst scorn’d to budge For fear. HUDIBRAS, CANT. II.
BUDGE. adj. [of uncertain etymology.] Surly; stiff; formal.
O foolishness of men! that lend their ears
To those budge doctors of the stoicks. MILTON.
1. A bag, such as may be easily carried.
If tinkers may have leave to live,
And bear the sowskin budget;
Then my account I well may give,
And in the stocks avouch it. SHAKESPEARE’S WINTER’S TALE.
Sir Robert Clifford, in whose bosom, or budget, most of Perkin’s secrets were laid up, was come into England. BACON.
His budget with corruptions cramm’d,
The contributions of the damn’d. SWIFT.
2. It is used for a store, or stock.
It was nature, in fine, that brought off the cat, when the fox’s whole budget of inventions failed him. L’ESTRANGE.
BU’FFLEHEADED. adj. [from buffle and head.] A man with a large head, like a buffalo; dull; stupid; foolish.
BULL, in composition, generally notes the large size of any thing, as bull-head, bulrush, bull-trout; and is therefore only an inclusive particle, without much reference to its original signification.
BULL-BAITING. n.s. [from bull and bait.] The sport of baiting bulls with dogs.
What am I the wiser for knowing that
Trajan was in the fifth year of his
tribuneship, when he entertained the people
with a horse-race or bull-baiting? ADDISON ON ANCIENT MEDALS.
BULL-BEGGAR. n.s. [This word probably came from the insolence of those who begged, or raised money by the pope’s bull.] Something terrible; something to fright children with.
These fulminations from the Vatican were turned into ridicule; and, as they were called bull-beggars, they were used as words of scorn and contempt. AYLIFFE’S PARERGON.
BULL-DOG. n.s. [from bull and dog.] A dog of a particular form, remarkable for his courage. He is used in baiting the bull; and this species is so peculiar to Britain, that they are said to degenerate when they are carried to other countries.
All the harmless part of him is no more than that of a bull-dog; they are tame no longer than they are not offended. ADDISON’S SPECTATOR, NO 438.
BU’LLY. n.s. [Skinner derives this word from burly, as a corruption in the pronunciation; which is very probably right: or from bulky, or bull-eyed; which are less probable. May it not come from bull, the pope’s letter, implying the insolence of those who came invested with authority from the papal court?] A noisy, blustering, quarrelling fellow: it is generally taken for a man that has only the appearance of courage.
Mine host of the garter. —— What says my bully rook? Speak scholarly and wisely. SHAKESPEARE’S MERRY WIVES OF WINDSOR.
All on a sudden the doors flew open, and in comes a crew of roaring bullies, with their wenches, their dogs, and their bottles. L’ESTRANGE’S FABLES.
’Tis so ridic’lous, but so true withal,
A bully cannot sleep without a brawl. DRYDEN’S JUVENAL’S SATIRES, III.
A scolding hero is, at the worst, a more tolerable character than a bully in petticoats. ADDISON’S FREEHOLDER, NO 38.
The little man is a bully in his nature, but, when he grows cholerick, I confine him till his wrath is over. ADDISON’S SPECTATOR.
BU’MPKIN. n.s. [This word is of uncertain etymology; Henshaw derives it from pumpkin, a kind of worthless gourd, or melon. This seems harsh.45 Bump is used amongst us for a knob, or lump; may not bumpkin be much the same with clodpate, loggerhead, block, and blockhead.] An awkward heavy rustick; a country lout.
The poor bumpkin, that had never seen nor heard of such delights before, blessed herself at the change of her condition. L’ESTRANGE’S FABLES.
A heavy bumpkin, taught with daily care,
Can never dance three steps with a becoming air. DRYDEN.
In his white cloak the magistrate appears,
The country bumpkin the same liv’ry wears. DRYDEN.
It was a favour to admit them to breeding; they might be ignorant bumpkins and clowns, if they pleased. LOCKE.
BU’NTER. n.s. A cant word for a woman who picks up rags about the street; and used, by way of contempt, for any low vulgar woman.
BUREAU’. n.s. [bureau, Fr.] A chest of drawers.46 It is pronounced as if it were spelt buro.
For not the desk with silver nails,
Nor bureau of expence,
Nor standish well japan’d,
avails To writing of good sense. SWIFT.
BU’RNING-GLASS. n.s. [from burning and glass.] A glass which collects the rays of the sun into a narrow compass, and so increases their force.
The appetite of her eye did seem to scorch me up like a burning-glass.
SHAKESPEARE’S MERRY WIVES OF WINDSOR.
Love is of the nature of a burning-glass, which, kept still in one place, fireth; changed often, it doth nothing. SUCKLING.
O diadem, thou centre of ambition,
Where all its different lines are reconciled,
As if thou wert the burning-glass of glory. DRYDEN AND LEE.
BU’RSAR. n.s. [bursarius, Lat.]
1. The treasurer of a college.
2. Students sent as exhibitioners to the universities in Scotland by each presbytery, from whom they have a small yearly allowance for four years.
BU’RSTENESS. n.s. [from burst.] A rupture, or hernia.
BU’TTER. n.s. [buttere, Sax. butyrum, Lat.]
