buckled
To be married. Also to be taken in custody. Both uses of the word common and exchangeable among the London lower classes.
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Expressions you’ll hear in Britain and Ireland — distinctly British usage first, then widespread staples.
buckley
"Who struck BUCKLEY?" a common phrase used to irritate Irishmen. The story is that an Englishman having struck an Irishman named Buckley, the latter made a great outcry, and one of his friends rushed forth screaming, "Who struck Buckley?" "I did," said the Englishman, preparing for the apparently inevitable combat. "Then," said the ferocious Hibernian, after a careful investigation of the other’s thews and sinews, "then, sarve him right."
buckra
A white man. The original of this term is a "flogging man," from the Hebrew, and the application of it to the whites by the West Indian negroes is, therefore, rather interesting. They probably first learned it from a missionary.
budge
To move, to "make tracks."
budget
A wallet. To open the budget; a term used to signify the notification of the taxes required by the minister for the expences of the ensuing year; as To-morrow the minister will go to the house, and open the budget.
bufe
A dog. Bufe's nob; a dog's head. CANT.
bufe nabber
A dog stealer. CANT.
buff
All in buff; stript to the skin, stark naked.
buff
The bare skin; "stripped to the BUFF."
buffer
One that steals and kills horses and dogs for their skins; also an inn-keeper: in Ireland it signifies a boxer.
buffer
A navy term for a boatswain’s mate, one of whose duties it is—or was—to administer the "cat."
buffle-head
A stupid or obtuse person.—Miege. German, BUFFELHAUPT, buffalo-headed. Occurs in Plautus’ Comedies made English, 1694.
buffs
The Third Regiment of Foot in the British army. From their facings.
bug
A nick name given by the Irish to Englishmen; bugs having, as it is said, been introduced into Ireland by the English.
bug-hunter
A low wretch who plunders drunken men.
bug-walk
A coarse term for a bed.
bugaboe
A scare-babe, or bully-beggar.
bugaroch
Comely, handsome. IRISH.
bugger
A blackguard, a rascal, a term of reproach. Mill the bloody bugger; beat the damned rascal.
buggy
A gig, or light chaise. Common term in America and in India, as well as in England.
build
Applied in fashionable slang to the make or style of dress, &c. "It’s a tidy BUILD, who made it?" A tailor is sometimes called a "trousers’ BUILDER."
bulger
Large; synonymous with BUSTER.
bulk and file
Two pickpockets; the bulk jostles the party to be robbed, and the file does the business.
bulker
One who lodges all night on a bulk or projection before old-fashioned shop windows.
bull
An Exchange Alley term for one who buys stock on speculation for time, i.e. agrees with the seller, called a Bear, to take a certain sum of stock at a future day, at a stated price: if at that day stock fetches more than the price agreed on, he receives the difference; if it falls or is cheaper, he either pays it, or becomes a lame duck, and waddles out of the Alley. See LAME DUCK and BEAR.
bull
One who agrees to purchase stock at a future day, at a stated price, but who simply speculates for a rise in public securities to render the transaction a profitable one. Should stocks fall, the BULL is then called upon to pay the difference. See BEAR, who is the opposite of a BULL, the former selling, the latter purchasing—the one operating for a fall, the other for a rise.
bull calf
A great hulkey or clumsy fellow. See HULKEY.
bull hankers
Persons who over-drive bulls, or frequent bull baits.
bull the cask
To pour hot water into an empty rum puncheon, and let it stand until it extracts the spirit from the wood. The mixture is drunk by sailors in default of something stronger.—Sea.
bull's feather
A horn: he wears the bull's feather; he is a cuckold.
bull-beef
A term of contempt; "as ugly as BULL-BEEF," "go to the billy-fencer, and sell yourself for BULL-BEEF." Sometimes used to indicate full size of anything. "There was he, as big as BULL-BEEF."
bulldogs
The runners who accompany the proctor in his perambulations, and give chase to runaways.—University.
