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.