A Dictionary of Slang and its Analogues. (continued 8)

And they called her the Colleen Dhu.

1884. Ruskin, in Pall Mall Gazette, 17 Nov., p. 11, col. 2. It was bombastic English blarney—not Irish. [M.]

The French have baliverne and pelotage with the same meaning.

Verb.—1. To wheedle; to coax; to flatter grossly.

2. (American thieves’.)—Besides the English slang signification of ‘to wheedle,’ it also bears the secondary meaning, among the low and criminal classes of America, of ‘to pick locks.’

Blart Out, verb (American, ? nonce word).—A corruption of ‘blurt out’; to utter abruptly.

1835. Haliburton (‘Sam Slick’), The Clockmaker, pref., p. v. It warn’t the part of a gentleman for to go and pump me arter that fashion, and then go right off and blart it out in print. Ibid, ch. viii. And there are others again who blart right out whatever comes uppermost.

Blasé, adj. (common).—Used up; exhausted with enjoyment; satiated. [From French blaser, of unknown derivation.] Its extended colloquial use in England is explained in second quotation.

1823. Byron, Don Juan, ch. xii., st. 81. A little blasé—’tis not to be wondered At, that his heart had got a tougher rind, And though not vainer from his past success, No doubt his sensibilities were less.

1883. G. A. Sala, in Illustrated London News, March 10, p. 235, col. 3. There should be a chronology of slang. It is about forty years ago, I think, that the great popularity of a French farce called ‘L’Homme Blasé’ brought the word into colloquial use in England; indeed the first translation of the French piece (at the Princess’s, Wright, the low comedian, playing the hero,) was called Blasé, with some sub-title that I forget. Subsequently another translation was produced, Charles Mathews playing the principal character. As a title for this version, we borrowed a slang term from the Americans, and ‘L’Homme Blasé’ became ‘Used Up’!

Blast, verb (low).—To curse; to damn. An expression of reprobation and hatred. Used in such combinations as Blast me! Blast you! Blast your eyes! etc.—See Oaths.

1654. Chapman, Revenge for Honour, V., ii. And thus I kiss’d my last breath. Blast you all! Ta. Damn’d desperate villain!

1752. Fielding, Amelia, bk. X., ch. v. ‘I don’t know what you mean by ominous,’ cries the colonel; ‘but, blast my reputation, if I had received such a letter, if I would not have searched the world to have found the writer.’

1759. Goldsmith, Cit. of the World, lett., 105. ‘Blast me!’ cries Tibbs, ‘if that be all, there is no need of paying for that.’

1825. Scott, St. Ronan’s Well, ch. viii. ‘Hands, Captain MacTurk!’ exclaimed Sir Bingo, in some confusion; ‘no, blast him—not so bad as that neither.’

Blasted, ppl. adj. (low).—Execrable; confounded; often substituted for ‘damned,’ ‘bloody,’ it being thought a milder form. Grose has blasted fellow for an abandoned rogue, and blasted brimstone for a prostitute. [From blast, q.v.]—See Oaths.

1682. Dryden, Medal, 260. What curses on thy blasted Name will fall.

1750. Chesterfield, Letters, 8 Jan. (1870), 169. Colonel Chartres … who was, I believe, the most notorious blasted rascal in the world. [M.]

1874. Pusey, Lent. Sermons, 79. Balaam after the success of his blasted counsel. [M.]

1884. Good Words, Nov., p. 767, col. 1. Jim Black states that the blasted railway has done away with those journeys.

Blatantation, subs. (? nonce word).—Noisy effusion; swagger. [From blatant, noisy, offensively clamorous, + ation.] Cf., Blatancy.

1833. Graphic, Feb. 24, p. 199, col. 3. On the ground betting men are conspicuous with their books, blatantations, blackguardism, and swell clothes.

Blater, subs. (old).—A calf. [Probably a corruption of ‘bleater,’ from its cry.]

1714. Memoirs of John Hall (4 ed.), p. 11 [list of cant words in]. Blater, a calf.

1827. Lytton, Pelham, ch. lxxxii. Don’t be glim-flashy; why you’d cry beef on a blater.

Blather, subs. (familiar).—Noisy talk; voluble nonsense. Cf., Blether.

1864. E. Yates, Broken to Harness, ch. xxix., p. 309 (1873). ‘There’s a letter there from Sir Mordaunt, askin’ for more time, and promisin’ all sorts of things; but I’m sick of him and his blather.’

Verb.—To talk volubly; noisily; nonsensically.—See Blether.

1884. W. C. Russell, Jack’s Courtship, ch. xxiv. Mrs. O’Brien was blathering about the pedigree of the O’Briens and the O’Shandrydans to Mrs. Joyce.

Blatherskite, subs. (common).—1. Boastful disputatious swagger. Cf., Bletherskite.

2. A swaggerer; boaster; one who talks volubly and nonsensically. Cf., Bletherskite.

1888. New York Herald, July 29. Every blatherskite republican is filled to the brim and spouting high protection, while the democrats are not prepared to meet them for want of documents.

1888. Chicago Watchman. Dr. Brookes, of St. Louis, must be a nice man to live with. He refers to Dr. R. W. Dale and Dr. Parker as ‘blatant blatherskites,’ and evidently regards Professor Drummond as beyond reformation.

Blayney’s Bloodhounds, subs. (military).—The Eighty-ninth Foot. They obtained this nickname during the Irish Rebellion in 1798. [Blayney, from their Colonel’s name + Bloodhounds from their skill in tracking Irish rebels.] They also earned for themselves the sobriquet of The Rollickers, in allusion to the ‘jolly doggish’ bearing of the corps.

Blaze, subs. and verb (common).—In some of the usages of this word, the precincts of slang are narrowly touched, even if the boundary line is not crossed; as e.g., when a man is said to blaze his way through the labyrinths of the metropolis. The original meaning is well known. The early settlers in traversing the vast forests which abounded on the American continent, found it very necessary to mark their route. This they did by the simple expedient of blazing the trees at convenient distances. Blazing consists merely in chopping a piece of the bark off each tree selected in the desired line of march. The mark itself is called a blaze. In addition to this, blazing was also adopted as an indication that the land within the limits of the trees thus marked had been appropriated by a settler—a rude and informal, but, in early days, a thoroughly well recognised method of securing a title to the land. Some writers affect to derive the word from the old French blazon, the armorial bearing of the Normans, and quote the use of ‘blazen,’ by Shakspeare, in a sense not altogether dissimilar to the meaning conveyed by blazing, as proof to this effect.

It is employed generally in America and all English-speaking colonies. The following quotations will exemplify its use both in the original and more figurative senses.—See Blazes.

1737. Wesley, wks. (1872) I., 68. We then found another blaze and pursued it. [M.]

1883. Bret Harte, In the Carquinez Woods, ch. viii. ‘I made a blaze hereabouts to show where to leave the trail. There it is,’ he added, pointing to a slight notch cut in the trunk of an adjoining tree.… They proceeded cautiously at right angles with the blazed tree for ten minutes more.

Blaze-away, intj. (common).—Look sharp; ‘stir your stumps’—an injunction to renewed and more effective effort.

Blazer, subs. (popular).—Originally applied to the uniform of the Lady Margaret Boat Club of St. John’s College, Cambridge, which was of a bright red and was called a blazer. Now applied to any light jacket of bright colour worn at cricket or other sports. Prof. Skeat [N. and Q., 7 S., iii., 436] speaking of the Johnian blazer, says it was always of the most brilliant scarlet, and thinks it not improbable that the fact suggested the name which subsequently became general.

1880. Times, June 19. Men in spotless flannel, and club blazers. [M.]

1885. Punch, June 27, p. 304. On the morning of the start for our ‘Spin to Brighton,’ Harkaway turns up clad in what he calls a blazer, which makes him look like a nigger minstrel out for a holiday.

1889. Daily News, Aug. 22, p. 6, col. 6. Dress by the Sea. Sir,—In your article of to-day, under the above heading, you speak of ‘a striped red and black blazer,’ ‘the blazer,’ also of ‘the pale toned’ ones. This is worth noting as a case of the specific becoming the generic. A blazer is the red flannel boating jacket, worn by the Lady Margaret, St. John’s College, Cambridge, Boat Club. When I was at Cambridge it meant that and nothing else. It seems from your article that a blazer now means a coloured flannel jacket, whether for cricket, tennis, boating, or seaside wear.—Yours faithfully, Walter Wren.

Blazes, subs. (general).—The infernal regions. This, an allusion to the flames of hell, was the original meaning; constant use, however, has lessened the force of the expression, and as in the case of ‘bloody,’ few who employ such flowers of oratory have any notion of the proper signification. In most cases the word is now a meaningless intensitive, and takes rank with such expressions as like one o’clock, like winkey, etc. The verb to blaze is likewise employed in a manner closely bordering on slang. Thus one says of an action that it is a blazing shame; that he has a blazing headache; that so-and-so is a blazing thief; that such a job is blazing hard work; that it is a blazing hot day—all figurative uses of the legitimate idea. Appended are illustrations of some of its usages.

(Common.)—The brilliant habiliments of flunkeys. Derived from the episode of Sam Weller and the ‘swarry.’

Old Blazes, subs. (common).—The devil. For synonyms, see Skipper.

1849. Southern Literary Messenger, June. He looked, upon my word, like Old Blazes himself, with his clothing all on fire, and rage and despair in his face.

Go to blazes, phr. (common).—Go to the devil; go to hell—expressions of contempt used in imprecations.

1851. Mayhew, London Labour and London Poor, III., p. 135. He jumps through a trap in the window with a bottle on it, marked ‘Old Tom,’ and a scroll falls down, written gone to blazes.

1861. Thackeray, Adventures of Philip, I., p. 99. Old Parr Street is mined, sir—mined! And some morning we shall be blown into blazes,—into blazes, sir, mark my words!

1862. Mrs. Riddell (‘F. G. Trafford’), Too Much Alone, p. 200. ‘Has no one been here this afternoon?’ ‘Yes, one man, to ask his way to blazes, or some place else.’

1880. S. Clemens (‘Mark Twain’), Sketch (Mr. Skae’s Item). I could have told Johnny Skae that I would not receive his communication at such a late hour, and to go to blazes with it.

1882. Jas. Payn, in ‘A Failure of Justice’, in Glow Worm Tales, p. 97. ‘Sir,’ cried I, authoritatively, ‘let me tell you I am a Middlesex magistrate.’ ‘Oh, yes: a likely story!’ was his audacious reply. ‘You’ve got ’Ighbury Barn written on your countenance you have, go to blazes!’ and he slammed down the window.

Like blazes, adv. phr. (popular).—Vehemently; with extreme ardour.—See Anything and Winkey.

1845. B. Disraeli, Sybil or The Two Nations, p. 330. Syllabubs like blazes, and snapdragon as makes the flunkeys quite pale. Ibid, p. 369. ‘They pelted the police.…’ ‘And cheered the red-coats like blazes,’ said Mick. Ibid. She sets her face against gals working in mills like blazes.

1851. Mayhew, London Labour and London Poor, III., p. 159. She liked this very much, in fact so much, that the other little ones used to cry like blazes because I wouldn’t let them have a turn at them [the stilts].

1859. Chas. Dickens, Tale of Two Cities, I., p. 15 (in parts). A blazing strange answer.

1864. J. Lawrence, Guy Livingstone or Thorough. They hate each other like blazes.

18(?). De Quincey, Spanish Nun, sect. 24. The horse was so maddened by the wound, and the road so steep, that he went like blazes.

How, Who, or What the blazes, phr. (popular).—A somewhat more intense interrogatory than Who or What or even Who or What the Dickens.