bullet
To discharge from a situation. To shake the BULLET at anyone, is to threaten him with "the sack," but not to give him actual notice to leave. To get the BULLET is to get notice, while to get the instant BULLET is to be discharged upon the spot. The use of the term is most probably derived from a fancied connexion between it and the word discharge.
bullfinch
A hunting term for a large, thick, quickset hedge, difficult alike to "top" or burst through. Probably a corruption of BULL-FENCE, a fence made to prevent cattle straying either in or out.
bully
A cowardly fellow, who gives himself airs of great bravery. A bully huff cap; a hector. See HECTOR.
bully
A braggart; in the language of the streets, a man of the most degraded morals, who protects fallen females, and lives off their miserable earnings.—Shakspeare, in A Midsummer Night’s Dream, uses the word in its old form, as a term of endearment. This epithet is often applied in a commendable sense among the vulgar; thus—a good fellow or a good horse will be termed "a BULLY fellow," "a BULLY horse;" and "a BULLY woman" signifies a right, good motherly old soul.
bully back
A bully to a bawdy-house; one who is kept in pay, to oblige the frequenters of the house to submit to the impositions of the mother abbess, or bawd; and who also sometimes pretends to be the husband of one of the ladies, and under that pretence extorts money from greenhorns, or ignorant young men, whom he finds with her. See GREENHORN.
bully cock
One who foments quarrels in order to rob the persons quarrelling.
bully ruffians
Highwaymen who attack passengers with paths and imprecations.
bully trap
A brave man with a mild or effeminate appearance, by whom bullies are frequently taken in.
bullyrag
To abuse or scold vehemently; to swindle one out of money by intimidation and sheer abuse.
bulwer’s
(Sir Edward Lytton) Paul Clifford. V. D.
bum
The breech, or backside.
bum
The part on which we sit.—Shakspeare. BUMBAGS, trousers; Gael. BUN, a base or bottom; Welsh, BON, the lowest or worst part of anything.
bum bailiff
A sheriff's officer, who arrests debtors; so called perhaps from following his prey, and being at their bums, or, as the vulgar phrase is, hard at their a-ses. Blackstone says, it is a corruption of bound bailiff, from their being obliged to give bond for their good behaviour.
bum boat
A boat attending ships to retail greens, drams, &c. commonly rowed by a woman; a kind of floating chandler's shop,
bum fodder
Soft paper for the necessary house or torchecul.
bum trap
A sheriff's officer who arrests debtors. Ware hawke! the bum traps are fly to our panney; keep a good look out, the bailiffs know where our house is situated.
bum-bailiff
A sheriff’s-officer—a term, some say, derived from the proximity which this gentleman generally maintains to his victims. Blackstone says it is a corruption of "bound bailiff." A BUM-BAILIFF was generally called "bummy."
bum-curtain
An old name for academical gowns when they were worn scant and short, especially those of the students of St. John’s College.—Camb. Univ. Any ragged or short academical gown.
bumble
To muffle. BUMBLE-FOOTED, club-footed, or awkward in the gait.
bumble-puppy
A game played in public-houses on a large stone, placed in a slanting direction, on the lower end of which holes are excavated, and numbered like the holes in a bagatelle-table. The player rolls a stone ball, or marble, from the higher end, and according to the number of the hole it falls into the game is counted. It is undoubtedly the very ancient game of Troule-in-madame.
bumbles
Coverings for the eyes of horses that shy in harness.
bumbo
Brandy, water, and sugar; also the negro name for the private parts of a woman.
bumbrusher
An usher at a school.
bumclink
In the Midland counties the inferior beer brewed for haymakers and harvest labourers. Derivation obvious.
bumfiddle
The backside, the breech. See ARS MUSICA.
bumkin
A raw country fellow.
bummer
Literally one who sits or idles about; a loafer; one who sponges upon his acquaintances. In California, men who profess to be journalists, and so obtain free dinners and drinks, are called "literary BUMMERS." Although the term is not much in use in this country, the profession of bumming, both literary and otherwise, is freely practised.
bumper
A full glass; in all likelihood from its convexity or bump at the top: some derive it from a full glass formerly drunk to the health of the pope--AU BON PERE.