Beaker, subs. (thieves’).—A fowl. Sometimes shortened into beak. The
derivation is obviously an illusion to the beak or horny mandibles of
poultry. Formerly called cackling-cheat (q.v.), and by French thieves
une estable, or une estaphle.
Beaker-Hunter, subs. (thieves’).—A poultry yard thief. Also
beak-hunter.
1857. Snowden, Mag. Assistant, 3 ed., p. 445. A poultry stealer. A
beaker-hunter.
Beak-Gander, subs. (common).—A judge of the Superior Courts. [From beak
(q.v.), a magistrate + gander, a humorous term for an old man.]
Beaksman, subs. (old).—See Beak (sense 1), of which it is an
alternative form.
Beam Ends. To be thrown on one’s beam ends, phr. (nautical).—1. To be
in bad circumstances; to be at one’s last shift; hard-up; a metaphor
drawn from sea-faring life. A ship is said to be on her beam ends when
she is so prostrated on her side by stress of weather, or shifting of
cargo, as to submerge her lee rail.
1843. Dickens, Martin Chuzzlewit, xl. In short, he laughed the idea
down completely; and Tom, abandoning it, was thrown upon his beam
ends again for some other solution. [h.]
1851. Henry Mayhew, London Labour and London Poor, III., 121. When
a fellow is on his beam ends, as I was then, he must keep his eyes
about him, and have impudence enough for anything, or else he may
stop and starve. [h.]
2. Also, less figuratively, to be thrown to the ground; to be reduced
to a sitting or lying posture.
1830. Marryat, King’s Own, xxvi. Our first lieutenant was ... on
his beam ends, with the rheumatiz.
1853. Rev. E. Bradley (‘Cuthbert Bede’), Adventures of Verdant
Green. You get on stunningly, gig-lamps, and haven’t been on your
beam ends more than once a minute.
Bean or Bien, subs. (popular).—A sovereign. Formerly a guinea. In
America five-dollar gold pieces are now called beans. See also
Half-bean and Haddock of beans. In the old French cant, biens meant
money or property. For synonyms, see Canary.
1811. Lexicon Balatronicum. Bean, a guinea. Half-bean.
1834. H. Ainsworth, Rookwood, bk. III., ch. ix. Zoroaster took long
odds that the match was off; offering a bean to half a quid (in
other words, a guinea to a half guinea).
1885. D. C. Murray, Rainbow Gold, bk. V., ch. vi. ‘Here’s some of
the beans,’ he continued figuratively, as he drew five sovereigns
from the same pocket, and surveyed them in his great brown palm.
Full of beans, phr. (society).—In good form or condition; as full of
health, spirits, or capacity as a horse after a good feed of beans.
Among the ancients the word signified venery; possibly, therefore, a
more esoteric meaning may be attached to it than commonly supposed.—See
Beany.
1889. Sporting Times, June 29. The tennis-ground [was] a pretty
place, overlooking the harbour, and surrounded by trees and female
beauty. The game began. ‘Ich dien,’ shouted Jack, as full of beans
as the Prince of Wales’ plume, and immediately sent a ball which
went bang through the window of an adjoining house.
To give beans, phr. (common).—To chastise; to give a good drubbing.
For synonyms, see Tan.
Like beans, adv. phr. (common).—In good form, style, time, etc.; with
force; a general expression of approval and praise. Cf., Like blazes,
bricks, or one o’clock.
Not to care, or be worth a bean.—To hold in little esteem; to think
lightly of; to be of little value. The allusion is to the small worth,
or value of a bean, or ‘the black of a bean.’ A variant is not worth a
straw (q.v.). Both phrases are old, not worth a bean being traced back
to 1297.
To be beany, phr. (common).—To be in good humour—a metaphor also drawn
from the stable.
To know beans, phr. (American).—To be well informed. The phrase is
incorporated into many expressions in a very strange way; and is an
allusion to the fondness of New Englanders in general, and Bostonians
in particular, for baked beans and pork, combined with a sly hit at the
assumption of superior culture on which they are supposed to insist. To
know beans, therefore, is to be sharp and shrewd; to be within the
charmed circle of the ‘cultured elect’—in short to be fully equipped in
the ‘upper storey.’
1888. Portland Transcript, March 7. The pudding was pronounced a
success by each member of the assembled family, including a dainty
Boston girl who, of course, knows beans.