1836. Dickens, Pickwick, ch. lv., p. 479. ‘Pell,’ he used to say to me many a time, ‘how the blazes you can stand the head-work you do, is a mystery to me.’

1884. W. C. Russell, Jack’s Courtship, ch. xvii. ‘Who the blazes would recognise Jack Seymour in those shore-going duds?’

Drunk as blazes or blaizers, phr. (common).—Very drunk; what is vulgarly called ‘beastly’ drunk. Whether this expression follows the derivation of the examples given above, or whether we must seek its origin in a totally different direction, is a matter of some doubt. The alternative derivation suggested is that the phrase is really drunk as blaizers, an expression which dates back at least to 1830 [N. and Q., 6 S., i., 434]. Sir Thomas Wyse, in Impressions of Greece, speaking (see Life of Richard Waldo Sibthorp, by J. Fowler, 1880, p. 227) of the reverence for St. Blaize, in Greece (who is also, as is known, the patron saint of the English woolcombers), and how his feast was observed in the woollen manufactories of the Midland Counties, says, ‘Those who took part in the procession were called Blaizers, and the phrase as drunk as blaizers originated in the convivialities common on those occasions! So good “Bishop and Martyr” Blaize is dishonoured as well as honoured in England, and very probably in Greece.’ Further data may be found in Chambers’ Book of Days, vol. I., pp. 219–20.

Bleach, verb (Harvard University.)—To absent oneself from morning prayers.—Hall’s College Words and Phrases.

Bleached Mort, subs. (old).—A fair complexioned wench.—Grose. [From bleached, white or fair, + mort, a girl or woman.]

Bleak, adj. (American thieves’).—In the phraseology of American thieves, bleak means handsome.

Bleater, subs. (old).—The victim of a sharper or rook. In the following quotation a Jack in the box (q.v.) is an old thieves’ term for a swindler or cheat.

1609. Dekker, Lanthorne, wks., 1884–5, III., 290. They that are Cheated by Iacke in a Boxe are called bleaters.

1785. Grose, Dictionary of the Vulgar Tongue. Bleaters, those cheated by Jack in a Box.

1811. Lexicon Balatronicum. (Same definition given.)

Bleating Cheat, subs. (old).—A sheep.—Grose. [In the old cant cheat or chete [from Anglo-Saxon ceat] signified a thing; and the names of animals were frequently formed by adding an adjective descriptive of their peculiar noise or cry. Thus a grunting cheat was a pig; a cackling cheat a fowl; a bleating cheat a sheep.] A sheep is also called a wool-bird (q.v.). Among French thieves this animal is designated une morne.

Bleating Cull, subs. (old).—A sheep stealer. [From bleating, see preceding, + cull, a man, honest or otherwise.]

Bleating Prig or Rig, subs. (old).—Sheep stealing. [From bleating, see Bleating cheat, + prig, or rig, the act of stealing.]

Bleed, verb tr. and intr. (popular).—1. To be victimised; to lose or part with money so that the loss is felt; to be ‘rushed’ (q.v.); to have money drawn or extorted from one. [An allusion to the loss sustained by parting with one’s life blood.]

1668. Dryden, An Evening’s Love, Act iv., Sc. 1. In fine, he is vehement, and bleeds on to fourscore or an hundred; and I, not willing to tempt fortune, come away a moderate winner of two hundred pistoles.

1748. T. Dyche, Dictionary (5 ed.). Bleed (v.) … also to part with money freely, upon proposing something agreeable to a person’s disposition, whether it be in gaming or anything else.

1751. Smollett, Peregrine Pickle, ch. lxvi. To whom he was particularly agreeable, on account of his person, address, and bleeding freely at play.

1830. S. Warren, Diary of a Late Physician, ch. xxii. The reputed readiness with which she bled, at last brought her the honour of an old countess, who condescended to win from her, at two sittings, very nearly £5,000.

1849. Thackeray, Pendennis, ch. lxviii. ‘You have got a bill of sale for her furniture.… By Jove, sir, you’ve bled that poor woman enough.’

1885. Manchester Evening News, 23 June, p. 2, col. 2. Men who give bills have to bleed for the accommodation.

2. (printers’.)—A book bleeds when the margins are ‘planed’ down so that the edge of the printed portion is cut away.

1876. Daily Telegraph, June 9, p. 2, col. 1. So very carelessly has the mechanical part of production been done that, in the phraseology of the craft—half technical, half slang—the pages bleed in many places—i.e., the binder’s knife when cutting the edges has also cut away portions of the printed matter.

Bleeder, subs. (University).—1. A duffer beyond compare; a superlative fool. (common).—A euphemism for ‘bloody fool.’

2. (sporting.)—A sovereign. For synonyms, see Canary.

3. (old.)—A spur; an obvious allusion.

Bleeding, adj.—An expletive, which, if meant, would partake of the nature of an oath; as it is there is little enough, sanguinary, either literally or metaphorically about much that is described as bleeding. It sounds big and weighty to those who use it, and that suffices.

1877. Besant and Rice, Son of Vulcan, pt. II., ch. xxiii. ‘When he isn’t up to one dodge he is up to another. You make no bleeding error.’

Bleeding Cully, subs. (old).—One who parts easily with his money, or bleeds freely.—Grose.—[See Bleed.]

Bleed the Monkey, verbal phr. (nautical).—To steal rum from the mess tub called ‘the monkey.’ The term is exclusively naval, ‘monkeys’ not being known on merchant ships. The practice is also called sucking the monkey, and tapping the admiral.—See Admiral.

1889. Chambers’ Journal, 3 Aug., p. 495. To suck the monkey is a phrase explained in Peter Simple as having originally been used among sailors for drinking rum out of cocoa-nuts, the milk having been poured out and the liquor substituted. It is now applied to the act of drinking on the sly from a cask by inserting a straw through a gimlet hole, and to drinking generally. Barham, in the legend of the Black Mousquetaire says:

What the vulgar call sucking the monkey,

Has much less effect on a man when he’s funky.

Blenker, verb (American).—To plunder. A cant phrase much used during the Civil War. Possibly allied to the northern provincialism ‘blenk,’ a trick or stratagem. ‘Blenk’ was also used in Morte d’Arthur in the sense of ‘to bilk,’ or ‘cheat.’

Bless, verb (popular).—To curse; to damn.—See Blessed.

To bless oneself, verbal phr. (common).—To be surprised; to be vexed; to be mortified. Generally, ‘God bless me!’ or ‘Bless my eyes!’ ‘Bless my soul!’ ‘Lor’ bless me!’

1592. Shakspeare, Midsummer Night’s Dream, iv., 2, 11. Quin: Yea, and the best person too: and he is a very paramour, for a sweet voice. Flu: You must say, paragon: a paramour is, God bless us, a thing of nought.

1615. T. Adams, Black Dev., 71. He … would blesse himselfe to think that so little a thing could extend itself to such a capacity. [M.]

1665. Pepys, Diary, 1 Apr. How my Lord Treasurer did bless himself, crying he could do no more, etc.

1759. Sterne, Tristram Shandy, ch. xl. Rub your hands thrice across your foreheads—blow your nose—cleanse your emunctories—sneeze, my good people!—God bless you.

1814. Miss Austen, Mansfield Park, ch. xviii. Could Sir Thomas look in upon us just now, he would bless himself, for we are rehearsing all over the house.

1843. Dickens, Christmas Carol, p. 77. ‘Why, bless my soul,’ cried Fred, ‘who’s that?’

1853. Bulwer Lytton, My Novel, I., p. 307. After they had lain apart for a little while, very silent and sullen, John sneezed. ‘God bless you!’ says Joan, over the bolster.

Not a [penny] to bless oneself with, phr. (popular).—Utterly impecunious; ‘without a sou.’

1843. Dickens, Martin Chuzzlewit, I., p. 237. He landed there without a penny to bless himself with.

1849. Dickens, David Copperfield, I., p. 113. I heard that Mr. Mell was not a bad sort of fellow, but hadn’t a sixpence to bless himself with.

1851. Mayhew, London Labour and London Poor, III., p. 55. The most of ’em ain’t got a farthing to bless themselves with.

1861. George Eliot, Silas Marner, p. 38. I have not a shilling to bless myself with.

To bless one’s stars, verbal phr. (common).—To thank oneself; to attribute one’s good fortune to luck, generally in a ludicrous sense.

1845. Hood, Pauper’s Christmas Carol, iii. Ought not I to bless my stars?

1877. Five Years’ Penal Servitude, ch. iii., p. 230. Forty-eight marks! a week’s remission. The very thought made me savage, but I blessed my stars I had not lost my class, or my good berth.

Blessed, Blest, ppl. adj. (popular).—An ironical euphemism; often used like blazing for ‘cursed,’ ‘damned,’ etc., or as a vow.—See quot. from Hindley and Oaths.

1806. Windham, Let. in Speeches (1812), I., 77. As one of the happy consequences of our blessed system of printing debates, I am described to-day … as having talked a language directly the reverse of that which I did talk. [M.]

1876. C. Hindley, Life and Adventures of a Cheap Jack, p. 139. One Maidstone Fair time, I saw one of the gipsy Lees called ‘Jemmy,’ fighting with a man much bigger than himself. Tom Rosseter, the mumper, was seconding his brother-in-law, Jemmy Lee, when, as Jemmy kept throwing his man very heavily, he said, ‘My dear blessed brother, don’t throw the blessed man like that or you will be sure to kill him.’ ‘Well,’ said Jemmy, ‘but my dear blessed brother, if I don’t kill the dear blessed man, why the big blessed —— will be sure to kill me, and so I must keep on throwing the dear blessed man, for you see what a blessed big dear fellow he is to me.’

1877. Five Years’ Penal Servitude, ch. iii., p. 245. ‘They called in the coppers, and some feller in the shop twigged my old girl as one he’d a-seen before, and blessed if they didn’t identify her as having lifted some things out of the shop, and she was pinched for seven “stretch.” ’

1882. Punch, Aug. 5, p. 49. Sir Pompey Bedell: ‘Oh!—er—Mr. Grigsby, I think! How d’ye do?’ [extending two fingers]. Grigsby: ‘I hope I see you well, Sir Pompey. And next time you give me two fingers, I’m blest if I don’t pull ’em off.’

1889. Sporting Times, July 6. St. Mannock.—Did you ever hear a still, small voice whispering over its morning shrimps, ‘What a pair of blessed fools you are!’

Blether, Blather, subs. (Scotch and U.S.A.).—Nonsense; vapid talk; voluble chatter.

b. 1759, d. 1796. Burns, Tam Samson’s Elegy, st. 12.

Yon auld gray stane, amang the heather,

Marks out his head,

Whare Burns has wrote in rhyming blether,

Tam Samson’s dead!

1886. Pall Mall Gazette, 3 May, 6, 2. Havelock’s florid adjurations to his men, the grim veterans of the 78th, bluntly characterized as blether.

Hence blethering (verb, subs.) used in the same sense as blether, and as an adjective for ‘volubly’ or ‘foolishly talkative.’ Cf., Bletherskate.

b. 1759, d. 1796. Burns, Holy Fair, st. 8.

And some are busy blethrin’

Right loud that day.

1816. Scott, Old Mortality, ch. xiv. ‘I hae been clean spoilt, just wi’ listening to twa blethering auld wives.’

1883. Hawley Smart, Hard Lines, ch. vi. He had brought this blethering Irishman down here, and deluged him with punch for the express purpose of turning him inside out.

Bletherskate, Blatherskite, subs. (provincial and American).—1. Boastful swagger, whether in talk or action.

