time, 'how the blazes you can stand the head-work you do, is a mystery to me.'
1884. W. C. Russell, Jack's Courtship, ch. xvii. 'Who the blazes would recognise Jack Seymour in those shore-going duds?'
Drunk as blazes or blaizers, phr. (common).—Very drunk; what is vulgarly called 'beastly' drunk. Whether this expression follows the derivation of the examples given above, or whether we must seek its origin in a totally different direction, is a matter of some doubt. The alternative derivation suggested is that the phrase is really drunk as blaizers, an expression which dates back at least to 1830 [N. and Q., 6 S., i., 434]. Sir Thomas Wyse, in Impressions of Greece, speaking (see Life of Richard Waldo Sibthorp, by J. Fowler, 1880, p. 227) of the reverence for St. Blaize, in Greece (who is also, as is known, the patron saint of the English woolcombers), and how his feast was observed in the woollen manufactories of the Midland Counties, says, 'Those who took part in the procession were called Blaizers, and the phrase as drunk as blaizers originated in the convivialities common on those occasions! So good 'Bishop and Martyr' Blaize is dishonoured as well as honoured in England, and very probably in Greece. Further data may be found in Chambers' Book of Days, vol. I., pp. 219-20.
Bleach, verb (Harvard University.)—To absent oneself from morning prayers.—Hall's College Words and Phrases.
Bleached Mort, subs. (old).—A fair complexioned wench.—Grose. [From bleached, white or fair, + mort, a girl or woman.]
Bleak, adj. (American thieves').—In the phraseology of American thieves, bleak means handsome.
Bleater, subs. (old).—The victim of a sharper or rook. In the following quotation a Jack in the box (q.v.) is an old thieves' term for a swindler or cheat.
1609. Dekker, Lanthorne, wks., 1884-5, III., 290. They that are Cheated by Iacke in a Boxe are called bleaters.
1785. Grose, Dictionary of the Vulgar Tongue. Bleaters, those cheated by Jack in a Box.
1811. Lexicon Balatronicum. (Same definition given.)
Bleating Cheat, subs. (old).—A sheep.—Grose. [In the old cant cheat or chete [from Anglo-Saxon ceat] signified a thing; and the names of animals were frequently formed by adding an adjective descriptive of their peculiar noise or cry. Thus a grunting cheat was a pig; a cackling cheat a fowl; a bleating cheat a sheep.] A sheep is also called a wool-bird (q.v.). Among French thieves this animal is designated une morne.
Bleating Cull, subs. (old).—A sheep stealer. [From bleating, see preceding, + cull, a man, honest or otherwise.]
Bleating Prig or Rig, subs. (old).—Sheep stealing. [From bleating, see Bleating cheat, + prig, or rig, the act of stealing.]