1888. Chicago Herald. One has to know beans to be successful in the
latest Washington novelty for entertainment at luncheons.
An alternative derivation may, however, be found in the English form.
To know how many blue beans make five white ones, phr. (common).—This
is generally put in the form of a question, the answer to which is
‘Five, if peeled,’ and those who fail to get tripped by the ‘catch’ are
said ‘to know how many,’ etc.; in other words to be cute; knowing; wide
awake.
1830. Galt, Laurie, T. (1849), II., i. 42. Few men who better knew
how many blue beans it takes to make five. [M.]
1886. Zoological Comparisons, in Broadside Ballad.
Nature and art improves us, the girls with smiles are moving
us,
Which very often ruin us there’s no gammon about that;
Then just as we begin to know ‘how many beans make five,’
The ladies call us puppies when we at that age arrive;
You may perchance become a deer, if in favour with some lass,
If not you’re called a donkey, and oftentimes an ass.
1889. Daily News, 4 Nov., p. 6, col. 5. Mr. Gladstone and The
Saturday Review. Sir,—My master, who is a good Conservative, lends
me The Saturday Review to improve my mind.... It says that there
were eighty-six Parnellites, and that if Mr. Gladstone, by his
wickedness, could make them leave off voting for the Tories, and
vote for him, instead of being in a minority of four, he would have
had a majority of 80. Why, Sir, the dunce of the school knows that
if you take 80 from one side and add it on to the other, the
difference is not 80, but 160. It is as simple as how many blue
beans make five. I think some people are losing their wits faster
than Mr. Gladstone.—I am, Sir, yours respectfully, A Schoolboy.
Three blue beans in a blue bladder.—Nares confesses his inability to
discover the origin of this whimsical combination of words, but points
out that it is at least of long standing. The subjoined quotations
would seem to indicate the meaning as noisy, frothy talk; clap-trap.
1600. Dekker, Old Fortunatus, iii., p. 128.
F. Hark, does’t rattle?
S. Yes, like three blue beans in a blue bladder, rattle, bladder,
rattle.
1717. Mathew Prior, Alma (cant), I., v., 25.
They say——
That putting all his words together,
’Tis three blue beans in one blue bladder.
Bean Belly, subs. (old).—A nickname for a Leicestershire man; from a
real or supposed fondness of the inhabitants of this county for beans.
Bean-Feast, subs. (common).—An annual feast given by employers to their
work-people. The derivation is uncertain, and, at present, their is
little evidence to go upon. Some have suggested its origin in the
prominence of the bean goose, or even beans at these spreads; others
refer it to the French bien, good, i.e., a good feast (by-the-bye,
tailors call all good feeds bean-feasts); whilst others favour its
derivation from the modern English bene, a request or solicitation,
from the custom of collecting subscriptions to defray the cost. All
three suggestions are, at the best, unsatisfactory, and numerous
objections crop up at every turn to each of them. An annual outing of
this kind is also called a wayzgoose (q.v.).
1882. Printing Times, 15 Feb., 26, 2. A bean-feast dinner served up
at a country inn. [M.]
1884. Bath. Jour., 26 July, 6, 1. The annual grant of £20 for their
bean-feast. [M.]
Bean-Feaster, subs. (common).—One who takes part in a bean-feast
(q.v.).
1884. Cornh. Mag., Jan., 621. For the delectation of the bold
bean-feasters. [M.]
Beano, subs. (printers’).—The same as bean-feast (q.v.).
Bean Traps, subs. (American thieves’).—A swell mobsman, or stylish
sharper. Beans (q.v.) are five-dollar gold pieces, and the insinuation
is obvious. In old English cant a bean meant a guinea, probably from
the French biens, property.
Beany, adj. (common).—Full of vigour; fresh, like a bean-fed horse. Or,
it may be an allusion to the meaning of venery, which Aristotle says
was attached to the word beans.
1852. Kingsley, in Life (1876), I., 278. The very incongruity keeps
one beany and jolly.
1870. Daily News, 27 July, 5. The horses ... looked fresh and
beany. [M.]