2. A boaster; noisy talker of blatant nonsense. [From blether, to talk nonsensically, + skate, allied to Scotch skyte, a contemptible fellow.] It occurs in Maggie Lauder, a well-known Scotch song, a fact which Murray says led to its popularisation in the United States. In Ireland it seems to have taken the forms of bladder-skate and bladderum-skate.

Circa 1650. F. Sempill, Maggie Lauder, i. Jog on your gait, ye blether-skate. [M.]

1825. C. Croker, Tradit. S. Ireland, p. 170. He was, as usual, getting on with his bletherumskite about the fairies. [M.]

1870. J. R. O’Flanagan, Lives of the Lord Chancellors of Ireland. ‘Lord Redesdale was speaking of people who learnt to skate with bladders under their arms, to buoy them up if they should fall into a hole and risk being drowned.’ ‘Ah, my Lord,’ said Toler, ‘that is what we call bladderumskate in Ireland.’

Blew, verb (common).—1. To inform; to ‘peach’; to expose; to betray.—See Blow upon, of which it is a variant.

2. (popular.)—To spend; to waste; generally in connection with money. When a man has spent or lost all his money, he is said to have blewed it. [The derivation is uncertain, that most likely being its reference to a corrupt grammatical use of blew, the past tense of ‘to blow.’ Money spent recklessly and wasted vanishes as if blown away by the wind.]

1884. Daily Telegraph, May 28, p. 5, col. 1. ‘Which paid him £1,700 compensation, when he took to horses, and blewed the blooming lot in eighteen months.’

1889. Sporting Times, June 29.

Isabel and Maudie knew the Turf and all its arts—

They had often blewed a dollar on a wrong ’un—

And Isabel one evening met a mug from rural parts,

An attenuated Juggins, and a long ’un.

French Synonyms. Se faire rincer (popular: ‘to be cleared out’ [at a game]. Rincer, properly ‘to drench,’ ‘to serve out,’ also has the slang signification of ‘to thrash’); paumer (thieves’ and vagrants’: this verb is very old, and is derived from palma = empoigner. It also signifies to arrest, lose, etc.); laumir (an old cant term); se faire ratisser (familiar: literally ‘to scrape oneself’); faire rasoir (gaming: ‘to be penniless’); se faire enturer (popular: ‘to cut into oneself’; enture = incision or cut); panner quelqu’un (popular); mettre dans le sac (gamesters’: Cf., ‘be in a hole’); décavage (familiar: a term employed to signify the circumstances of a gamester who has ‘blewed it’; one who is in ‘Queer Street’—from décavé, a ruined gamester); se faire lessiver: ‘to wash oneself.’ Michel gives lessive = defence, and lessiveur = barrister, and remarks that better terms could hardly be given to advocate and speech by those charged with offence, and who wish to return from the same ‘white as snow,’ or, as police phraseology hath it, without a stain upon one’s character. For other synonyms, see Shave.

Blimey, intj. (low).—A corruption of ‘Blind me!’; an expression little enough understood by those who constantly have it in their mouths.

Blind, subs. (common).—1. The night time—an allusion to the absence of light.—See Darkmans.

2. (familiar.)—A pretence; a shift; an action through which one’s real purpose is concealed; that which obstructs; a ‘make-believe.’

1663. Dryden, Wild Gallant, Act iii. He … took your court to her, only as a blind to your affection for me.

1694. Congreve, Double Dealer, Act ii., Sc. 5. I know you don’t love Cynthia, only as a blind for your passion to me.

1703. Mrs. Centlivre, Beau’s Dual, I., i. (1872), i., 70. Am I publish’d to the world as a blind for his designs?

1877. E. L. Linton, World Well Lost, ch. xxviii. The excuse was too palpably a blind to be accepted as a reason.

1889. Answers, July 13, p. 104, col. 3. The Major and the Captain he referred to in his letters were mere ‘blinds.’ The Captain relied upon the fact that not one person in a dozen took the trouble to apply to these gentlemen.

3. (printers’.)—A paragraph [¶] mark is so called; from the eye of the reversed ‘P’ being filled up.

Adj. (old).—Tipsy; in liquor. Nares says this cant term was used with others in the works of Taylor, the water-poet [1630]. For synonyms, see Screwed.

Blind as a brickbat, adv. phr. (colloquial).—A facetious simile for very blind—mentally or physically.

1849. Dickens, David Copperfield, III., p. 97. The old scholar … is as blind as a brickbat.

When the devil is blind, adv. phr. (common).—Never. The French have three very graphic—though in one case very vulgar—analogues for this expression—quand les poules pisseront, which need not be translated; le trente six du mois, i.e., ‘on the thirty-sixth day of the month,’ and quand les poules auront des dents, i.e., when cocks and hens have teeth.

To go it blind.—A luminous figure of speech to convey the idea of entering upon an undertaking without thought as to the result, or inquiry beforehand. This is one of the many slang expressions which owe their origin to the American game of poker, the special form of which known as blind poker, where the cards are betted upon before being looked at, being responsible for the phrase now in question. Cf., also Blind (subs.).

1848. J. Russell Lowell, Biglow Papers, II., p. 118—

‘to impress on the popular mind

The comfort and wisdom of goin’ it blind.’

1871. De Vere, Americanisms, p. 328. Blind Poker has given rise to the very common phrase, to go it blind, used whenever an enterprise is undertaken without previous inquiry.

1882. General Sherman, Memoirs, vol. I., p. 342. I know that in Washington I am incomprehensible, because at the outset of the war I would not go it blind, and rush headlong into a war unprepared and with an utter ignorance of its extent and purpose.

1888. Chicago Ledger, May 12. ‘And so you’ve married a jewel, have you, Tom?’ ‘I have, for a fact, Dick.’ ‘Lucky dog! You’re a man in a million. Mighty few go it blind and fare as well as you’ve done.’ ‘I didn’t go it blind. I employed a detective, and he managed to get board in the family.’

Blind Cheeks, subs. (common).—The posteriors. [The derivation is from an obvious simile.]

Among English Synonyms are—Two fat cheeks and ne’er a nose; blind Cupid; ampersand; cheeks; arse; corybungo; dopey; droddum; dummock; feak; bum; nock (i.e., ‘a notch’); round mouth; windmill; blind-eye; monocular eye-glass.

French Synonyms. Un borgne (low: ‘a one-eyed person’); un cyclope (the allusion is mythological—from Cyclops, the one-eyed giant, whose optic was placed in the middle of the forehead); la rose des vents; un piffe; un pignard; boite aux ordures. German Synonym. Acherponim (from Hebrew achar ponim; literally ‘the face at the back’). For other synonyms, see Bum.

Blind Drunk, adj. phr. (common).—Very intoxicated; so drunk as to be unable to see better than a blind man. Americans say, ‘So drunk as not to be able to see through a ladder.’ For synonyms, see Screwed.

1845. Disraeli, Sybil or the Two Nations, p. 350. Hang me if I wasn’t blind drunk at the end of it.

Blinder. To take a blinder, phr. (thieves’).—To die. For synonyms, see Aloft.

Blind Eye, subs. (common).—The podex.—See Blind cheeks.

Blind Half Hundred, subs. (military).—The Fiftieth Regiment of Foot; from so many men suffering from ophthalmia during the Egyptian campaign [1801]; also the Dirty Half Hundred from the men in action wiping their faces with their black facings during the Peninsula War. Half Hundred is an adaptation of the number of the regiment—the Fiftieth. The corps is also called the ‘Gallant Fiftieth,’ from its gallantry at the battle of Vimiera, 1808.

1871. Chambers’ Journal, No. 417, p. 803. The Dirty Half Hundred was the curious nickname given to the 50th Foot. Two accounts are given of the origin of this. One asserts that it was from their red uniforms being faced with black and silver lace, and thus giving the regiment a dull and sombre appearance; whilst the other tells us that it was from the men wiping their perspiring faces with the black cuffs of their coats, and thus giving their countenances a somewhat swarthy tint. Whatever may be the origin of this sobriquet, they bear a second about which there can be no doubt. From the glorious charge, led by Colonel Walker, at Vimiera, this regiment is known as the ‘Gallant Fiftieth.’

1886. Tinsley’s Magazine, April, p. 322. Most people have heard of the ‘Fighting Fiftieth.’ But the 50th are rich in nicknames. They are, or at least they were, the Blind Half-Hundredth, having been but too literally blinded by the ravages of ophthalmia when in Egypt with Sir Ralph Abercromby. And when on one occasion the men dried the perspiration from their faces with their cuffs, they for a while became the Dirty Half-Hundredth.

Blind Harpers, subs. (old).—Beggars counterfeiting blindness, playing on fiddles, etc.—Grose.

Blind-Man’s Holiday, subs. (familiar).—Formerly this common colloquialism signified the night or darkness; it is now, however, usually applied to the time ‘between lights’ when it is too dark to see, but often not dark enough to light up, and a holiday or rest from work is taken. The blind from their infirmity are in general exempted from labour, and in this view keep holiday; when the twilight hour comes, when those that can work, or read, etc., can no longer see to do so, it is blind-man’s holiday to them, and they of necessity rest accordingly. This derivation, one would think, is sufficiently obvious; but, on the other hand, there are those who think the expression a corruption of ‘blind-man’s all-day.’ The meaning then would be that the gradual departure of light brings one to the state which the blind man endures all day, or which is all the day the blind man has. Whichever derivation be true, it is, however, interesting to note that this ‘household word’ of to-day has been in the mouths of the English people for more than three hundred years. It is the English equivalent of the Scotch in the gloaming, of an equally venerable lineage.

1599. Nashe, Lenten Stuffe, in wks. V., 263. And what will not blinde Cupid doe in the night which is his blindman’s holiday?

1738. Swift, Polite Conversation (conv. iii.). Indeed, madam, it is blindman’s holiday; we shall soon be all of a colour.

1824. T. Fielding, Proverbs, etc. (Familiar Phrases), p. 147. Blindman’s holiday.

1866. Aunt Judy’s Mag., Oct., 358. At meal times, or in blindman’s holiday, when no work was to be done. [M.]

Blind Monkeys, subs. (common).—Hotten thus explains this expression:—An imaginary collection at the Zoological Gardens, which are supposed to receive care and attention from persons fitted by nature for such office and for little else. An idle and useless person is often told that he is only fit to lead the blind monkeys to evacuate. Another form this elegant conversation takes, is for one man to tell another that he knows of a suitable situation for him. ‘How much a week? and what to do?’ are natural questions, and then comes the scathing and sarcastic reply, ‘Five bob a week at the doctor’s—you’re to stand behind the door and make the patients sick. They won’t want no physic when they sees your mug.’

Blindo, verb (military).—To die. For synonyms, see Aloft.

Blind One’s Trail, verbal phr. (American).—Figuratively, to remove the traces of one’s actions; to conceal one’s intentions. This expression is obviously traceable to the days of Indian warfare, when even the lives of those engaged often depended upon the success with which the trail could be ‘blinded,’ or obliterated. Also to trash one’s trail (q.v.).

Blind Side, subs. (familiar).—The blind side of a person or thing is that which is weakest; the most assailable side. The expression is much older than the example quoted by Murray [1655].

1606. Chapman, Gentleman Usher, Act i., p. 79 (Plays, 1874).

For that, we’ll follow the blind side of him,

And make it sometimes subject of our mirth.

1663. Dryden, Wild Gallant, Act iii. Con. My father’s credulous, and this rogue has found the blind side of him.

1742. Fielding, Joseph Andrews, bk. III., ch. v. Indeed, if this good man had an enthusiasm, or what the vulgar call a blind side, it was this,—he thought a schoolmaster the greatest character in the world, and himself the greatest of all schoolmasters.

