dogs—the town-raff and the bargees—well-blunted or stiver-cramped—against dun or don—nob or big wig—so may you never want a bumper of bishop.
1846. Thackeray, Vanity Fair, ch. xx. We live among bankers and city big-wigs, and be hanged to them, and every man, as he talks to you, is jingling his guineas in his pocket.
1859. H. Kingsley, Geoffrey Hamlyn, ch. xlv. So you are going to sit among the big-wigs in the House of Lords.
1876 circa. Broadside Ballad, 'Justice and Law.' The Penge Case you know took a curious twist, But how it occurred, we can't guess, Unless, unexpected, some turn of the wrist, Has got some 'big-wig' in a mess. To some folks it seems rather queer, now, you see, When 'Sentence of Death' had been passed, That one of the four is allowed to go free, And her prison doors wide open cast. Chorus.
1880. A. Trollope, The Duke's Children, ch. xxvi. 'The Right Honorable gentleman no doubt means,' said Phineas, 'that we must carry ourselves with some increased external dignity. The world is bigwigging itself, and we must buy a bigger wig than any we have got, in order to confront the world with proper self-respect.'
Big-Wigged, ppl. adj. (popular).—Pompous; consequential. [From big-wig (q.v.) + [g] ed.]
1851. Carlyle, John Sterling, pt. I., ch. vii. And along with obsolete spiritualisms, he sees all manner of obsolete thrones and big-wigged temporalities.
Big-Wiggery, subs. (popular).—A display of consequence, or pomposity. [From big-wig (q.v.) + [g] ery, a condition.]
1848. Thackeray, Book of Snobs, ch. ii. Whilst Louis XIV., his old squaretoes of a contemporary—the great worshipper of bigwiggery—has always struck me as a most undoubted and Royal Snob.
1855. Household Words, xii., 250. All this solemn bigwiggery—these triumphs, ovations, sacrifices, orations.
Big-Wiggism, subs. (popular).—Pomposity. [From big-wig (q.v.) + [g] ism, a state or condition.]
1871-72. G. Eliot, Middlemarch, ch. xvii. I determined not to try anything in London for a good many years at least. I didn't like what I saw when I was studying there—so much empty big-wiggism and obstructive trickery.
Big Words, subs. (familiar).—Pompous speech; 'crack-jaw' words. Cf., To talk big, and Big talk.
1879. Grenville Murray, Member for Paris, I., p. 103. 'I don't like such cynicism!' 'Oh, cynicism is a big word.'
Bilbo or Bilboa, subs. (old).—A sword. Bilboa in Spain was once renowned for well-tempered blades. Grose [1785] quotes the term as slang; this, however, is somewhat doubtful.
1592. Greene, Disputation, etc., in wks. X., 236. Let them doe what they dare with their bilbowe blades, I feare them not.
1693. Congreve, Old Batchelor, Act iii., Sc. 7. Tell them, I say, he must refund—or bilbo's the word, and slaughter will ensue.
1713. Guardian, No. 145. 'He that shall rashly attempt to regulate our hilts, or reduce our blades, had need to have a heart of oak . . . Bilbo is the word, remember that and tremble.'
1816. Scott, Old Mortality, ch. iv. 'It was all fair play; your comrade sought a fall, and he has got it.'
'That is true enough,' said Bothwell, as he slowly rose; 'put up your bilbo, Tom.'
2. A kind of stock—a long iron bar with sliding shackles for the ankles of prisoners, and a lock by which to fasten the bar at one end to the ground. The derivation is very uncertain.
1557. Hakluyt, Voy., I., 295. I was also conveyed to their lodgings . . . where I saw a pair of bilbowes.