1. An unctuous substance made by agitating the cream of milk, till the oil separates from the whey.
And he took butter and milk, and the calf which he had dressed, and set before them. BIBLE GENESIS, XVIII. 8.
2. Butter of antimony. A chymical preparation, made by uniting the acid spirits of sublimate corrosive with regulus of antimony. It is a great caustick. Harris.
3. Butter of tin, is made with tin and sublimate corrosive. This preparation continually emits fumes. Harris.
BU’TTERFLY. n.s. [butterflege, Saxon.] A beautiful insect, so named because it first appears at the beginning of the season for butter.
Eftsoons that damsel, by her heav’nly might,
She turned into a winged butterfly,
In the wide air to make her wand’ring flight. SPENSER.
Tell old tales, and laugh
At gilded butterflies; and hear poor rogues
Talk of court news.
SHAKESPEARE’S KING LEAR.
And so befel, that as he cast his eye
Among the colworts on a butterfly,
He saw false Reynard.
DRYDEN’S FABLES.
That which seems to be a powder upon the wings of a butterfly, is an innumerable company of extreme small feathers, not to be discerned without a microscope. GREW.
BU’XOM. adj. [bucsum, Sax. from bugan, to bend. It originally signified obedient, as John de Trevisa, a clergyman, tells his patron, that he is obedient and buxom to all his commands. In an old form of marriage used before the Reformation, the bride promised to be obedient and buxom in bed and at board; from which expression, not well understood, its present meaning seems to be derived.]
1. Obedient; obsequious.
He did tread down, and disgrace all the
English, and set up and countenance the
Irish; thinking thereby to make them more
tractable and buxom to his government. SPENSER’S IRELAND.
He, with broad sails,
Winnow’d the buxom air. MILTON.
2. Gay; lively; brisk.
I’m born
Again a fresh child of the buxom morn,
Heir of the sun’s first beams. CRASHAW.
Zephyr, with Aurora playing,
As he met her once a maying,
Fill’d her with thee, a daughter fair,
So buxom, blithe, and debonnair. MILTON.
Sturdy swains,
In clean array, for rustick dance prepare,
Mixt with the buxom damsels, hand in hand,
They frisk and bound. PHILIPS.
3. Wanton; jolly.
Almighty Jove descends, and pours
Into his buxom bride his fruitful show’rs. DRYDEN’S VIRGIL.
She feign’d the rites of Bacchus! cry’d aloud,
And to the buxom god the virgin vow’d. DRYDEN’S ÆNEID.
BY, in composition, implies something out of the direct way; and, consequently, some obscurity, as a by-road; something irregular, as a by-end; or something collateral, as a by-concernment; or private, as a by-law. This composition is used at pleasure, and will be understood by the examples following.
BY-COFFEEHOUSE. n.s. A coffeehouse in an obscure place.
I afterwards entered a by-coffeehouse, that stood at the upper end of a narrow lane, where I met with a nonjuror. ADDISON’S SPECTATOR, NO 403.
BY-CONCERNMENT. n.s. An affair which is not the main business.
Our plays, besides the main design, have under-plots, or by-concernments, or less considerable persons and intrigues, which are carried on with the motion of the main plot. dryden on dramatick poetry.
BY-END. n.s. Private interest; secret advantage.
All people that worship for fear, profit, or some other by-end, fall within the intendement of this fable. L’ESTRANGE.
BY-LAW. n.s.
By-laws are orders made in court-leets, or court-barons, by common assent, for the good of those that make them, farther than the publick law binds. COWEL.
There was also a law, to restrain the by-laws and ordinances of corporations. BACON’S HENRY VII.
In the beginning of this record is inserted the law or institution; to which are added two by-laws, as a comment upon the general law. ADDISON’S SPECTATOR, NO 608.
BY-NAME. n.s. A nickname; name of reproach, or accidental appellation.
Robert, eldest son to the Conquerour, used short hose, and thereupon was by-named Court-hose, and shewed first the use of them to the English. CAMDEN’S REMAINS.
BY-PAST. adj. Past; a term of the Scotch dialect.
Wars, pestilences, and diseases, have not been fewer for these three hundred years by-past, than ever they have been since we have had records. CHEYNE’S PHILOSOPHICAL PRINCIPLES.
BY-ROAD. n.s. An obscure unfrequented path.
Through slipp’ry by-roads, dark and deep,
They often climb, and often creep. SWIFT.
BY-SPEECH. n.s. An incidental or casual speech, not directly relating to the point.
When they come to allege what word and what law they meant, their common ordinary practice is to quote by-speeches in some historical narration or other, and to use them as if they were written in most exact form of law. HOOKER, B. III. §4.
BY-WORD. n.s. A saying; a proverb.
Duke of York, be king;
And bashful Henry be deposed; whose cowardice
Hath made us by-words to our enemies. SHAKESPEARE’S HENRY VI. P III.
I knew a wise man, that had it for a by-word, when he saw men hasten to a conclusion, Stay a little, that we may make an end the sooner. BACON’S ESSAYS, NO 26.
We are become a by-word among the nations for our ridiculous feuds and animosities. ADDISON’S FREEHOLDER, NO 50.
It will be his lot often, to look singular, in loose and licentious times, and to become a by-word and a reproach, on that account, among the men of wit and pleasure. ATTERBURY.