'dressing' of Christmas beef by butchers.
To make beef, phr. (thieves').—To run away; to decamp. For synonyms, see Amputate.
Beef! intj. (Australian).—Stop thief.' Cf., To cry or give beef.
Beef up! phr. (common).—Put on your strength !' 'Give a long pull and a strong pull!'
Beef-Brained, adj. (common).—Doltish;
obtuse; thickheaded;
a reference to the heavy, dullness
of appearance of oxen.
Beef-Head, subs. (common).—A
dolt; a stupid, thickheaded person.
Cf., Beef-brained.
Beef It, verb (common).—Considered
originally a provincialism,
but now common. The
lower classes in the East End of
London frequently speak of
beefing it, either in reality
or anticipation (mostly latter),
when referring to a meat meal,
more particularly when it happens
to be beef.
Beefment. On the beefment,
adv. phr. (thieves').—On the
alert; on the look out.
Beef-Stick, subs. (military).—The
bone in a joint of beef. At mess
it is 'first come, best served';
and those who come last sometimes
get little more than the
beef-stick.
Beef Straight.—See Straight.
Beef to the Heels, like a Mullingar
heifer, phr. (Irish).—-A
stalwart man, or a fine woman;
i.e., one whose superiority is
manifest from the crown of the
head to the sole of the foot;
literally, all beef down to
the heels.
c. 1880. Rhoda Broughton, Cometh up as a Flower, p. 193. Dolly was not a fine woman as they say, at all; not beef to the heels, by any means; in a grazier's eye she would have had no charm whatsoever.
Beef-Witted, adj. (common).—See
Beef-brained.
1594. Nashe, Terrors of the Night, in wks. (Grosart) III., 257. Liues there anie such slowe yce-braind beefe-witted gull.
1863. Reader, 22 Aug. This British bull-neckedness, this British beef-wittedness. [M.]
Beefy, adj. (common).—Fleshy;
unduly thick, or obese. [From
beef + y: a transferred
sense.] Also beefiness, subs.,
fleshy development. The ankles
of women are sometimes ungallantly
spoken of as beefy,
with which compare beef to
the heels. A run of luck
and good fortune, generally, is
likewise referred to as beefy.
1859. Sala, Gaslight and Daylight, ch. xi. To see him in his huge shirt-sleeves, with his awkward beefy hands hanging inanely by his side, and his great foolish mouth open.
Bee-Line. To take or make a
bee-line [for a place or object],
phr. (originally American; now
common).—To go direct; 'as
the crow flies'; without circumlocution.
Bees, when fully
laden with pollen, make for the
hive in a straight, or bee-line.
One of the American railways
is called the Bee-Line Road
from the direct route it takes
between its termini. Cf.,
Straight shoot.
