English Synonyms, snip; cabbage contractor; steel-bar driver; goose
persuader; sufferer; ninth part of a man, etc.
French Synonyms. Un gobeprune (thieves’); un emmailloteur (popular); un
mangeur de prunes (general); un pique-poux; un pique-prunes; un
pique-puces; un croque-prunes; un frus-quineur. (Most of these are
offensive terms, as will be seen when it is stated that puces = fleas;
poux = lice, and so on.)
Buttoner, subs. (thieves’).—A card-sharper’s decoy, an equivalent of
button, subs., sense 2. For synonyms, see Decoy-duck.
1841. Blackwood’s Mag., L., 202. Buttoners are those accomplices of
thimble-riggers ... whose duty it is to act as flat-catchers or
decoys, by personating flats. [M.]
1857. Snowden, Mag. Assistant (3 ed.), p. 446. To entice another to
play—buttoner.
1860. Cornhill Mag., II., 334. Enticer of another to play—buttoner.
[M.]
Button-On. To have a button on, phr. (printers’).—To have a fit of the
blues; to be despondent.—See Chopper on.
Button Pound, subs. (provincial).—Money. For synonyms generally, see
Actual.
Buttons, subs. (common).—A page; sometimes rendered by boy in buttons.
[In allusion to the numerous buttons which usually adorn the front of a
page’s jacket.]
1860. Thackeray, Lovel the Widower, p. 289. [Herein quoted as the
name of a page.]
1873. Chambers’ Jour., p. 605. Even the smallest boy in buttons
would have been a retainer too costly for us.
1874. H. Mayhew, London Characters, p. 311. Others limit their
views to a page, or ‘buttons.’
1885. Ill. Lon. News, April 11, p. 376, col. 1. Such a man is only
fit to be dressed like a buttons, and set to open the door to
visitors who come to call on his family.
Dash or damn my buttons—wig, etc., phr. (general).—A mild oath, the
word ‘damn’ often being represented by a dash. Ordinarily employed to
express vexation or surprise.—See Oaths.
1860. Wm. Howard Russell, My Diary in India, I., p. 26. Darn my
buttons if I haven’t jest a mind to....
Not to have all one’s buttons, phr. (common).—To be deficient in
intellect; slightly cracky; to have a bee in one’s bonnet.—See
Apartments to let.
To have a soul above buttons, phr. (common).—To be above one’s work or
duty; to think one’s ability superior to one’s position. [The quotation
for 1795 to which Murray calls special attention would seem to indicate
the possible origin of the phrase.]
1795. G. Colman, Sylv. Daggerwood, I. (1808), 10. My father was an
eminent Button-Maker ... but I had a soul above buttons ... I
panted for a liberal profession. [m.].
1833. Marryat, Peter Simple, ch. i. But my father, who was a
clergyman of the Church of England, and the youngest brother of a
noble family, had a lucrative living and a soul above buttons, if
his son had not.
1855. Thackeray, Newcomes, III., p. 93. If I were to say to Captain
Crackthorpe, ‘What pretty buttons!’ he would be delighted. But
you—you have a soul above buttons, I suppose.
To make buttons, phr. (old).—To look sorry; sad; to be in great fear.
1593. G. Harvey, Pierces Supererog., in wks. II., 238. Thy witt
already maketh buttons.
1653. Middleton, Sp. Gipsy, IV., iii. Sam. O Soto, I make buttons!
Button Up, verb (American stockbrokers’).—When a broker has bought
stock on speculation and it falls suddenly on his hands, whereby he is
a loser, he keeps the matter to himself, and is reluctant to confess
the ownership of a share. This is called buttoning up.
Butty, subs. (common).—A comrade or partner. Properly and specifically
a miner who raises coal or ore by contract at a special price per ton,
employing others to do the actual work. Perhaps more provincial than
slang, although a writer in Notes and Queries, July 30, 1870, suggests
its origin in the Romany: he says in the gipsy dialect booty is the
term for work. Booty-pal is a fellow-workman (literally work-brother).
As usual when a polysyllable is imported into ordinary use, it loses
its tail; so booty-pal, in the mouths of navvies ignorant of its
origin, would soon be cut down to booty or butty.
1845. Disraeli, Sybil, wks. III., ch. i. Suppose we were to make a
shift for a month or six weeks, ... and have no tommy out of the
shop, what would the butty say to me? [A note to foregoing explains
that a butty in the mining districts is a middleman: a Doggy is his
manager. The butty generally keeps a Tommy or Truck shop and pays
the wages of the labourers in goods.] Ibid, p. 385. The butty has
given notice to quit in Parker’s field this se’nnight. Ibid, p.