1820. Lamb, Elia (Mrs. Battle). All people have their blind side—their superstitions.

Blink, verb (American).—To drink. [Probably of humorous origin, similar to smile (q.v.).—and alluding to a wink or blink exchanged between friends and comrades before drinking. A frequent toast is ‘I look towards you,’ and the transference of sense in such a phrase as ‘I wink’ or ‘blink to you,’ and then the use of to blink for ‘to drink’ is easy enough. Cf., also To go out and see a man.]

Blinker, subs. (popular).—1. The eye. [From blink, to move the eyelids, to wink; Cf., Winkers; Peepers; Optics, etc.] For synonyms, see Glims.

1816. Quiz, Grand Master, I., ii. A patent pair of goggle winkers, Conceal’d from public view his blinkers. [M.]

1888. American Humorist. ‘Blank your blinkers,’ angrily retorted Brudee, ‘your business was not to fight, but show us the enemy.’

2. (common.)—pl. Spectacles. For synonyms, see Barnacles.

1732. M. Green, Grotto, 10. Bigots who but one way see through blinkers of authority. [M.]

1803. Bristed, Pedest. Tour, I., 38. A little fellow, with blinkers over his eyes. [M.]

1851. Thackeray, Eng. Hum., IV. (1858), 205. Who only dare to look up at life through blinkers. [M.]

3. (provincial.)—In Norfolk, a black eye.

4. (pugilistic.)—A hard blow in the eye.

Blank your blinkers.—A euphemistic oath, equivalent to the more common ‘D——n your eyes.’—See Oaths.

Blink-Fencer, subs. (thieves’).—A person who sells spectacles. [From blink, a contracted form of ‘blinkers,’ spectacles + fence, primarily a receiver of stolen goods, but also applied to a tradesman of any kind, + er.]

Blinko, subs. (thieves’ and vagrants’).—An amateur entertainment held, generally, at a public house; a free and easy (q.v.); a sing song (q.v.).

1877. J. Greenwood, Dick Temple. ‘What is a blinko for instance?’ ‘Well, it’s a kind of entertainment, singing, and that,’ replied the old fellow, ‘to which strangers are not invited—least of all the police.’

1883. Daily Telegraph, August 4, p. 2, col. 1. ‘An Harmonic blinko, the proceeds of which will be given towards buying a barrow for Young Duckling, who has got married with no visible means of support.’

Blister, verb (common).—Employed euphemistically for ‘to damn.’ Cf., Blamed.

1840. H. Cockton, Valentine Vox, ch. xxvi. ‘Where can they be hid?’ he exclaimed, with great emphasis. ‘Blister ’em! Where can the scoundrels be got to?’

Blizzard, subs. (popular).—A poser; a stunning blow; an unanswerable argument, etc., etc. This word, recently brought into prominent notice as the name by which sudden and exceptionally severe snowstorms are known in the Western States of America, is one the etymology of which is dubious. Some authorities derive it from the German blitz—lightning, but a correspondent of N. and Q. claims it as of English nationality, asserting that the word has been known in the Midland Counties in its present form, or nearly so, for over thirty years; further stating that ‘may I be blizzered’ is a common oath there. Assuming that the expression is a variation of the more generally familiar ‘May God strike me blind’ (that is, presumably by lightning), there is nothing antagonistic between the two theories of its genesis, and a further light is perhaps thrown upon the subject, tending to support its German origin, by the fact that, in Pennsylvania, it has been familiar, according to a correspondent of the New York Sun, for more than half-a-century, its use and meaning being akin to the instances above mentioned. It appears that in the central counties of the State in question, the word was always used to include the idea of the ‘poser,’ and even of force, violence, spitefulness, or vindictiveness. If one dealt another a hostile blow he ‘gave him a blizzard on the nose,’ ‘on the jaw,’ ‘between the eyes,’ etc. If a magistrate lectured a litigant severely he ‘gave him a blizzard.’ If in debate one dealt mercilessly in ridicule he ‘gave his opponent a blizzard.’ If one man swore at or cursed another he ‘gave him a blizzard.’ If a man’s wife scolded him she ‘gave him a blizzard.’ When it is remembered that Pennsylvania is the State in which the Dutch or German element most largely predominates, it does not seem far fetched to attribute its origin to a Teutonic source, more especially as there is nothing in the English usage to preclude such a derivation. However this may be, the word invariably seems to imply suddenness combined with violence; and, at any rate, it apparently disposes of the supposition that the word is of Western origin, or a coinage of so recent a date as is frequently supposed. Like most words of its class, which have largely struck the popular taste, it has been generally adopted in an idiomatic sense to signify a stunning blow; an overwhelming argument, or a cool reception.

1834. Crockett, Tour Down East, 16. A gentleman at dinner asked me for a toast; and supposing he meant to have some fun at my expense, I concluded to go ahead, and give him and his likes a blizzard.

1871. De Vere, Americanisms, p. 443. Blizzard, a term referred back to the German Blitz, means in the West a stunning blow or an overwhelming argument.

1884. G. A. S[ala], in Ill. L. News, Feb. 23, p. 171, col. 2. Blizzard. The philologers in American Slang refer back to the German blitz; and its original meaning in the Western States seems to have been a stunning blow or an overwhelming argument. In the Eastern States a sudden set-in of severe frost is called a ‘cold snap.’ Query, how many ‘cold snaps’ does it take to make a ‘blizzard’?

1888. San Francisco News Letter. I should like to have seen the Colonel’s face when he got that very cold, blizzardy letter. I bet that if Minnie had been near him he would have slapped her real hard.

Bloak.—See Bloke.

Bloat, subs. (American thieves’).—1. A drowned body.

2. A drunkard. The simile which groups the two is, perhaps, not far wrong. [Probably from bloat, an adjective signifying puffed, swollen, inflated. Bloat was also formerly in use in England as a contemptuous name for a human being.]

Bloated Aristocrat, subs. (familiar).—An opprobrious epithet for a man swollen with the pride of rank or wealth; also a general sobriquet applied by ‘the masses’ to ‘the classes.’ ‘Bloated’ has long been employed in a similar sense. Swift spoke of a certain statesman as ‘a bloated minister’ [1731].

1861. Thackeray, Adventures of Philip, I., p. 101. What a bloated aristocrat Thingamy has become since he got his place!

1863. G. A. Sala, Breakfast in Bed, essay I., p. 17 (1864). Of the two most salient English gentlemen represented, one is a bloated aristocrat of a Baronet hopelessly in debt, the other a rapid brainless nobleman.

1869. M. Twain, Innocents Abroad, ch. x. We sat down finally, at a late hour, in the great Casino, and called for unstinted champagne. It is so easy to be bloated aristocrats where it costs nothing of consequence!

Bloater.—See My Bloater; also Mild Bloater.

Blob, verb (vagrants’).—To talk; to ‘patter.’ [Probably a corrupted form of blab.] Beggars are of two kinds—those who screeve (introducing themselves with a fakement, or false document) and those who blob, or state their case in their own truly ‘unvarnished’ language. [See, however, second quot.]

1851–61. H. Mayhew, London Lab. and Lon. Poor, vol. I., p. 339. ‘Of professional beggars there are two kinds—those who “do it on the blob” (by word of mouth), and those who do it by “screeving,” that is, by petitions and letters.’

1861. Whyte Melville, Good for Nothing, ch. xxvi. ‘Five minutes more and we shall run into him,’ he shouts, sitting well back on his horse, and urging him to his extreme pace, ‘when he blobs like that he’s getting beat. See how Canvas sticks to him, and the yellow dog hangs back waiting for the turn.’

Block, subs. (old).—A stupid person; a hard unsympathetic individual; one of mean, unattractive appearance. [A figurative sense of block, as of wood or stone.]

a. 1534. N. Udall, Roister Doister, III., iii., p. 44 (Arber). Ye are such a calfe, such an asse, such a blocke.

1595. Shakspeare, Two Gentlemen, Act ii., Sc. 5. Speed. What an ass art thou! I understand thee not. Launce. What a block art thou, that thou canst not!

1599. Jonson, Every Man out of his Humour. Induct. Cor. Hang him, dull block!

1624. Massinger, Bondman, II., ii. This will bring him on, Or he’s a block.

1748. T. Dyche, Dictionary (5 ed.). Block (s) … sometimes an ignorant, stupid fellow.

1881. Besant and Rice, Chaplain of the Fleet, pt. II., ch. iv. She said that her partner was delightful to dance with, partly because he was a lord—and a title, she said, gives an air of grace to any block—partly because he danced well and talked amiably.

2. The head. Possibly an abbreviated form of barber’s block (q.v.). For synonyms, see Crumpet.

1637. Shirley, Lady of Pleas, II., i. Buy a beaver For thy own block.

1861. H. Kingsley, Ravenshoe, ch. xxxv. ‘I cleaned a groom’s boots on Toosday, and he punched my block because I blacked the tops.’

Barber’s Block, subs. (common).—1. A transferred sense [from a wooden head for showing off a wig] applied to a showy, over-dressed man; a fop.

1876. E. Lynn Linton, Hallberger’s Illus. Mag., p. 72. No, not to men worthy of the name of men—men, not barber’s blocks.

2. The head.—See Block, sense 2.

1823. Scott, Peveril of the Peak, ch. v. (I., p. 67). Were I not to take better care of the wood than you, brother, there would soon be no more wood about the town than the barber’s block that’s on your own shoulders.

A chip of the same old block, phr. (common).—A man or thing exhibiting the same qualities as he or that with which a comparison is made.

1627. Sanderson, Serm., I., 283. Am not I a child of the same Adam, a vessel of the same clay, a chip of the same block, with him. [M.]

1655. L’Estrange, Charles I., 126. Episcopacy, which they thought but a great chip of the old block Popery. [M.]

To cut a block with a razor, phr. (old).—Inconsequent argument; futile endeavour; incongruous application of means or ability to the end in view.

1774. Goldsmith, Retaliation, 42. ’Twas his fate unemployed or in place, sir, to eat mutton cold and cut blocks with a razor.

To block a hat, phr. (popular).—To crush a man’s hat over the eyes by a blow; to bonnet (q.v.).

Blockers.—See Block Ornaments.

Block House, subs. (old).—A prison; the house of detention. For synonyms, see Cage.

1624. Capt. Smith, Virginia, III., xi., 85. To stop the disorders of our disorderly Theeues … built a Block-house. [M.]

1785. Grose, Dictionary of the Vulgar Tongue. Block-houses, Prisons, houses of correction, etc.

1811. Lexicon Balatronicum. [Same definition given as in Grose.]

1889. Murray, New English Dictionary. [Common since c. 1500: of uncertain history. The Ger. equivalent blockhaus (‘einen steinen Blockhaus’) is quoted by Grimm, 1557 and 1602; the Du. blokhuis is in Kilian, 1599; Fr. blocus, generally considered to be the same word, and orig. in same sense, is quoted by Littré in the 16th c. (Cf., Bloccuz). So far as evidence goes, the Eng. is thus the earliest; but we should expect it to be of Du. or Ger. origin. In any case the sense was not originally (as in modern notion) a house composed of blocks of wood, but one which blocks or obstructs a passage. The history and age of the Ger. blockhaus and Fr. blocus require more investigation.]

Block Island Turkey, subs. (American).—Salted cod-fish. Connecticut and Rhode Island. Slang delights in naming fish as flesh. For some curious examples, see Two-eyed steak.

Block Ornaments, or Blockers, subs. (common).—1. Small pieces of meat of indifferent quality, trimmings from the joints, etc. Exposed for sale on the blocks or counters of butcher’s shops in cheap neighbourhoods.

1848. Fraser’s Mag., XXXVII., 396. Forced to substitute a blocker of meat, with its cheap accompaniment of bread and vegetables … for poultry and rump steaks. [M.]

