there can be little doubt that when build is applied to the make or style of dress, that it is the purest slang—'It's a tidy build, who made it?' A tailor, it may be noted, is sometimes called a 'trousers' builder.' In the United States, this verb is used with much more latitude than in England. There, as Fennimore Cooper puts it, everything is built. The priest builds up a flock; the speculator a fortune; the lawyer a reputation; the landlord a town; and the tailor, as in England, builds up a suit of clothes. A fire is built instead of made, and the expression is even extended to individuals, to be built being used with the meaning of formed. 'I was not built that way'; and hence in a still more idiomatic sense to express unwillingness to adopt a specified course or carry out any inconvenient plan.—See Not BUILT THAT WAY.
1853. Wh. Melville, Digby Grand, ch. xx. That creator of manly beauty, who builds your coat on the model of an Apollo.
1853. Rev. E. Bradley ('Cuthbert Bede'), Verdant Green, pt. I., ch. x. If he forswore the primitive garments that his country-tailor had condemned him to wear, and adapted the build of his dress to the peculiar requirements of university fashion.
1871. A. Forbes, My Experience of the War, etc., II., p. 19. I met a gentleman who had got a dress coat built in the place [Versailles].
1880. Punch, Jan. 10, p. 6. The SPREAD OF EDUCATION AND LIBERAL ideas.—His Grace the Duke of Poplar and Bermondsey. 'Just look at these bags you last built me, Snippe! J'ever see such beastly bags in your life? I shall always be glad to come and dine with you, old man; but I'll be hanged if you shall ever measure me for another pair of bags!' Mr. Snippe (of Snippe and Son, St. James's Street). 'You've always grumbled about your bags, as you call 'em, ever since you were my fag at Eton; and at Christchurch you were just as bad, even though my poor dear old governor used to come all the way down and measure you himself. It ain't the fault of the bags, my dear Popsy—it's the fault of the legs inside 'em! So, shut up, old Stick-in-the-mud, and let's join the ladies—the duchess has promised to give us "Little Billee."'
Build a chapel, verbal phr. (nautical).—To steer badly, and so cause a ship to veer round.
Not built that way, phr. (general).—Not to one's taste, in one's line—a general expression of disapproval or dissent, whether said of persons or things.
1881. American Humorist, May 12. We cannot shut our eyes to the fact that mankind is passing through a great era of change; even womankind is not built as she was a few brief years ago.
1888. Missouri Republican, Jan. 25. 'Why didn't you roll down?' 'I wasn't built that way.'
Bulgarian Atrocities, subs. (Stock Exchange).—Varna and Rutschuk Ry. 3 per cent, obligations.
1887. Atkin, House Scraps. And we've really quite a crew Of fancy names to represent a share . . . But fancy, by the way, Now, in the present day, A Varna's a Bulgarian atrocity.
Bulge, verb (American).—The legitimate meaning is extended in many odd ways. 'Bags' bulge, but do not get baggy; and in a similar fashion when a man is 'all attention,' his eyes are said TO BULGE.
1888. Puck's Library, May, p. 31. A Phenomenal Fee. 'Yes,' said a pompous young lawyer, on a street-car, to a friend: 'I hadn't been downtown half an hour this morning, before I got a fee of ten dollars!' Then the eyes of a man who was hanging on to a strap began to bulge. 'I say, young feller,' he whispered earnestly: 'what saloon d'ye work at? I'm a waiter, myself!'