389. The enemies of the people: all butties, doggies, dealers in
truck and tommy.
1859. H. Kingsley, Geoffrey Hamlyn, ch. xxxi. ‘He and I cottoned
together, and found out that we had been prisoners together
five-and-twenty years agone. And so I shouted [stood drinks] for
him, and he for me, and at last I says, “Butty,” says I, “who are
those chaps round here on the lay?”’
1876. C. Hindley, Life and Adventures of a Cheap Jack, p. 101.
William Carrol was his partner, or butty, in the ‘lollipop’
business—a dismal looking man, who had always a burnt short clay
pipe in his mouth.
Buvare, subs. (strolling players’).—Explained by quotation. Cf., also
Beware.
1851–61. H. Mayhew, London Lab. and Lon. Poor, vol. III., p. 201.
[Ethiopian serenader loq.] ‘We could then, after our “nunyare” and
“buvare” (that’s what we call eat and drink, and I think it’s
broken Italian), carry home our 5/– or 6/– each, easy.’
Buy a Prop, phr. (Stock Exchange).—A term used to signify that the
market has gone flat, and that there is no one to support it.
Buz or Buzz, subs. (common).—A parlour game which is thus described by
Hotten, who, however, erroneously limited it to public-houses:—The
leader commences saying ‘one,’ the next on the left hand ‘two,’ the
next ‘three,’ and so on to seven, when ‘buz’ must be said. Every seven
and multiple of 7, as 14, 17, 21, 27, 28, etc., must not be mentioned,
but ‘buz’ instead. Whoever breaks the rule pays a fine.
1868. Miss Alcott, Little Women, ch. iii. They ... were in the
midst of a quiet game of ‘buzz’ with two or three other young
people who had strayed in, when Hannah appeared.
Verb (general).—1. Some uncertainty exists as to whether to buz
signifies to drain a bottle or decanter to the last drop, or whether it
means to share equally the last of a bottle of wine, when there is not
enough for a full glass to each of the party. [See, however, quot.
1795.] Annandale and Hotten incline to the latter; Grose and Murray to
the former view, and the following quotations appear to favour the
explanation of the word first noticed as buzza by the burly
lexicographer of the ‘Vulgar Tongue.’ [? A corruption of booze or
bouze, i.e., to drink a bumper or to excess.] The Scotch say bouse a’,
drink all.
1785. Grose, Dictionary of the Vulgar Tongue. To buzza one, is to
challenge him to pour out all the wine in the bottle into his
glass, undertaking to drink it, should it prove more than the glass
would hold; it is commonly said to one who hesitates to empty a
bottle that is nearly out.
1795. Gent. Mag., p. 118. Briskly pushed towards me the decanter
containing a tolerable bumper, and exclaimed, ‘Sir, I’ll buzz you:
come, no heel taps!’
1821. W. T. Moncrieff, Tom and Jerry, Act ii., Sc. 1. Cribb. ...
I’ll give you, ‘May the best man win.’ (All drink.) May the best
man win. Green. May the best man vin. Log. With all my heart; but,
zounds! we’ve almost buzz’d the bowl. Let’s have another, and d’ye
hear, Tom, serve it up in your prize cup; Jerry hasn’t seen it, and
we mustn’t omit that.
1846–48. Thackeray, Vanity Fair, II., 138. ‘Get some more port,
Bowls, old boy, whilst I buzz this bottle here—what was I saying?’
‘I think you were speaking of dogs killing rats,’ Pitt remarked
mildly, handing his cousin the decanter to buzz.
1871. Archibald Forbes, My Experiences of the War between France
and Germany, I., p. 234. The Hotel which I had seen a few days
before, where Von Tümpling’s staff were buzzing the bottles.
2. To pick pockets. [Probably an allusion to buzz in the sense of to
talk busily. The victim in buzzing or buz-faking (q.v.) is generally
engaged in conversation with a confederate, while the buzzer (q.v.) is
committing the robbery.] For synonyms, see Prig.
1789. Geo. Parker, Life’s Painter, p. 158. In order to give them an
opportunity of working upon the prig and buz, that is, picking of
pockets.
1857. Snowden, Mag. Assistant, 3 ed., p. 445. To pick pockets—to
buzz.
1876. C. Hindley, Life and Adventures of a Cheap Jack, p. 261. In
my young days there used to travel about in gangs, like men of
business, a lot of people called ‘Nobblers,’ who used to work the
‘thimble and pea rig’ and go buzzing, that is, picking pockets,
assisted by some small boys.