1851–61. H. Mayhew, London Lab. and Lon. Poor, vol. I., p. 54. For dinner … they buy block ornaments, as they call the small, dark-coloured pieces of meat exposed on the cheap butchers’ blocks or counters. Ibid, p. 516. What they consider a good living is a dinner daily off good block ornaments (small pieces of meat, discoloured and dirty, but not tainted, usually set for sale on the butcher’s block).

1884. Punch, No. 2063, p. 29. And eager-faced women must bargain for tainted block ornaments still.

1887. Standard, Jan. 20, The Poor at Market. Watching a man who stands with his wife and little girl before a butcher’s shop, let us see what they have to choose from in buying for the next day’s dinner. On the shelves set out in front of the shop meat scraps are offered at 3½d. the lb.; better scraps (or block ornaments, as they are termed) at 4d.; somewhat shapeless small joints of beef from inferior parts at 5d., one coarse shoulder of mutton at the same; tolerably good-looking meat at 6d.; mutton chops at 7d. and 8d.; and rump steak at 10d.

2. Applied to individuals, a block ornament signifies a queer looking man or woman—one odd in appearance.

Bloke or Bloak, subs. (common).—A man; a fellow. In saying ‘not strictly “a man” as Hotten defines it, but a man in a contemptuous sense,’ Barrère is himself wide of the mark. The word may sometimes be used contemptuously; but, generally speaking, any idea of reproach or praise is absent, and a bloke means a man pure and simple. In witness whereof are the following examples of its use.

1851. Mayhew, London Labour and London Poor, III., p. 397. If we met an old bloke (man) we propped him.

1857. Snowden, Mag. Assistant, 3 ed., p. 446. A gentleman.—A bloak.

1860. Sala, The Baddington Peerage, II., p. 49. My old bloke!

1862. Kingsley, in Macmillan’s Mag., Dec, 96. Little better than blokes and boodles after all. [M.]

1863. Ouida, Held in Bondage, bk. I., p. 245. The girl is stunning, the blokes say, so we must forgive you.

1865. Miss Braddon, in Temple Bar, XIII., 483. The society of the aged bloke is apt to pull upon the youthful intellect.

1869. J. Greenwood, Seven Curses of London. It came out in the course of the evidence that the meaning of the word bloke was ‘a man whom a woman might pick up in the street.’

1873. Robinson, Little Kate Kirby, I., p. 136. ‘Give us a horder then, old bloke,’ shrieked another gamin.

c. 1875. Broadside Ballad, ‘Keep it Dark.’

I have heard though may be it isn’t a fact,

Keep it dark!

That the present Lord Chancellor’s going to be sacked,

Keep it dark!

And Dr. Kenealy, that popular bloke,

That extremely warm member, the member for Stoke,

Is about to succeed him, the lawyers to choke—

But, keep it dark!

c. 1869. Broadside Ballad, ‘Shooting the Moon.’ Spoken—Yes, and I used to do very well, until some ragged young urchin said to his pal, don’t you varder, don’t you know that ere bloke, that’s the bloke we saw the other day with a barrow.

1883. Daily News, May 15, p. 7, col. 2. ‘When you are coming out into the yard ask the next bloke to change numbers with you.’

In each case the ‘face value’ of the word appears to be simply ‘a man,’ and in spite of Barrère’s assertion that ‘in the police newspapers twenty-five years ago a bloke was a victim of sharps, a stupid person, a greenhorn,’ the evidence is all the other way; in one instance, indeed, the individual in question is reported to be ‘a gentleman.’ As regards derivation, its origin is uncertain. Hotten and Ogilvie compare it with the Hindustanee loke, a man; while Leland traces it to ‘the Dutch blok, a log, a fool.’ For synonyms, see Cove.

Blood, subs. (old).—1. A fop; dandy; buck; or ‘fast’ man. Originally in common use, but now obsolete. [From that legitimate sense of the word which attributes the seat of the passions and emotions to the blood. Hence, a man of spirit; one who is worth mention, and, in an inferior sense, he who makes himself notorious, whether by dress or rowdyism.] In the last century, especially during the regency of George IV., the term was largely in vogue to denote a young man of good birth or social standing about town; subsequently, it came to mean a riotous, disorderly fellow.

1562. Bulleyn, Sicke Men, etc., 73a. A lustie blood, or a pleasaunte brave young roister. [M.]

1606. John Day, Ile of Gulls, Act i., p. 9. Basil. Welcome gallants, welcome honord bloods. Ibid. To which effect we have sent a generall challenge to all the youthfull bloods of Africa.

1752. Adventurer, No. 15. Our heroes of liberty, whether Bucks or Bloods, or of whatever other denomination, when by some creditor of slavish principles they have been locked up in a prison, never yet petitioned to be hanged.

1839. Harrison Ainsworth, Jack Sheppard [1889], p. 21. ‘Trenchard!’ he muttered—‘Aliva Trenchard. They were right, then, as to the name. Well, if she survives the accident—as the blood who styles himself Sir Cecil fancies she may do—this ring will make my fortune by leading to the discovery of the chief parties concerned in this strange affair.’

1846. Thackeray, V. Fair, ch. x. A perfect and celebrated blood, or dandy about town, was this young officer.

1853. Thackeray, Barry Lyndon, ch. ii., p. 36. The modern bloods have given up the respectful ceremonies which distinguished a gentleman in my time.

2. (old.)—Money. [A comparison of blood, as the vital principle, to money, as that upon which the sustenance of life depends—the ‘sinews of war,’ the ‘needful,’ etc.] For all synonyms, see Actual.

1748. Dodsley, Collection of Poems, III., 199.

He sticks to gaming, as the surer trade;

Turns downright sharper, lives by sucking blood.

1872. M. E. Braddon, Dead Sea Fruit, ch. iv. ‘A man who ought to consider himself uncommonly fortunate never to have known what it was to be hard up, or to have a pack of extravagant sons sucking his blood, like so many modern vampires.’

Verb (familiar).—To deplete of money; to victimise; a figurative usage of ‘to bleed’; i.e., surgically, to let or draw blood by opening a vein. Cf., subs., sense 2, and Bleed.

1884. Hawley Smart, From Post to Finish, p. 187. ‘He is very likely to want a thousand pounds at any moment. There’s a leaven of the old squire in his composition, and I recollect hearing that he was blooded over the Phaeton Leger.’ ‘You surely can’t mean that he has taken to racing? Why, you must be aware that he has no money for anything of that sort.’

Blood and Entrails, subs. (American).—The British ensign is so nicknamed by Yankee sailors; English salts return the compliment by jokingly speaking of the American flag as the gridiron and doughboys (q.v.).

Blood and Thunder, subs. (common).—A beverage of port wine and brandy mixed. Port is the blood, from its colour; brandy the thunder—the combined effects being, it is held, provocative of ‘thundering’ head-aches.

Blood and Thunder Tales, subs. phr. (originally American, now common).—Low class fiction, the term being generally applied to works dealing with the exploits of desperadoes, cut-throats, and other criminals. Also called Awfuls, Penny dreadfuls, Gutter literature, Shilling shockers, etc., all of which see for further illustrations.

1876. Portland Transcript, May. Here let me say one word to the Transcript mothers. Look carefully to your child’s reading matter. Beware of the cheap, trashy romances, the blood and thunder tales by Tom, Dick and Harry, which fill the counters of so many of our bookstores.

1883. Daily News, March 26, p. 2, col. 3. The blood and thunder tragedies generally associated with the transpontine drama.

Blood-an’-’Ouns, phr. (old).—An abbreviated form of an old and blasphemous oath—‘God’s blood and wounds!’

1839. Harrison Ainsworth, Jack Sheppard [1889], p. 58. ‘Och! if he’s a friend o’ yours, my dear joy, there’s no more to be said; and right sorry am I I struck him. But, blood-an’-’ouns! man, if ould Nick himself were to hit me a blow, I’d be afther givin’ him another.’

Blood-Curdler or Blood-Freezer, subs. (common).—A narration or incident which ‘makes the flesh creep’; that which stirs one’s feelings strongly, and generally repulsively. Said of a sensational murder, a thrilling ghost-story, etc. Cf., Blood and thunder tales.

Blood for Blood, phr. (trade).—When tradesmen exchange wares, setting the cost of one kind off against another instead of making payment in currency, they are said to give blood for blood. Cf., Blood. (1) the vital fluid; (2) money—hence applied to that upon the sale of which a man is dependent for a livelihood.

1811. Lexicon Balatronicum. A hatter furnishing a hosier with a hat, and taking payment in stockings, is said to deal blood for blood.

Blood-Freezer.—See Blood-curdler.

Blood-Red Fancy, subs. (pugilistic).—A particular kind of handkerchief sometimes worn by pugilists and frequenters of prize fights.—See Billy.

1857. Snowden, Mag. Assistant, 3 ed., p. 446. Red silk handkerchief. Blood-red fancy.

Blood Suckers, subs. (military).—The Sixty-third Regiment of Foot.

Blood-Tub, subs. (American).—A rowdy; a blustering bully; a rough. This nickname was peculiar to Baltimore, which city, perhaps of all cities in the Union, enjoyed, for a time, an unenviable reputation on account of the rowdyism of a section of its inhabitants. More or less, however, these turbulent gangs infest all the more important centres of population, and answer in many respects to the English ‘roughs.’ They are recruited largely from the labouring and commercial population; they drink, and swear, but commit no crime, save an occasional deed of violence in times when excitement runs unusually high, and are for the most part affiliated with one or other of the two political parties, the Republicans or Democrats. They are known as Dead Rabbits in New York, Moyamensing Hounds in Philadelphia, Blood-tubs in Baltimore, where at other times they have also been designated Babes, Plug-uglies, and Ashlanders. The Blood-tubs are reported to have been mostly butchers, and to have got their epithet from having, on an election day, dipped an obnoxious German’s head in a tub of warm blood, and then driven him running through the town.

18(?). Song of the Irish Legion.

Blood-tubs and plug-uglies, and others galore,

Are sick for a thrashing in sweet Baltimore;

Be jabers! that same I’d be proud to inform

Of the terrible force of an Irishman’s arm.

Bloody, adj. (low).—An epithet difficult to define, and used in a multitude of vague and varying senses. Most frequently, however, as it falls with wearisome reiteration every two or three seconds from the mouths of London roughs of the lowest type, no special meaning, much less a sanguinary one, can be attached to its use. In such a case it forms a convenient intensitive, sufficiently important as regards sound to satisfy those whose lack of language causes them to fall back upon a frequent use of words of this type. Bloody occasionally carries with it a suspicion of anger, resentment, or detestation. [For suggested derivations, and some incidental illustrative examples, see adverbial usage, which follows.]

1840. R. Dana, Bef. Mast, ii., 2. You’ll find me a bloody rascal. Ibid, xx., 61. They’ve got a man for a mate of that ship, and not a bloody sheep about decks. [M.]

1880. Ruskin, Fiction, Fair and F., § 29. The use of the word bloody in modern low English is a deeper corruption, not altering the form of the word, but defiling the thought in it. [M.]

Adv. (low).—Among the vulgar at the present day bloody, used adverbially, says G. A. Sala [Notes and Queries, 4 S., i., Feb. 8, 1868], simply qualifies the superlative and excessive. Admiral Gambier, who is said to have introduced ‘tea and piety’ into the navy, very properly discountenanced the practice so long common to naval officers of d——g the sailors’ eyes while they were reefing topsails. His tars, scarcely grateful, nicknamed the admiral ‘Old Bloody Politeful.’ The lower classes use bloody indifferently as a term of depreciation or appreciation. Thus, it’s a bloody shame; and per contra in a flash song, the poet (supposed to be languishing in prison) recounts that the chaplain discoursed to the inmates—

‘How Jonah lived inside of a whale,

’Twas a bloody sight better than county gaol.’

