Count, stood deploring, He hadn't taught Georgy his new modes of boring.
1821. The Fancy, vol. I., p. 255. Evans bored in, and upset his man in the first round.
1870. Dickens, Edwin Drood, ch. xvii., p. 129. Their fighting code stood in great need of revision, as empowering them not only to bore their man to the ropes, but . . . also to hit him when he was down.
Born Days. All one's born days, phr. (colloquial).—One's lifetime.
1740. Richarsdon, Pamela, III., 383. He never was so delighted in his born days.
1758. Richardson Grandison, I., 103. There was one Miss Byron, a Northamptonshire lady, whom I never saw before in my born days.
1809. Miss Edgeworth, Ennui, ch. ix. Craiglethorpe will know just as much of the lower Irish as the Cockney who has never been out of London, and who has never in all his born days seen an Irishman but on the English stage.
Born Weak, phr. (nautical).—Said
of a vessel feebly built.—Clark
Russel's Sailors' Language.
Bosh, subs, (common).—Nonsense;
rubbish; 'stuff'; 'rot'—anything
beneath contempt.
[The derivation is uncertain.
Murray says the word became
current in England from its
frequent occurrence in Morier's
Persian novels, Ayesha [1834],
etc., most of them extremely
popular productions. Its source
has been suggested in the Turkish
bosh lakerdi, 'empty talk';
in the German bosh or bossch,
an equivalent of 'swipes'; and
in the Gypsy bosh, 'a noise,' a
fiddle,' from which latter it has
been thought that there may
be some connection between the
exclamation bosh! and fiddle-de-dee
(q.v.).]
1834. Morier, Ayesha, I., 219. This firman is bosh—nothing, [m.]
1857. C. Kingsley, Two Years Ago, ch. x. I always like to read old Darwin's Loves of the Plants, bosh as it is in a scientific point of view.
1880. Punch, 10 Jan., p. 9, col. 2. 'Prophet,' said I, 'of things evil!' 'Things are going to the devil' Is the formula of fogies, I have heard that bosh before.
Verb.—To humbug; to spoil; to mar.
1870. Macmillan's Magazine, XXI, 71. You bosh his joke [a man's] by refusing to laugh at it; you bosh his chance of sleep by playing on the cornet all night in the room next to him. [m.J
1883. Miss Braddon, Golden Calf, ch. xiv. 'And wouldn't he make a jolly schoolmaster?' exclaimed Reginald. 'Boys would get on capitally with Jardine. They'd never try to bosh him.'
Intj.—Nonsense! Rubbish! It's all my eye!—See all my eye.
1852. Dickens, Bleak House, ch. xxi. bosh! It's all correct.
1889. Pall Mall Gazette, October 30, p. 3, col. 1. 'You always learn in front of the looking-glass, do you not, Mr. Brandram?'—'bosh!' was the laughing reply. 'I generally learn my plays and recitations whilst I am dressing; but you don't think I deliberately stand and make monkey-faces in the looking-glass.
Bosh Faker, subs, (vagrants').—A
violin player. [From Gypsy
bosh, a violin, + faker, a performer
or player.]
1876. Hindley, Life and Adventures of a Cheap Jack, p. 231. Can you rocker Romanie Can you patter flash, Can you rocker Romanie Can you fake a bosh.
Boshing, subs. (American thieves').
—A flogging. [Apparently a
corrupted form of bashing.]—See
Bash.
