Bay Window, subs, (common).—A slang phrase applied to women when pregnant, or men who have 'corporations.' The allusion is obvious.
B. C., subs. (common).—A name
jokingly applied to a person
who brings a trumpery action
for libel against another. Dr.
Brewer in Phrase and Fable thus,
in effect, explains the allusion:—A
young woman complained
to Mr. Ingham [the magistrate
at Bow Street Police Court and
now (1889) Sir James Ingham]
of having been abused by a
woman who called her a b. c.
On being asked the meaning,
the young woman said c meant
'cat' but the b, well, it
was too shocking to utter, and
the magistrate allowed her to
whisper the word in his ear.
It was a well-known word of
sanguinary sound; but, though
B.C. was hardly a pretty epithet,
yet his worship could hardly
grant a summons for libel
against the person of whom
complaint was made for using it.
Beach-Cadger, subs. (old).—A
beggar whose 'pitch' is at
watering-places, and sea-ports.
[From beach, the sea-shore +
cadger, a beggar.]
Beach-Comber, subs. (nautical).—One
who hangs about the
sea-shore on the look-out for
jobs. It was chiefly applied to
runaway seamen, deserters
from whalers, who lived along
the beach in South America,
the South Sea Islands, etc. It
is a term of contempt.—Clark
Russell's Sailors' Language.
1847. Blackwood's Magazine, LXI., 757. A daring Yankee beech-comber. [m.]
1880. Athenæum, 18 Dec., p. 809, col. 2. The white scamps who, as beech-combers, have polluted these Edens and debauched their inhabitants.
1885. A. Lang, in Longm. Mag., VI., 417, note. Beach-comber is the local term for the European adventurers and long-shore loafers who infest the Pacific Archipelagoes. There is a well-known tale of an English castaway on one of the isles, who was worshipped as a deity by the ignorant people. At length he made his escape, by swimming, and was taken aboard a British vessel, whose captain accosted him roughly. The mariner turned aside and dashed away a tear: 'I've been a god for months and you call me a (something alliterative) beach-comber!' he exclaimed, and refused to be comforted.
2. A river boatman.
3 A thief who prowls about the sea-shore; a plunderer of wrecks; a picker-up of waifs and strays. This is derived from sense 4.
4. (American.)—A long wave rolling in from the ocean. Hence applied to those whose occupation it is to pick up, as pirates or wreckers, whatever these waves wash in to them.
Beach-Tramper, subs. (nautical).—coastguardsman.
[From
beach, the shore of the sea +
tramp,
to walk along + er.]
Bead. To draw a bead [on one],
phr. (American).—To attack an
opponent by speech or otherwise.
The phrase has passed
into colloquial use from backwoods
parlance, where it signifies
the process of taking aim
and firing. The front sight of a
gun is in appearance like a
bead.
1841. Catlin, North American Indians (1844), 1., x., 77. I made several attempts to get near enough to draw a bead upon one of them.