As regards derivation, dual causes seem to have operated in the evolution of bloody in its depraved sense. The various stages are summarised by Murray, in so far as evidence will permit, as follows. The origin is not quite certain; but there is good reason to think that it was at first a reference to the habits of the ‘bloods’ or aristocratic rowdies of the end of the 17th and beginning of the 18th c. The phrase ‘bloody drunk’ was apparently = ‘as drunk as a blood’ (Cf., ‘as drunk as a lord’); thence it was extended to kindred expressions, and at length to others; probably in later times, its associations with bloodshed and murder (Cf., a bloody battle, a bloody butcher) have recommended it to the rough classes as a word that appeals to their imagination. We may compare the prevalent craving for impressive or graphic intensives, seen in the use of jolly, awfully, terribly, devilish, deuced, damned, ripping, rattling, thumping, stunning, thundering, etc. There is no ground for the notion that bloody, offensive as from association it now is to ears polite, contains any profane allusion, or has connection with the oath ‘’sblood!’ In this particular it may be noted that Mr. C. G. Leland is in error when he says ‘Mr. Hotten thinks this is an expletive without reference to any [italics not in original] meaning.’ Mr. Hotten neither said nor implied anything of the kind, but just the reverse; and Mr. Leland has hung his remarks upon a misquotation. Hotten’s exact words are ‘bloody, an expletive used, without reference to meaning, as an adjective and an adverb, simply for intensification’—a very different thing; ergo as far as Hotten goes he is absolutely correct.

There seems little doubt, however, that the association of bloody with bloodshed and murder has had a very large influence in determining its present bad signification in the mouth of a cockney of the lower classes. It is noteworthy, too, that the German blutig is sometimes used, says H. Tiedeman [N. and Q., 4 S., i., Feb. 8, 1868], in the same manner as the London bloody:—While living in Dresden, I heard many times uttered such phrases as—

‘Ich habe keinen blutigen Heller mehr,’

[I have no bloody penny or ‘red cent’ more],

for ‘I have not a single penny left,’ etc. Was, then, the Dresden blutig introduced to the London mob in the shape of bloody? The Dutch bloedig may be used figuratively, just as the French sanglant. Une injure sanglante might be translated by ‘een bloedige beleediging.’ It might, and it is in fact, sometimes used to qualify an adjective. To say ‘bloedig schoon’ (literally, ‘bloody beautiful’), would be perfectly correct, but then it has not the sense of exceedingly; it keeps its original meaning. ‘Bloedig schoon’ could not be rendered otherwise than by sanguinary and beautiful.

1676. Sir G. Etheredge, Man of Mode (Act i., Sc. 1), p. 186, ed. 1723.

Dor. Give him half-a-crown.

Med. Not without he will promise to be bloody drunk.

1684. Dryden, Prol. Southerne’s Disappointment, line 59. The doughty bullies enter bloody drunk. [M.]

1706. Farquhar, Recruiting Officer, Act iv., Sc. 1. Plume. Thou art a bloody impudent fellow. [There is no question of fighting in the context.]

1711. Swift, Journal to Stella, 8 May, letter 22. It was bloody hot walking to-day.

1836. M. Scott, Tom Cringle’s Log, ch. ii. ‘I’ve a bloody great mind to go down with him,’ stuttered another.

From the foregoing examples the word would appear to have been once in literary use; it is not now customary to print it in full, but thus, b——y. In passing it may be mentioned that there is no ground for attributing its derivation to ‘By’r Our Lady.’

Bloody Back, subs. (old).—A soldier; a nickname alluding to the colour of his coat. [From bloody = of the colour of blood, i.e., scarlet or blood-red + back.]

1811. Lexicon Balatronicum. Bloody back. A jeering appellation for a soldier.

Bloody Chasm. To bridge the bloody chasm, phr. (American).—A favourite expression with orators who, during the years immediately succeeding the Civil War, sought to obliterate the memory of the struggle. The antithetical phrase is to wave the bloody shirt (q.v.).

Bloody Eleventh, subs. (military). The Eleventh Regiment of Foot. At the battle of Salamanca, fought with the French, the corps was nearly cut to pieces, whence its sanguinary sobriquet. At Fontenoy and Ostend also, it was hard-pressed and nearly annihilated.

Bloody Jemmy, subs. (common).—An uncooked sheep’s head.—See Sanguinary James for synonyms.

Bloody Shirt. To wave the bloody shirt.—A phrase which is only one of many of a similar character, variants such as ‘to wave the crimson banner,’ ‘the ensanguined under garment,’ etc., being quite frequently met with in American journalism. Its origin and history is thus explained in Americanisms, Old and New:—It is a political phrase used in the States to signify the opening anew or keeping alive of factious strife on party questions. Primarily it was the symbol of those who, during the Reconstruction period at the close of the rebellion of the Southern or Confederate States, would not suffer the Civil War to sink into oblivion out of consideration for the feelings of the vanquished. Perhaps a more odious term never crept into politics than the bloody shirt; it is alike distasteful to the sense, brutal and vulgar, and capable of misuse. There are still those who, in American politics, in the thousand and one points of difference which continually and inevitably must arise between institutions so diverse in origin, tradition, and practice as those of the North and South, seek for party purposes to estrange the one from the other by keeping alive the exciting memories of the old bitter struggle. When a man is said to have waved the bloody shirt it is known that he has gone back in spirit and intent to the sorrowful days of the Republic, when the blue and the grey, each confident of battling for the right, were slaying each other in the valleys of the South. He ignores the peace which has settled over the old fields of war, and does not assent to the hand clasp of Federal with Confederate. He tries to open the strife anew, mocks the spirit of forgiveness, and rakes the old ashes over in the hunt for a burning coal. He scoffs at those who fought against the Union, and, because they have come back to it, calls them insincere. He rebukes the veteran who forgave them when together they laid down their arms. This is called waving the bloody shirt, and to-day, when many of those now in active life cannot remember the time when the Rebellion had closed, and the boys were marching home, there are legislators and journalists who devote their efforts to stirring up a sectional hatred which without these efforts would be but a tradition. Many Southerners keenly resent the spirit which thus traduces the now loyal South, and declares it hypocritical. The bloody shirters, as they are called, rail at the decency which forgives and forgets, and with venomous tongues revile alike those who fell in the lost cause, those who lived to repent, and those who would grant pardon. So long as men lost to honour will do this the action must have a name—it will be called waving the bloody shirt. From this special meaning it is now passing into general use to indicate similar tactics in regard to any cause. It has recently been introduced into English journalism in connection with the Irish struggle, and the ‘Unionist Party’ has been accused of waving the bloody shirt—with how much truth or the reverse there is here no concern. The origin of the expression is to be sought in a Corsican custom now nearly, if not quite, obsolete. In the days of the fierce vendette—the feuds which divided the Corsicans, family from family, bloodshed was a common occurrence. Before the burial of a murdered man, the gridata was celebrated. This word, which literally means a crying aloud, may be translated ‘a wake.’ The body of the victim was laid upon a plank; his useless firearms were placed near his hand, and his blood-stained shirt was hung above his head. Around the rude bier sat a circle of women, wrapped in their black mantles, who rocked themselves to and fro with strange wailings. The men, relatives and friends of the murdered man, fully armed stood around the room, mad with thirst for revenge. Then one of the women—the wife or mother or sister of the dead man—with a sharp scream would snatch the bloody shirt, and waving it aloft begin the vocero—the lamentation. This rhythmic discourse was made up of alternate expressions of love for the dead, and hatred of his enemies; and its startling images and tremendous curses were echoed in the faces and amidst the mutterings of the armed mourners. Its application to American politics is credited to Mr. Oliver P. Morton, who, elected United States senator in 1867, and again in 1873, took a prominent part as a leader of the more radical Republicans, favouring a stern policy of coercion in the reconstruction of the Southern States. He was one of the Presidential Candidates at the Cincinnati Convention of 1876, his name standing second on the first ballot. Happily, however, his opinions were too pronounced to unite the factions of his party, and the ultimate choice fell upon Mr. Hayes.

1888. Coldwater (Mich.) Sun, Jan. The bloody shirt is gradually fading away. The white-winged dove of peace spreads her wings here and there, patriotism forgets and forgives old differences, sectionalism is gradually giving way to love of country—the whole country. In fact the ill-feeling between the North and South would have died out years ago among the veterans of both sections, had they been left to themselves, and the politicians been as patriotic as they.

1888. New York Weekly Times, Mar. 21. It is reprehensible to the last degree for the Bourbons of the South to continue to play on the colour line—the Southern bloody shirt—and then denounce Republican extremists for doing the same thing at the North.

Bloomer, subs. (Australian prison slang).—A mistake. Said to be an abbreviated form of ‘blooming error.’—See Blooming.

Blooming, often Bloomin’, ppl. adj. (common).—This word, similar in type to ‘blessed,’ ‘blamed,’ and other words of the kind, is, as used by the lower classes, a euphemism for bloody (q.v.), but it is also frequently employed as a mere meaningless intensitive. Like the last-named word, little count is taken of its exact primary meaning. Its slang use may be traced to that figurative sense of the orthodox word, which signifies ‘in the bloom of health and beauty,’ ‘in the prime,’ ‘flourishing,’ etc. Some uncertainty exists as to the origin of this not over-ornamental addition to our expletive vocabulary. If the word is used by Granvil (see quot.) in its modern sense, then the phrase is very much older than has hitherto been imagined. Barring this, it would seem that we are indebted for it to the Californian coast, although there is little doubt that the chief instrument in its acclimatization in England was Mr. Alfred G. Vance, the comic singer, well-known in connection with ‘Jolly dogs,’ and other extensively popular music-hall songs. As before stated, it has very largely supplanted ‘bloody’; bally (q.v.) is also used in the same manner. Its applications are manifold. One is requested not to make any blooming mistake or error; another ‘showing off,’ or ‘putting on side,’ is told not to be so blooming flash; an excessively stupid man is spoken of as a blooming idiot; and an inquisitive individual is told more forcibly than politely, perhaps, ‘you asks me no bloomin’ imper’int questions, an’ I tells yer no bloomin’ lies.’

1726. Rev. J. Granvil, Sadducismus triumphatus [under the head of ‘The Demon of Tedworth’ (1661). Granvil makes mention that on one occasion the spirit came into a room panting like a dog, and] company coming up, the room was presently filled with a blooming noisome smell.

18(?). Colonel John Hay, Ballad, ‘The Mystery of Gilgal.’

He went for his ’leven inch bowie knife:

I tries to foller a Christian life,

But I’ll drop a slice of liver or two,

My bloomin’ shrub, with you.

1887. G. R. Sims, Dagonet Ballads (Told to the Missionary). ‘I feels like a bloomin’ babby—I gets so infernal weak.’

1877. Five Years’ Penal Servitude, ch. iii., p. 222. ‘Afore that I worked in the galleries, a making the casemates for the guns, and blooming hard work it was.’

1882. Punch’s Almanac, p. 4. The Steam Launch in Venice (‘Sic Transit Gloria Mundi’)—’Andsome ’Arriet: ‘Ow my! If it ’yn’t that bloomin’ old Temple Bar, as they did aw’y with out o’ Fleet Street!’ Mr. Belleville (referring to guide book): ‘Now it ’yn’t. It’s the fymous Bridge o’ Sighs, as Byron went and stood on; ’im as wrote ‘Our Boys,’ yer know!’ ’Andsome ’Arriet: ‘Well, I never!’

