English Synonyms. Bedfordshire; Sheet Alley; Blanket Fair; Land of Nod;
doss; rip; Cloth Market.
French Synonyms. Un portfeuille (familiar: properly ‘a portfolio’); la
boîte à puces (popular: this almost exactly corresponds to the English
‘bug walk,’ the French phrase signifying ‘the flea box’); le pucier
(popular: from puce = flea); le tremblant (popular); le plumard
(popular); le fournil (popular and thieves’); la halle aux draps
(popular: literally, Sheet Market or Fair. Cf., English ‘Blanket
Fair’); le pagne; le panier aux ordures.
Build, subs. and verb (popular).—Properly ‘to build is to construct,’
says Murray, ‘for a dwelling and by extension of meaning ... to
construct by fitting together of separate parts; chiefly with reference
to structures of considerable size ... (not, e.g., a watch or a
piano).’ Difficult as it may be at times to draw a dividing line
between a literary, or even a colloquial usage and a slang
signification, there can be little doubt that when build is applied to
the make or style of dress, that it is the purest slang—‘It’s a tidy
build, who made it?’ A tailor, it may be noted, is sometimes called a
‘trousers’ builder.’ In the United States, this verb is used with much
more latitude than in England. There, as Fennimore Cooper puts it,
everything is built. The priest builds up a flock; the speculator a
fortune; the lawyer a reputation; the landlord a town; and the tailor,
as in England, builds up a suit of clothes. A fire is built instead of
made, and the expression is even extended to individuals, to be built
being used with the meaning of formed. ‘I was not built that way’; and
hence in a still more idiomatic sense to express unwillingness to adopt
a specified course or carry out any inconvenient plan.—See Not built
that way.
1853. Wh. Melville, Digby Grand, ch. xx. That creator of manly
beauty, who builds your coat on the model of an Apollo.
1853. Rev. E. Bradley (‘Cuthbert Bede’), Verdant Green, pt. I., ch.
x. If he forswore the primitive garments that his country-tailor
had condemned him to wear, and adapted the build of his dress to
the peculiar requirements of university fashion.
1871. A. Forbes, My Experience of the War, etc., II., p. 19. I met
a gentleman who had got a dress coat built in the place
[Versailles].
1880. Punch, Jan. 10, p. 6. The spread of education and liberal
ideas.—His Grace the Duke of Poplar and Bermondsey. ‘Just look at
these bags you last built me, Snippe! J’ever see such beastly bags
in your life? I shall always be glad to come and dine with you, old
man; but I’ll be hanged if you shall ever measure me for another
pair of bags!’ Mr. Snippe (of Snippe and Son, St. James’s Street).
‘You’ve always grumbled about your bags, as you call ’em, ever
since you were my fag at Eton; and at Christchurch you were just as
bad, even though my poor dear old governor used to come all the way
down and measure you himself. It ain’t the fault of the bags, my
dear Popsy—it’s the fault of the legs inside ’em! So, shut up, old
Stick-in-the-mud, and let’s join the ladies—the duchess has
promised to give us “Little Billee.”’
Build a chapel, verbal phr. (nautical).—To steer badly, and so cause a
ship to veer round.
Not built that way, phr. (general).—Not to one’s taste, in one’s line—a
general expression of disapproval or dissent, whether said of persons
or things.
1881. American Humorist, May 12. We cannot shut our eyes to the
fact that mankind is passing through a great era of change; even
womankind is not built as she was a few brief years ago.
1888. Missouri Republican, Jan. 25.
‘Why didn’t you roll down?’
‘I wasn’t built that way.’
Bulgarian Atrocities, subs. (Stock Exchange).—Varna and Rutschuk Ry. 3
per cent. obligations.
1887. Atkin, House Scraps.
And we’ve really quite a crew
Of fancy names to represent a share....
But fancy, by the way,
Now, in the present day,
A Varna’s a Bulgarian atrocity.
Bulge, verb (American).—The legitimate meaning is extended in many odd
ways. ‘Bags’ bulge, but do not get baggy; and in a similar fashion when
a man is ‘all attention,’ his eyes are said to bulge.
1888. Puck’s Library, May, p. 31. A Phenomenal Fee. ‘Yes,’ said a
pompous young lawyer, on a street-car, to a friend: ‘I hadn’t been
downtown half an hour this morning, before I got a fee of ten
dollars!’ Then the eyes of a man who was hanging on to a strap
began TO bulge. ‘I say, young feller,’ he whispered earnestly:
‘what saloon d’ye work at? I’m a waiter, myself!’
To go or be on a bulge, verbal phr. (American).—To drink to excess.
To get the bulge on one, verbal phr. (American mining slang).—To obtain
an advantage over; an equivalent is to get the drop on one.
1869. S. L. Clemens (‘Mark Twain’), Innocents at Home, p. 18. Well,
you’ve rather got the bulge on me. Or maybe we’ve both got the
bulge, somehow.
1885. Household Words, Oct. 10, p. 466. ‘Smart chap, that Jacob,
for a nig!’ remarked he, as we told him the outlines of our story.
‘I guess now he’s had the bulge on you pretty considerable this
trip.’
1888. American Humorist, May 12. ‘Pop! are you up there?’ ‘Yes, my
son.’ ‘I saw he had the bulge on you and I got the gun and dropped
him!’ ‘Right, my boy. That’s what I was praying for.’
Bulger, adj. (common).—Large; synonymous with buster (q.v.).
Bulk, subs. (old).—See quots.—See also File and Bulker, sense 2.
1674. R. Head, Canting Acad., 35. Bulk and File. The one jostles
you, whilst the other picks your pocket.
1725. New Cant. Dict. Bulk, an assistant to a File or Pickpocket,
who jostles a Person up against the Wall, while the other picks his
Pocket.
1785. Grose, Dictionary of the Vulgar Tongue. Bulk and file, two
pickpockets; the bulk jostles the party to be robbed, and the file
does the business.
Bulker, subs. (old).—1. A prostitute of a low type—generally one who
had no settled home; one who slept on a ‘bulk,’ a kind of sill
projecting from a window. For synonyms, see Barrack-hack.
1691. Shadwell, Scowerers, Act i., Sc. 1. ‘Every one in a petticoat
is thy mistress, from humble bulker to haughty countess.’
1728. Baily, Bulker, a Common Jilt; a Whore.—Canting term. [In a
later edition (1790) he adds ‘one who would lay down on a bulk to
anyone.’]