1811 Dictionary of the Vulgar Tongue eBook

Francis Grose
This eBook from the Gutenberg Project consists of approximately 343 pages of information about 1811 Dictionary of the Vulgar Tongue.

1811 Dictionary of the Vulgar Tongue eBook

Francis Grose
This eBook from the Gutenberg Project consists of approximately 343 pages of information about 1811 Dictionary of the Vulgar Tongue.

BULL’S eye.  A crown-piece.

BULL’S feather.  A horn:  he wears the bull’s feather; he
  is a cuckold.

To bullock.  To hector, bounce, or bully.

Bully.  A cowardly fellow, who gives himself airs of
  great bravery.  A bully huff cap; a hector.  See hector.

Bully back.  A bully to a bawdy-house; one who is
  kept in pay, to oblige the frequenters of the house to submit
  to the impositions of the mother abbess, or bawd; and
  who also sometimes pretends to be the husband of one of
  the ladies, and under that pretence extorts money from
  greenhorns, or ignorant young men, whom he finds with her. 
  See Greenhorn.

Bully cock.  One who foments quarrels in order to rob
  the persons quarrelling.

Bully ruffians.  Highwaymen who attack passengers
  with paths and imprecations.

Bully trap.  A brave man with a mild or effeminate
  appearance, by whom bullies are frequently taken in.

Bum. the breech, or backside.

To bum.  To arrest a debtor.  The gill bummed the
  swell for a thimble; the tradesman arrested the
  gentleman for a watch.

Bum trap.  A sheriff’s officer who arrests debtors. 
  Ware hawke! the bum traps are fly to our panney; keep a
  good look out, the bailiffs know where our house is
  situated.

Bum bailiff.  A sheriff’s officer, who arrests debtors; so
  called perhaps from following his prey, and being at their
  bums, or, as the vulgar phrase is, hard at their a-ses. 
  Blackstone says, it is a corruption of bound bailiff, from
  their being obliged to give bond for their good behaviour.

Bum brusher.  A schoolmaster.

Bum boat.  A boat attending ships to retail greens,
  drams, &c. commonly rowed by a woman; a kind of
  floating chandler’s shop,

Bum fodder.  Soft paper for the necessary house or
  torchecul.

BUMFIDDLE.  The backside, the breech.  See ARS MUSICA.

BUMBO.  Brandy, water, and sugar; also the negro name for
  the private parts of a woman.

Bumkin.  A raw country fellow.

Bummed. Arrested.

Bumper.  A full glass; in all likelihood from its convexity
  or bump at the top:  some derive it from a full glass
  formerly drunk to the health of the pope—­Au Bon Pere.

Bumping.  A ceremony performed on boys perambulating
  the bounds of the parish on Whit-monday, when they
  have their posteriors bumped against the stones marking
  the boundaries, in order to fix them in their memory.

Bun.  A common name for a rabbit, also for the monosyllable. 
  To touch bun for luck; a practice observed among
  sailors going on a cruize.

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1811 Dictionary of the Vulgar Tongue from Project Gutenberg. Public domain.