1880. Jas. Greenwood, Flyfaker’s Hotel, in Odd People in Odd Places, p. 59. ‘Who’s got any music?’ presently exclaimed the dirty scoundrel who had been mending the boxing-glove; ‘—— me, let’s have a bloomin’ lark! Let’s have a tune and a song. Who’s got any bloomin’ music?’

1884. W. C. Russell, Jack’s Courtship, ch. xxxviii. ‘And if there’s fire there ought to be nothen to stop us from cooking a bloomin’ old goat.’

1889. Ally Sloper, July 6. Injured Innocence: Indignant Son of Labour. Well, I’m blowed! If that ’ere bloomin’ swell ain’t a-himitatin’ me!

Bloss, subs. (old, and American thieves’).—A generic name for a woman, whether girl, wife, or mistress. Probably from an attributive sense of ‘blossom.’ For example, Shakspeare, in Titus Andronicus [1588, iv., 2, 72], employs it in the sense of one lovely and full of promise. ‘Sweet blowse you are a beautious blossome sure.’ Tennyson also [1847] in the Princess [v., 79] uses the expression, ‘My babe, my blossom, ah, my child!’ Cf., Blowen.

1785. Grose, Dictionary of the Vulgar Tongue. Bloss (cant), the pretended wife of a bully or shop-lifter.

1881. New York Slang Dictionary, ‘Slang Stories,’ p. 42. ‘Why, Bell, is it yourself? Tip us your daddle, my bene mort. May I dance at my death, and grin in a class-case, if I didn’t think you had been put to bed with a shovel.…’ ‘No, Jim, I only piked into Grassville with a dimber-damber, who couldn’t pad the hoof for a single darkman’s without his bloss to keep him from getting pogy.’

Blot the Scrip, verbal phr. (old).—To put an undertaking into writing; the modern phrase is ‘to put it in black and white.’ Hence

To blot the scrip and jark it (old), i.e., to stand engaged, or bound for anyone.—Grose. Jark means a seal, and in Oxford slang, a safe conduct pass; in the former sense it is retained in the patter of modern American thieves, a synonym being jasker. Jarkman is the name given in America to a begging letter writer, whose accomplishments in this respect are varied by the production of false characters for servants, and other documents of a kindred nature. This is a case, like many others, in which old English cant terms have, across the Atlantic, been invested with a new meaning. Formerly a jarkman was equivalent to an ‘Abram-man,’ i.e., a licensed beggar.

Bloviate, verb (American).—To talk aimlessly and boastingly; to indulge in ‘high falutin’. [A factitious word probably founded on the verb blow, sense 1, on the model of ‘deviate.’] Said to have been in use since 1850.

Blow, subs. (common).—1. A shilling.

Amongst Synonyms for this coin are beong; borde; button; deaner or deener; bob; bobstick (old slang); breaky-leg; gen (this forms part of the so-called back slang); hog; levy; peg; stag; teviss; twelver; touch-me (this is an abbreviated form of touch-me-on-the-nob, rhyming slang for bob or shilling); Abraham’s willing (also rhyming slang for a shilling).

1879. J. W. Horsley, in Macm. Mag., XL., 501. But afterwards I got 3s. 9d., and then four blow. Ibid. I went to the Steel (Bastile—Coldbath Fields Prison), having a new suit of clobber on me and about fifty blow in my brigh (pocket).

1885. Daily Telegraph, Feb. 5, p. 2, col. 6. They said they could sell some for five blows (shillings), and that he could easily make £158 of the stuff.

2. (Old University.)—A drunken frolic; a spree. Cf., Blow-out, subs. For synonyms, see Jamboree.

Verb.—1. To boast; to brag; to ‘gas’—generally to talk boastfully or self-assertingly of oneself or one’s affairs. In this sense to blow, long dialectically current, is now regarded as slang. It is also associated with the idea of angry speech, ‘storming,’ ‘fuming.’ Cf., Blow up, and for synonyms, see Gas.

c. 1400. Apol. Loll., 97. Blouing veynly wip fleschli wit. [M.]

1519. Four Elements, in Hazl. Dodsley, I., 41. Why, man, what aileth thee so to blow? [M.]

1785. Burns, Epistle to J. Lapraik, st. 16. I winna blaw about mysel; As ill I like my fauts to tell.

1883. Graphic, Jan. 27, p. 79, col. i. The whole team has taught Australia not to blow (as they say)—a not unneeded lesson.

1883. Mrs. Campbell Praed, Sketches of Australian Life, p. 45. ‘He was famous for his coolness and daring, and for blowing, in Australian parlance, both of his exploits and of his “bonnes fortunes.” ’

2. (general.)—To inform; to expose; to betray; to peach. Cf., also Blow upon and Blow the gab. [This is a transferred sense of blow = to breathe out; to give forth by breathing; hence, to sound a signal on an instrument; to blaze abroad as by a trumpet.] For synonyms, see Peach.

1575. Appius and Virg., in Hazl. Dodsley, IV., 136. Was all well agreed? did nobody blow ye? [M.]

1721. Defoe, History of Colonel Jack. ‘As for that,’ says Will, ‘I could tell it well enough, if I had it, but I must not be seen anywhere among my old acquaintances, for I am blown, and they will all betray me.’

1748. T. Dyche, Dictionary (5 ed.). Blow (v.) … also to discover the secrets of another; also when a person undervalues or slights a person or thing, he is said to blow upon it.

a. 1859. L. Hunt, Country Lodgings, in Casquet Lit. (1877), I., p. 42, col. 1. D—n me, if I don’t blow … I’ll tell Tom Neville, [M.]

3. (American.)—To lie; and in a slightly less opprobrious sense to ‘gas’ so much as to be perilously near the border-line which separates boasting exaggeration from absolute untruth.

4. (general.)—Frequently employed euphemistically for ‘to damn’—generally in the imperative.—Blow it! i.e., ‘hang it’! or damn it! Cf., Blowed, with which it is closely allied in all senses.

1849. C. Kingsley, Alton Locke, ch. ii. ‘Well, if you won’t stand a pot,’ quoth the tall man, ‘I will, that’s all, and blow temperance.’

1883. Miss Braddon, Golden Calf, ch. xxvi. ‘Blow his station in life! If he was a duke I shouldn’t want him.’

5. (general.)—To lose or spend money. Cf., Blue.

6. (University.)—To indulge in a frolic or spree. Cf., Blow out; also To go on the blow.

7. (Winchester School.)—To blush.

To bite the blow, phr. (old cant).—To steal goods; to Prig, which see for synonyms.

Blow a Cloud, verbal phr. (colloquial).—To smoke a cigar or pipe; Hotten says, ‘a phrase used two centuries ago’ but gives no authority, and Murray’s earliest example only dates from 1855, but as will be seen below, it occurs in Tom Crib in 1819.

1819. Moore, Tom Crib’s Memorial to Congress, p. 39.

… His fame I need not tell,

For that, my friends, all England’s loud with;

But this I’ll say, a civiller Swell

I’d never wish to blow a cloud with.

1870. M. Twain, Innocents Abroad, ch. vii. And blowing suffocating ‘clouds’ and boisterously performing at dominoes in the smoking-room at night.

French Synonyms. Tubons en une (popular: ‘let’s blow a cloud’; tuber = to smoke); piper; la fumerie (popular: smoking); faire du brouillard (‘to produce or make a fog or mist’); en bourrer une; bouffarder. A German Synonym is Esef schwächen, or schweihen.

Blow-Book, subs. (old).—A book containing indelicate or ‘smutty’ pictures.

1708. Post Man, 8 June. Last Sunday a person did pennance in the Chapter-House of St. Paul’s, London, for publickly shewing in Bartholomew Fair a book called a blow-book, in which were many obscene and filthy pictures: the book was likewise burnt, and the person paid costs.

Blowed. To be blowed, verb (familiar).—Blowed is here a euphemism for ‘damned’; to all intents and purposes, it is frequently little more than a thinly-veiled oath. Hotten says that Tom Hood used to tell the following story:—‘I was once asked to contribute to a new journal, not exactly gratuitously, but at a very small advance upon nothing—and avowedly because the work had been planned according to that estimate. However, I accepted the terms conditionally—that is to say, provided the principle could be properly carried out. Accordingly, I wrote to my butcher, baker, and other tradesmen, informing them that it was necessary, for the sake of cheap literature and the interest of the reading public, that they should furnish me with their several commodities at a very trifling per-centage above cost price. It will be sufficient to quote the answer of the butcher:—“Sir,—Respectin’ your note, Cheap literater be blowed! Butchers must live as well as other pepel—and if so be you or the readin’ publick wants to have meat at prime cost, you must buy your own beastesses, and kill yourselves.—I remain, etc., John Stokes.” ’

Cf., Blow me!

1835. Dickens, Sketches by Boz, p. 50. Others remonstrating with the said Thomas Sludberry, on the impropriety of his conduct, the said Thomas Sludberry repeated the aforesaid expression, ‘You be blowed.’

1863. Jeaffreson, Live It Down, III., p. 249. (Cries of ‘Chair, Chair,’ and ‘Order, order.’) ‘Order be blowed!’ exclaimed the infuriated Mr. H.

1864. Dickens, Our Mutual Friend, bk. II., ch. v. ‘Holiday be blowed!’ said Fledgely, entering, ‘What have you got to do with holidays?’

1877. Five Years’ Penal Servitude, ch. iii., p. 244. ‘No,’ says she, ‘we’ve got some more besides that, and enough, too, to take us to France. Blowed, old man, if we don’t go to Paris, and there we can get £300 for them.’

1879. Punch’s Almanac, p. 7. Seasonable Slang. For Spring.—You be blowed! For Summer.—I’ll warm yer! For Autumn.—Not so blooming green! For Winter.—An ice little game all round.

1889. Ally Sloper’s H. H., Aug. 3, p. 242, col. 2. ‘Blowed if I’d have made her Mrs. Juggins, if I’d have known she wor going to make a footstool of me!’

Blowen or Blowing, subs. (old.)—This word appears to have passed through a series of ups and downs in the course of its career. Originally signifying a woman, without special reference to moral character, it subsequently came to mean a showy courtesan, or a prostitute. It still retains the latter meaning, but is frequently used in a more complimentary sense than heretofore to signify a finely built handsome girl. In America among the criminal classes it is only used to designate a mistress. Its derivation is extremely uncertain, the two most important suggestions being that it comes (1) from the reputation having been ‘blown upon’; and (2) that in Wilts blowen signifies a blossom—hence blowen a flower; a pet.

1688. Shadwell, Sq. of Alsatia, I., in wks. (1720) IV., 17. What ogling there will be between thee and the blowings!

1789. Geo. Parker, Life’s Painter, p. 143. Blowen, a woman.

1812. J. H. Vaux, Flash Dict. Blowen, a prostitute: a woman who cohabits with a man without marriage.

1847. Lytton, Lucretia, pt. II., ch. ii. ‘If she’s a good girl, and loves you, she’ll not let you spend your money on her.’ ‘I haint such a ninny as that,’ said Beck, with majestic contempt. ‘I ’spises the flat that is done brown by the blowens.’

1848. C. Kingsley, Yeast, ch. xi. Why don’t they have a short simple service now and then, that might catch the ears of the roughs and the blowens, without tiring out the poor thoughtless creatures’ patience, as they do now?

For synonyms in the sense of prostitute, see Barrack-hack.

Blower, subs. (old).—1. A girl; a contemptuous name in opposition to jomer (q.v.); given by Grose [1785].

2. (American and Colonial.)—A good talker; a boaster; a ‘gas-bag.’ Cf., Blow, verb, sense 1.

