talk boastingly. A French equivalent is se hancher.
1579. Spenser, Shep. Cat., Sept., 50. The shepheards swayne you cannot wel ken, But it be by his pryde, from other men: They looken bigge as Bulls.
1604. Shakspeare, Winter's Tale, Act iv., Sc. 3. Not a more cowardly rogue, in all Bohemia: if you had but looked big, and spit at him, he'd have run.
1771. Smollett, Humphry Clinker, I. 26. The squire, in all probability, cursed his punctuality in his heart, but he affected to talk big.
1822. Scott, Fortunes of Nigel, ch. xv. 'You will gain nought by speaking big with me.'
1838. Haliburton, Clockmaker, 2 S., ch. viii. 'He looked big, and talked big, and altogether was a considerable big man in his own consait.'
1855. Anthony Trollope, The Warden, p. 207. The Archdeacon waxed wrath, talked big, and looked bigger.
Big as All Outdoors, phr. (American).—An
expression intended
to convey an idea of indefinite
size; hugeness; enormous
capacity.
1838. Haliburton ('Sam Slick'), The Clockmaker, 2 S., ch. ii. The infarnal villain! Tell me who he is, and if he was big as all outdoors, I'd walk into him. Ibid, ch. iv. He is looking as big as all outdoors gist now, and is waitin' for us to come to him.
Big-Bellied, adj. (colloquial).—Advanced
in pregnancy.
1711. Addison [Referred to by].
1848. John Forster, Life and Times of Oliver Goldsmith, bk. II., ch. iv. My desires are as capricious as the big-bellied woman's.
Big Ben, subs, (popular).—A nickname
for the clock in the tower
of the Houses of Parliament at
Westminster. Named after
Sir Benjamin Hall, the Commissioner
of Works, under
whose supervision it was constructed.
It was commenced
in 1856, and finished in 1857.
1869. The Register or Mag. of Biography, p. 213. With Sir Charles Barry's sanction he designed the ornament cast on the Westminster Bell, familiarly known as big Ben.
1880. Punch, No. 2039, p. 51. Big Ben struck two, and the house adjourned.
Big Bird. To get or give the
big bird, phr. (theatrical).—To
be hissed on the stage; or,
conversely, to hiss. When an
actor or actress gets the big
bird, it may be from two causes:
either it is a compliment for
successful pourtrayal of villainy,
in which case the gods (q.v.)
simply express their abhorence
of the character and not of the
actor; or, the hissing may be
directed against the actor, personally,
for some reason or other.
The big bird is the goose. For
synonyms, see Goosed.
1886. Graphic, 10 April, p. 399. To be goosed, or, as it is sometimes phrased, to get the big bird, is occasionally a compliment to the actor's power of representing villainy, but more often is disagreeably suggestive of a failure to please.
Big Bug, subs. (popular).—A
person of standing or consequence,
either self-estimated or
in reality. A disrespectful but
common mode of allusion to
persons of wealth or with other
claims to distinction. Variants
are Big-dog, Big-toad, Big-wig,
and Great gun (which
see for general synonyms).
1854. Widow Bedott Papers, p. 301. Miss Samson Savage is one of the big bugs,—that is, she's got more money than a'most anybody else in town.
1857. N. Y. Times, February. The free-and-easy manner in which the hair-brained Sir Robert Peel described some of the big bugs at Moscow has got him into difficulty.
