1709. Steele, Tatler, No. 38, p. 3. Being at that General Mart of stock-jobbers called Jonathans . . . he bought the bear of another officer, [m.]
1719. Anatomy of Change Alley (N. and Q., 5 S., vi., 118). Those who buy Exchange Alley bargains are styled 'buyers of bear-skins.' [m.]
1778. Bailey, Dictionary (24 ed.). To sell a bear, to sell what one hath not.
2. Hence a dealer who speculates for a fall. The earliest instance noted of this transferred usage is in
1744. London Magazine, 86. These noisy devotees were false ones, and in fact were only bulls and bears. [m.]
1768. Foote, Devil upon Two Sticks, Act i. A mere bull and bear booby; the patron of lame ducks, brokers, and fraudulent bankrupts.
1774. Colman, Man of Business, iv., i., in wks. (1777) II., 179. My young master is the bull, and Sir Charles is the bear. He agreed for stock expecting it to be up at three hundred by this time; but, lack-a-day, sir, it has been falling ever since.
1817. Scott, Rob Roy, ch. iv. The hum and bustle which his approach was wont to produce among the bulls, bears, and brokers of Stock-alley.
1860. Peacock, Gryll Grange, ch. xviii. In Stock Exchange slang, bulls are speculators for a rise, bears for a fall.
1889. Ally Sloper's H. H., Aug. 3, p. 242, col. 3. Mrs. Spingles says she doesn't wonder that the Stock Exchange at times resembles a menagerie let loose, seeing what a lot of bulls, bears and stags they have at Capel Court.
The French Bourse equivalent is un baissier. See the analogous terms bull; stag; and lame duck.
3. (old.)—The pupil of a private tutor, the latter being called a bear-leader (q.v.). From the general roughness and uncouthness of boys; a reference to the heavy build and ungainliness of the plantigrade in question, Even now the youth of the rising generation are sometimes called 'unlicked cubs.' Also called formerly bridled-bear.
1832. Legends of London, II., 247. When I was the youthful bear—as the disciple of a private tutor is called at Oxford, [m.]
Verb.—To act as a bear(q.v.).
1861. New York Tribune, Nov. 29. There is no truth in the startling developments, implicating British officials, in the Herald's despatch . . . His Lordship is wholly guiltless of the charge which the Herald, in its anxiety to bear the market, has brought against him.
Are you there with your bears? phr. (colloquial).—A greeting of surprise at the reappearance of anybody or anything; are you there again; or, in the words of its most recent slang equivalent, 'What, again! so soon?' The phrase is explained by Joe Miller, as the exclamation of a man who, not liking a sermon he had heard on Elisha and the bears, went next Sunday to another church, only to find the same preacher and the same discourse.
1642. James Howell, Instructions for Forreine Travell, sec. 3. Another when at the racket court he had a ball struck into his hazard, he would ever and anon cry out, estes vous là avec vos ours? Are you there with your bears? which is ridiculous in any other language but English.
1740. Richardson, Pamela, III., 335. O no, nephew! Are you thereabouts with your bears?
1820. Scott, Abbot, xv. Marry, come up. 'Are you there with your bears'? muttered the dragon.
To play the bear, phr. (common).—To behave in a rough and rude manner.
1579. Tomson, Calvin's Serm. Tim., p. 473, col. 1. When we haue so turned all order vpsidowne . . . there is nothing but . . . playing the bear amongst vs.
