Brass Knocker, subs. (vagrants').—Broken victuals; the remains of a meal. Specially applied by beggars to the scraps often bestowed upon them in place of money.
Brass-Plate Merchant, subs. (common).—Explained by quotation.
1851. H. Mayhew, London Labour and London Poor, II., p. 95. The brass-plate merchant, as he is called in the trade, being a person who merely procures orders for coal, gets some merchant who buys in the coal-market to execute them in his name, and manages to make a living by the profits of these transactions.
Brassy, adj. (common).—Impudent; impertinent; shameless. Cf., Brass, sense 1.
1570-76. Lambarde, Peramb. Kent (1826), 156. To make them blush . . . were they never so brassie and impudent.
1661. T. Middleton, Mayor of Quinborough, iii., 1. There's no gallant so brassy impudent durst undertake the words that shall belong to't.
1738-1819. Wolcot, P. Pindar, p. 73, ed. 1830. No. Mr. Gattle—Betty was too brassy, We never keep a servant that is saucy.
1862. Mrs. H. Wood. Channings, ch. xxxii. 'I asked him to leave his name, sir,' and he said Mr. Rowland Yorke knew his name quite well enough without having it left for him.' 'As brassy as that was he! I wish to goodness it was the fashion to have a cistern in your house roofs'!
Brazen-Faced, ppl. adj. (common).—Shameless; impudent; unblushing. With a face as of brass, see Brass. Hotten remarks that such a person is sometimes said to have had his face rubbed with a brass candle-stick.
1571. Golding, Calvin on Ps., xii., 5. With such brazenfaste baldnesse.
1596. Nashe, Saffron Walden, in wks. III., 84. Amidst his impudent brazen-fac'd defamation of Doctor Ferne.
1693. Dryden, Juvenal, III., 133. Quick-witted, brazen-fac'd, with fluent tongues.
1714. Memoirs of John Hall (4 ed.), p. 10. Thus with an unparallell'd Impudence every brazen-fac'd Malefactor is harden'd in his Sin.
1874. Mrs. H. Wood, Johnny Ludlow, 1 S., viii., p. 137. 'Of all the impudent brazen-faced rascals that are cheating the gallows, you must be the worst.'
Bread, subs. (old).—Employment; a transferred sense, the idea being—no work; no food.
1785. Grose, Dictionary of the Vulgar Tongue. Out of bread, out of employment.
Bread and Butter Fashion, phr. (harlotry).—An expression descriptive of the sexual embrace.
Bread and Butter Warehouse, phr. (old).—A nickname given to the old Ranelagh Gardens. An allusion to the scenes of infamy and debauchery which once characterized the place.—See Bread and butter fashion.
Bread and Meat, subs. phr. (military).—The commissariat.
Bread Bags, subs. (military).—A nickname given in the army and navy to any one connected with the victualling department, as a purser or purveyor in the commissariat. At one time called muckers, and amongst French soldiers riz-pain-sel.
Bread-Barge, subs. (nautical).—The distributing basket or tray containing the rations of biscuits.