1863. Manhattan, in Evening Standard, 10 Dec. General Grant … is not one of the blower generals. [M.]

1864. Spectator, 22 Oct., 1202, col. 1. Notorious among our bar and the public as a blower. [M.]

1871. De Vere, Americanisms, p. 584. ‘You need not blow so, my friend. I don’t believe a word of what you say.’ Hence also the noun blower, a braggart, with special reference to his success in imitating Baron Munchausen.

3. A pipe. Cf., Blow a cloud.

Blow Great Guns, verbal phr. (popular).—To blow a hurricane; a violent gale. Sometimes varied by to blow great guns and small arms.

1839. Harrison Ainsworth, Jack Sheppard [1889], 23. ‘Curse me, if I don’t think all the world means to cross the Thames this fine night!’ observed Ben. ‘One’d think it rained fares as well as blowed great guns. Why, there’s another party on the stair-head inquiring arter scullers; and, by the mass! they appear in a greater hurry than any of us.’

1854. H. Miller, Sch. and Schm. (1858), 14. It soon began to blow great guns. [M.]

Blowhard, subs. (American).—A Western term of revilement, the precise meaning of which it would be difficult to explain, since a newcomer may, in one and the same breath, be called a blarsted Britisher, a Coyote, and a blowhard. If all these are synonymous, then indeed the Englishman in America is in a bad way. Cf., Blower, sense 2.

Blow Hot and Cold, verbal phr. (familiar).—To be treacherous; inconsistent; vacillating. There is an allusion in the expression to one of Æsop’s fables.

1577. W. Bullinger, Decades (1592), 176. One which out of one mouth, doeth blowe both hoat and colde. [M.]

1756. The World, No. 185. This old fellow is of a most capricious, unequal temper, and, like the satyr in the fable, blows hot and cold in the same breath.

1856. Motley, Dutch Rep., V., v., 750. Being constantly ordered ‘to blow hot and cold with the same breath.’

Blowing Up, subs. (colloquial).—A scolding; a severe reprimand; a jobation.—See Blow up. The French equivalent is affres (fem. pl.), i.e., ‘agonies.’

1839. Haliburton, Letter-Bag Gt. West, IV., 42. I would give him a good blowing-up. [M.]

1874. Mrs. H. Wood, Johnny Ludlow, 1 S., No. xxv., p. 448. The waves dashed over the pier, ducking the three or four venturesome spirits who went on there. I was one—and received a good blowing up from Mr. Brandon for my pains.

Blow in One’s Pipe, verbal phr. (American).—A transatlantic equivalent of to blow or blew [one’s money]; i.e., to spend it.

Blow Me! Blow Me Up! Blow Me Tight! intj. phr. (popular).—Expressions which, like blowed (q.v.), serve either as half-veiled oaths or as merely big sounding but meaningless exclamations.

1781. G. Parker, View of Society, I., 48. ‘Blow me up (says he) if I have had a fellow with such rum toggys cross my company these many a day.’

1819. Moore, Tom Crib’s Memorial to Congress.

Says Bill ‘there’s nothing like a Bull

And blow me tight’—Bill Gibbons ne’er

In all his days was known to swear,

Except light oaths, to grace his speeches,

Like ‘dash my wig’ or ‘burn my breeches,’

‘Blow me——’

1876. C. Hindley, Life and Adventures of a Cheap Jack, p. 25. Here blow me, I’ll do such a thing I never did before, I’ll say thirty—yes, thirty shillings buys the lot, and I’ll have no more nor take no less.

Blow One’s Bazoo, verbal phr. (American).—To boast; to swagger; to gasconade. [From the Dutch bazu, an abbreviation of bazuin, a trumpet; hence an equivalent of the English ‘to blow one’s own trumpet’.]

Blow Oneself Out, verb (common).—To eat heartily; to gorge oneself.—See Blow out.

1837. Barham, I. L. (Babes in the Wood).

In the dog-days, don’t be so absurd

As to blow yourselves out with green-gages!

Blow Out, subs. (common).—A gluttonous feast, a heavy ‘feed,’ or entertainment. Also called a Tuck in, which see for synonyms. Cf., Blow oneself out.

1825. Scott, St. Ronan’s Well, II., 264. ‘She sent me a card for her blow-out,’ said Mowbray, ‘and so I am resolved to go.’

1847. Th. Hook, Man of Many Friends. The giving good feeds is, with many of these worthies, the grand criterion by which the virtues and talents of mankind are measured … these persons call a similar favour either a ‘spread’ or a ‘blow-out.’

1852. H. B. Stowe, Uncle Tom’s Cabin, ch. viii. ‘Get us hot water, and sugar, and cigars, and plenty of the real stuff, and we’ll have a blow-out.’

Verb (thieves’).—To steal. For synonyms, see prig.

Blowse, Blowsy, Blouze, Blowzy, subs. (old).—1. A beggar’s trull; a wench.

2. A slatternly woman, especially one with dishevelled hair. Thought to be of canting origin. In Grose’s time the term was humorously varied by Blowsabella, in reference to the country girl in Gay’s pastoral poem, ‘The Shepherd’s Week,’ which depicts rural life in its character of poverty and rudeness, rather than as clothed in the colours of romance.

We, fair, fine ladies, who park out our lives

From common sheep-paths, cannot help the crows,

From flying over; we’re as natural still

As Blousalinda.

1557. Tusser, Husbandrie, ch. xvi., st. 37, p. 43 (E.D.S.). Whiles Gillet, his blouse, is a milking thy cow.

1605. Chapman, All Fooles, Act iv., p. 68 (Plays, 1874).

Wed without my advice, my love, my knowledge,

Ay, and a beggar, too, a trull, a blowse!

1638. Ford, Lady’s Trial, III., i. Wench is your trull, your blouze, your dowdie.

1705. Ward, Hudibras Redivivus, vol. II., pt. VII., p. 20.

So the old Babylonian Blouze,

And her demure fanatick Spouse.

1851. Thackeray, English Humorists, p. 167. Are not the Rosalindas of Britain as charming as the Blousalindas of the Hague?

Blow the Gab or Gaff, verbal phr. (common).—To reveal, or ‘let out’ a secret; to peach. Cf., Gaff, Gag and Gab. For synonyms, see Peach.

1785. Grose, Dictionary of the Vulgar Tongue. To blow the gab (cant), to confess, or impeach a confederate.

1833. Marryat, Peter Simple, ch. xliii. ‘One of the French officers, after he was taken prisoner, axed me how we had managed to get the gun up there; but I wasn’t going to blow the gaff.’

1877. Five Years’ Penal Servitude, ch. ii., p. 122. The prisoner, burning for revenge, quietly bides his time till the chief warder comes round, then asks to speak to him, and ‘blows the gaff.’

Blow the Grampuse, verbal phr. (nautical).—To throw cold water on a man who has fallen asleep when on duty.

Blow the Groundsels, verbal phr. (old).—To have sexual commerce on the ground.

1785. Grose, Dictionary of the Vulgar Tongue. To blow the groundsils (cant), to lie with a woman on the floor.

Blow Together, verbal phr. (tailors’).—To make garments in a slovenly manner.

Blow Up, subs. (colloquial).—A scolding; a ‘wigging’; a railing.

1809. Sir W Gell, in C. K. Sharpe’s Correspondence (1883), I., 355. There won’t be any quarrel, so you need not fear. The only chance is Keppel making a blow up when she abuses me.

1849. Thackeray, Pendennis, ch. lxviii. Morgan had had ‘a devil of a blow hup with his own guv’nor, and was going to retire from the business haltogether.’

1855. Thackeray, Newcomes, ch. vii. ‘Mind the hice is here in time; or they’ll be a blow up with your governor.’

Verb (colloquial).—To scold.

1809. Sir W. Gell, in C. K. Sharpe’s Correspondence (1888), I., 355. I have heard her daughter blow up Lady Salisbury when she had quarrelled with Lady Sefton.

1883. G. A. S[ala], in Illust. L. News, June 16, p. 599, col. 1. That the ’aughty nobleman should blow up the clerk for presuming to take a seat in his presence.

To blow up sky-high, phr. (American).—The American, fond of doing everything with unusual energy, likes to blow up sky-high, an addition which lends colour to the supposition that probably the phrase is originally a nautical one, and really borrowed from the blowing up of a vessel, much as the meaning of the words must have evaporated before it reached the present stage.

Blow upon (old).—To betray; to tell tales of; to discredit; to defame.—See Blow, verb, sense 2. Used also with indirect passive.

1402. [? T. Occleve], Letter of Cupid, in Arber’s Garner, vol. IV., p. 61.

Thus they despisèd be, on every side,

Dislanderèd and blown upon full wide.

1750. Fielding, Tom Jones, bk. X., ch. ii. ‘That the reputation of her house, which was never blown upon before, was utterly destroyed.’

1843. Dickens, Martin Chuzzlewit, II., p. 239. It fortunately occurred to me, that if I gave it him myself, I could be of no farther use. I should have been blown upon immediately.

1864. Dickens, Our Mutual Friend, bk. III., ch. xii. ‘The condition of our affairs is desperate, and may be blown upon at any moment.’

1877. Five Years’ Penal Servitude, ch. i., p. 4. Both desisted from their own recriminations as to ‘rounding’ and ‘blowing’ on each other.

1882. Jas. Payn, in Glow Worm Tales, p. 301. ‘An Improvement on a System.’ If Mr. Prince had caught me before his establishment had got ‘blown upon’ in the public prints, he might have persuaded me to become an inmate of the Agapemone. I hope I should not have approved of the manner of life in vogue at that institution, but I make no doubt that I should have fallen in with it without much resistance.

Blub.—See Blubber, verb.

Blubber, subs. (common).—1. The mouth. From the figurative use of the word, especially of anything swollen or protruding, as of the lips. For synonyms, see Potato-trap.

1785. Grose, Dictionary of the Vulgar Tongue. I have stopped the cull’s blubber, I have stopped the fellow’s mouth.

2. A woman’s breasts.—See Sport blubber, and for synonyms, Dairies.

Verb (familiar).—To cry; to weep—used contemptuously. Also shortened into blub.

1400. Test. Love, II. (1560), 283, 1. Han women none other wrech … but blober and wepe till hem list stint. [M.]

1748. Smollett, Roderick Random, xliv. (1804), 202. He blubbered like a great school-boy who had been whipped.

1826. Scott, Woodstock, IV. Phœbe Mayflower blubbered heartily for company. [M.]

To sport blubber, phr. (common).—To show one’s breasts, said of women, especially those with large and prominent bosoms.

Blubber and Guts, subs. (common).—Obesity; a low term.

Blubber-Belly, subs. (common).—A fat person.

Blubber Head, subs. (common).—A foolish, empty-headed individual.—See Apartments to let.

Blucher (ch. hard), subs. (Winchester College).—1. A College præfect in half power. Their jurisdiction does not extend beyond ‘Seventh Chamber passage,’ though their privileges are the same as those of other præfects. They are eight in number.

1864. Blackwood, p. 86. The remaining eight college præfects (called in Winchester tongue, bluchers) have a more limited authority, confined to Chambers and the Quadrangle.

1870. Mansfield, School-Life at Winchester College, p. 30. The eight senior præfects were said to have ‘full power,’ and had some slight privileges not enjoyed by the remaining ten, who were generally called bluchers.

2. A non-privileged cab plying at railway stations. The origin of the name and its application, as far as known, is given in the two following quotations.

1864. Soc. Sc. Review, I., p. 406. The railway companies recognise two other classes of cabs, called the ‘privileged’ … and the ‘Bluchers,’ named after the Prussian Field-Marshal who arrived on the field of Waterloo only to do the work that chanced to be undone.