Bear, subs. (Stock Exchange).—1. Applied, in the first instance, to
stock sold by jobbers for delivery by a certain date on the chance of
prices falling in the meantime, thus allowing the seller to re-purchase
at a profit. The phrase was probably at first ‘to sell the bear-skin,’
the buyers of such bargains being called bear-skin jobbers (see quot.),
in allusion to the proverb, ‘To sell the bear’s skin before one has
caught the bear.’ So far, the origin of the phrase seems pretty clear;
of the date of its introduction, however, nothing is known. It was a
common term in Stock Exchange circles, at the time of the bursting of
the South Sea Bubble in 1720, but it does not seem to have become
colloquial until much later. In these transactions no stock was passed,
the ‘difference’ being settled according to the quotation of the day,
as is the practice now in securities dealt with for ‘the account.’ At
present the term for such an arrangement is time-bargain.
1709. Steele, Tatler, No. 38, p. 3. Being at that General Mart of
stock-jobbers called Jonathans ... he bought the bear of another
officer. [M.]
1719. Anatomy of Change Alley (N. and Q., 5 S., vi., 118). Those
who buy Exchange Alley bargains are styled ‘buyers of bear-skins.’
[M.]
1778. Bailey, Dictionary (24 ed.). To sell a bear, to sell what one
hath not.
2. Hence a dealer who speculates for a fall. The earliest instance
noted of this transferred usage is in
1744. London Magazine, 86. These noisy devotees were false ones,
and in fact were only bulls and bears. [M.]
1768. Foote, Devil upon Two Sticks, Act i. A mere bull and bear
booby; the patron of lame ducks, brokers, and fraudulent bankrupts.
1774. Colman, Man of Business, iv., i., in wks. (1777) II., 179. My
young master is the bull, and Sir Charles is the bear. He agreed
for stock expecting it to be up at three hundred by this time; but,
lack-a-day, sir, it has been falling ever since.
1817. Scott, Rob Roy, ch. iv. The hum and bustle which his approach
was wont to produce among the bulls, bears, and brokers of
Stock-alley.
1860. Peacock, Gryll Grange, ch. xviii. In Stock Exchange slang,
bulls are speculators for a rise, bears for a fall.
1889. Ally Sloper’s H. H., Aug. 3, p. 242, col. 3. Mrs. Spingles
says she doesn’t wonder that the Stock Exchange at times resembles
a menagerie let loose, seeing what a lot of bulls, bears and stags
they have at Capel Court.
The French Bourse equivalent is un baissier. See the analogous terms
bull; stag; and lame duck.
3. (old.)—The pupil of a private tutor, the latter being called a
bear-leader (q.v.). From the general roughness and uncouthness of boys;
a reference to the heavy build and ungainliness of the plantigrade in
question. Even now the youth of the rising generation are sometimes
called ‘unlicked cubs.’ Also called formerly bridled-bear.
1832. Legends of London, II., 247. When I was the youthful bear—as
the disciple of a private tutor is called at Oxford. [M.]
Verb.—To act as a bear (q.v.).
1861. New York Tribune, Nov. 29. There is no truth in the startling
developments, implicating British officials, in the Herald’s
despatch.... His Lordship is wholly guiltless of the charge which
the Herald, in its anxiety to bear the market, has brought against
him.
Are you there with your bears? phr. (colloquial).—A greeting of
surprise at the reappearance of anybody or anything; are you there
again; or, in the words of its most recent slang equivalent, ‘What,
again! so soon?’ The phrase is explained by Joe Miller, as the
exclamation of a man who, not liking a sermon he had heard on Elisha
and the bears, went next Sunday to another church, only to find the
same preacher and the same discourse.
1642. James Howell, Instructions for Forreine Travell, sec. 3.
Another when at the racket court he had a ball struck into his
hazard, he would ever and anon cry out, estes vous là avec vos
ours? Are you there with your bears? which is ridiculous in any
other language but English.
1740. Richardson, Pamela, III., 335. O no, nephew! Are you
thereabouts with your bears?
1820. Scott, Abbot, xv. Marry, come up. ‘Are you there with your
bears?’ muttered the dragon.
To play the bear, phr. (common).—To behave in a rough and rude manner.
1579. Tomson, Calvin’s Serm. Tim., p. 473, col. 1. When we haue so
turned all order vpsidowne ... there is nothing but ... playing the
beare amongst vs.
Bear a bob, verbal phr. (nautical).—1. To lend a hand; look sharp! look
alive!