1883. Punch, August 4, p. 51, col. 1.
A helpless 'nuisance' shunned by the Inspector, Ignored by bumbles and by Boards of Works.
Bumble-Crew, subs. (popular).—A collective name for corporations, vestries, and other official bodies. [From bumble (q.v.) + crew.]—See Bumbledom.
Bumbledom, subs. (popular).—A term applied to the spirit of collective petty officialism; red tape fussiness and pomposity. [From bumble (q.v.) + dom.]
1856. Saturday Review, II., p. 12, col. 1. The collective Bumbledom of Westminster. [m.]
1884. Daily News, Dec. 27, p. 6, col. 1. Our scheme is unfolded to the chief officer—not the slightest trace of bumbledom about him—a kind-hearted, genial, happy-faced individual.
Bumble Puppy, subs. (popular).—Family whist, i.e., 'unscientific' whist. Also applied, says Hotten, to a game played in public houses on a large stone, placed in a slanting direction, on the lower end of which holes are made, and numbered like the holes in a bagatelle-table. The player rolls a stone ball, or marble, from the higher end, and according to the number of the hole it falls into the game is counted. It is undoubtedly the very ancient game of Troule-in-madame.
1886. Daily News, Dec. 25, p. 5, col. 2. Christmas cards, and mince-pies, and another helping of turkey, and family whist, or bumble puppy.
Bumbles, subs. (general).—Coverings for the eyes of horses that shy in harness. Cf., Blinkers.
Bumbo, subs. (West Indian.)—1. The female pudenda; a term applied by negroes. For synonyms, see Monosyllable.
2. (old.)—Smollett, in a note to the first quotation as follows, says bumbo was a liquor composed of 'rum, sugar, water, and nutmeg.' Grose gives it as 'brandy, water, and sugar'—the component parts seem to vary according to taste.
1748. Smollett, Rod. Random, ch. xxxiv. Who were making merry in the ward-room, round a table well stored with bumbo and wine.
1756. Diary of a Sussex Tradesman, in Sussex Arch. Coll., IX., 188, quoted in N. and Q., 7 S., i., 194. 1756, April 28. I went down to Jones', where we drank one bowl of punch and two muggs of bumboo, and I came home again in liquor.
1882. Northumbrian Minstrelsy, etc., p. 113, quoted in N. and Q., 7 S., i., 195.
The pitmen and the keelmen trim, They drink bumbo made of gin.
Bum-Brusher, subs. (schoolboys').—A schoolmaster; also applied to an usher. [From bum, the posteriors, + brusher, in allusion to the office a schoolmaster is sometimes called upon to perform by way of punishment.]
English Synonyms. Flay-*bottom; haberdasher of pronouns.
French Synonyms. Un marchand de soupe (marchand = merchant; soupe = soup); un chien de cour (i.e., 'a watch-*dog'); un fouette-cul (a literal translation of bum-brusher).
1704. T. Brown, wks. (1760) II., 86. [Dionysius] was forced to turn bum-brusher.
1788. New London Magazine, p. 137. A successor was immediately called from that great nursery of bum-brushers, Appleby School.
