_Bables_, 166. Toys, trifling childish things.
_Baggage tode_, 377. A foul tode. The epithet is now only used of
an ill-conditioned woman of low degree.
_Bat_, 380. A staff.
_Bedstaffe_, 79. The Johnson-Nares explanation is, I believe,
wrong. With Miss Emma Phipson, I rather take it to be a staff to
summon attendance, a substitute for the modern bell still used by
invalids and others. Cf. _Ev. M. in his Humour_, i, 4. It has been
also suggested that it is the staff used to beat up the bed, etc.
_Become._ Used as then in 126, 158, 323, 329, as equivalent to
“gone to”. Cf. 3 _Henry VI_, ii, 1, 9, 10. And in a law of Henry
VIII (ann. 33, ch. 8) are the words “where things lost or stolen
should be become”, when it speaks of the acts of magicians,
fortune-tellers, etc.
_Beetle-head_, 66. = Our hammer-headed fellow, a beetle being such
a hammer or rammer as paviors now use and so call.
_Bench whistlers_, 528. Idle, sottish fellows, who spend their time
on ale-benches rather than seek occupation, and whistling from want
of thought or occupation. A then-known phrase.
_Bewraieth_, 69, and frequent. Betray. Also, though a different
word and not in Scot, to befoul. In 328 the verb is used thus: “the
thing shall be so well and perfectly done, that a stranger, though
he handle it, shall not bewraie it” [_i.e._, discover the fraud
either to himself or others].
_Biggin_, 471. Fr. _béguin_. Cf. Cotgrave. Properly, according
to Minsheu, a child’s [close] covering for the head or cap. Also
generally a close or skull cap; here, as in Sh., 2 _Henry IV_, iv,
4, used for a night-cap.
_Bile_, 203. A boil.
_Blisse_, 157, _ad fin._ Being opposed to “cursse” seems = blessing.
_Boolted_, 480. A miller’s, etc. technical for sifted.
_Bowt_, 337, 347. This (or bout) and bight are still nautical for
the bending, or loop, of a rope. Scot uses it for the loop, or
bending, of any thing.
_Bowze_, 268. Boughs.
_Bucklers, laie down the_, _A_ iii. Submit, own themselves
defeated. The origin of this and similar phrases is unknown. From
the words “Clypeus salvus in Cic.” and “Clypeum abjicere”, it may
be from the usages of classic times,—or it may be mediæval.
_Bugges_, 288. Frightful and unnatural appearances, as in bugbears,
a now equivalent word.
_Bulbeggers_, _B_ 2. Terrifying goblins. I see no difficulty in the
derivation from _Bul_, a bull, or bull’s face, it being terrifying
enough, especially when, enraged or mad, it is directly opposed to
you; and a bulbegger is an over-bold beggar, etc.
_Bum card._ I believe a card slightly longer or wider than the
rest, so that the trickster, etc., may distinguish it.
_Bum leaf._ A leaf similarly distinguished.
_By and by_, 460. Immediately. Elsewhere he thus translates Wier’s
“mox” and “statim”.