1811 Dictionary of the Vulgar Tongue Part 10

A bull was also the name of false hair formerly much worn by women. To look like bull beef, or as bluff as bull beef; to look fierce or surly. Town bull, a great wh.o.r.e-master.

BULL. A crown piece. A half bull; half a crown.

BULL BEGGAR, or BULLY BEGGAR. An imaginary being with which children are threatened by servants and nurses, like raw head and b.l.o.o.d.y bones.

BULL CALF. A great hulkey or clumsy fellow. See HULKEY.

BULL CHIN. A fat chubby child.

BULL DOGS. Pistols.

BULL HANKERS. Persons who over-drive bulls, or frequent bull baits.

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 c.o.c.k. One who foments quarrels in order to rob the persons quarrelling.

BULLY RUFFIANS. Highwaymen who attack pa.s.sengers with paths and imprecations.

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

b.u.m. the breech, or backside.

TO b.u.m. To arrest a debtor. The gill b.u.mmed the swell for a thimble; the tradesman arrested the gentleman for a watch.

b.u.m TRAP. A sheriff's officer who arrests debtors.

Ware hawke! the b.u.m traps are fly to our panney; keep a good look out, the bailiffs know where our house is situated.

b.u.m BAILIFF. A sheriff's officer, who arrests debtors; so called perhaps from following his prey, and being at their b.u.ms, 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.

b.u.m BRUSHER. A schoolmaster.

b.u.m BOAT. A boat attending ships to retail greens, drams, &c. commonly rowed by a woman; a kind of floating chandler's shop,

b.u.m FODDER. Soft paper for the necessary house or torchecul.

b.u.mFIDDLE. The backside, the breech. See ARS MUSICA.

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

b.u.mKIN. A raw country fellow.

b.u.mMED. Arrested.

b.u.mPER. A full gla.s.s; in all likelihood from its convexity or b.u.mp at the top: some derive it from a full gla.s.s formerly drunk to the health of the pope--AU BON PERE.

b.u.mPING. A ceremony performed on boys perambulating the bounds of the parish on Whit-monday, when they have their posteriors b.u.mped 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.

BUNDLING. A man and woman sleeping in the same bed, he with his small clothes, and she with her petticoats on; an expedient practised in America on a scarcity of beds, where, on such an occasion, husbands and parents frequently permitted travellers to bundle with their wives and daughters.

This custom is now abolished. See Duke of Rochefoucalt's Travels in America,

BUNG UPWARDS. Said of a person lying on his face.

BUNG YOUR EYE. Drink a dram; strictly speaking, to drink till one's eye is bunged up or closed.

BUNT. An ap.r.o.n.

BUNTER. A low dirty prost.i.tute, half wh.o.r.e and half beggar.

BUNTLINGS. Petticoats. CANT.

BURN CRUST. A jocular name for a baker.

BURN THE KEN. Strollers living in an alehouse without paying their quarters, are said to burn the ken. CANT.

BURNING SHAME. A lighted candle stuck into the parts of a woman, certainly not intended by nature for a candlestick.

BURNER. A clap. The blowen tipped the swell a burner; the girl gave the gentleman a clap.

BURNER. He is no burner of navigable rivers; i.e. he is no conjuror, or man of extraordinary abilities; or rather, he is, but a simple fellow. See THAMES.

BURNT. Poxed or clapped. He was sent out a sacrifice, and came home a burnt offering; a saying of seamen who have caught the venereal disease abroad. He has burnt his fingers; he has suffered by meddling.

BURR. A hanger on, or dependant; an allusion to the field burrs, which are not easily got rid of. Also the Northumbrian p.r.o.nunciation: the people of that country, but chiefly about Newcastle and Morpeth, are said to have a burr in their throats, particularly called the Newcastle burr.

BUSHEL BUBBY. A full breasted woman.

BUSK. A piece of whalebone or ivory, formerly worn by women, to stiffen the forepart of their stays: hence the toast--Both ends of the busk.

BUSS BEGGAR. An old superannuated fumbler, whom none but beggars will suffer to kiss them.

BUS-NAPPER. A constable. CANT.

BUS-NAPPER'S KENCHIN. A watchman. CANT.

BUSY. As busy is the devil in a high wind; as busy as a hen with one chick.