BEE-BIKE, a bee's nest or hive in a wild state. Teut. bie-bock,

bie-buyek, apiarium.

BEELD, shelter; hence BEELDING, a place of shelter for cattle, or any covered habitation. Isl. boele, domicilium.

BEET, to help or assist, to supply the gradual waste of any thing. Isl. betra. Dut. boeten, to mend. To BEET THE FIRE, is to feed it with fuel. The word in this latter sense is most applicable to straw, heath, fern, furze, and especially to the husk of oats, when used for heating girdles on which oaten cakes are baked. Teut. boeten het vier, struere ignem. BEET-NEED, assistance in distress. Sax. betan, to restore. BEEZEN, blind. See Todd's John. bisson.

BELIVE, anon, by and by, quickly. An old word used by Chaucer, Spenser, and other early poets.. Sax. belif-an. BELK, to belch. The old mode of writing it.

BELLY-GO-LAKE-THEE, take your fill, satisfy your appetite.— York. BELLY-WARK, the gripes or colick. Ache is pronounced wark, as head-wark, tooth-wark.

BENSEL, to beat or bang. Teut. benghelen.

BENT, a long kind of grass which grows in Northumberland, near the sea, and is used for thatch. Dr. Willan has BENTS, high pastures or shelving commons, hence he says, BENTgrass, which from the soil is necessarily harsh and coarse. BERRY, to thrash corn. BERRIER, a thrasher. BE-TWATTLED, Confounded, stupified, infatuated. BEVEL, a violent push or stroke.

BICKER, v. to clatter, to quarrel. A very old word for skirmish. BICKER, s. a small wooden dish, made of staves and hoops like a tub.

BIG, to build. Isl. byggi.

BIGG, a particular kind of barley, properly that variety which. has four rows of grain on each ear, sometimes called bear. Isl. bygg, barley. Su.-Got. biug. Dan. byg.

BIGGEN, to recover after an accouchement. The gossips regularly wish the lady a good biggening.

BIGGIN, a building, properly a house larger than a cottage, but now generally used for a hut covered with mud or turf. BILDER, a wooden mallet with a long handle, used in husbandry for breaking clods. Hence, observes the author of the Craven Glossary, balderdash, may with propriety be called dirt spread by the bilder, alias bilderdasher. This etymon is certainly as happy as that of Mr. Malone-the froth or foam made by the barbers in dashing their balls backwards and forwards in hot water. See, however, BLATHER. BINK, a seat in the front of a house made of stones or sods. Sax. benc. Dan. bænk.

BIRK, the birch tree.

Teut.berck.

BISHOP'S FOOT. When any thing has been burnt to the pan

in boiling, or is spoiled in cooking, it is common to say," the
Bishop has set his foot in it." The author of the Crav.
Gloss. under bishopped, says, "pottage burnt at the bottom
of the pan.
'Bishop's i' th' pot,' may it not be derived
from Bishop Burnet?" That is impossible, the saying
having been in use long before the Bishop was born! It
occurs in Tusser's "Points of Husbandry," a well known
book; and also in Tyndale's " Obedyence of a Chrysten
Man," printed in 1528. The last writer, p. 109, says,
"when a thynge speadeth not well we borowe speach and
say the byshope hath blessed it, because that nothynge
speadeth well that they medyll withall. If the podech be
burned to, or the meate over rosted, we say the byshope has
put his fote in the potte, or the byshope hath played the coke,
because the byshopes BURN who they lust and whosoever
displeaseth them." I am well aware of what Dr. Jamieson,
Grose, and other writers have stated on the subject, but I
think this allusion to the episcopal disposition to burn here-

tics, in a certain reign, presents the most satisfactory explanation that can be offered as to the origin of the phrase. BITTLE, a mallet to beat grain out of gleanings. From beetle. BIZON, shame or scandal; a shew or spectacle of disgrace. In unguarded moments when the good women in certain districts of Newcastle, give way to acts of termagancy more congenial to Wapping or Billingsgate, it is common to fulminate the object of their resentment with a " Holy Bizon,” obviously in allusion to the penitential act of standing in a white sheet, which scandalous delinquents are sometimes enjoined to perform in the church before the whole congregation.

Wiv a' the stravaigin aw wanted a munch,
An' maw thropple was ready to gizen;

So aw went tiv a yell-house, and there teuk a lunch,
But the reck'ning, me saul! was a bizon.

Song, Canny Newcassel.

BLACK-A-VIZ'D, dark in complexion. A black-a-viz'd man or

woman.

BLACK-PUDDINGS. Puddings made of blood, suet, &c. stuffed

into the intestines of pigs or sheep, and a favourite dish among the common people. "A nice het pudden, hinnie!"

A nice fat pudden, ma hinnie !”—Newcastle cries.

Through they were lin'd with many a piece

Of ammunition bread and cheese,

And fat black-puddings, proper food

For warriors that delight in blood.—But. Hudib,

BLAKE, yellowish, or of a golden colour, spoken of butter, cheese, &c. The yellow bunting (emberiza citrinella) is also, in some places, called a blakeling. Isl. blar. Dut. bleek, pale.

Blake autumn.-Chatterton.

D

BLARING, crying vehemently, roaring loud, applied to peevish children and vulgar drunken noise. Dut. blaren.

BLASH, to throw dirt; also to scatter, as the "water blashed all over. Germ. platzen.

BLASHMENT, weak and diluting liquor.

BLASHY, thin, poor, às blashy beer, &c. It also means wet and dirty. Dr. Jam. has blash, a heavy fall of rain.

But aw fand maw sel blonk'd when to Lunnun aw gat,
The folks they a' luck'd wishy washy;

For gowld ye may howk 'till ye're blind as a bat,
For their streets are like wors-brave and blashy!
Song, Canny Newcassel.

BLAST, v. to blow up with gun-powder. BLAST, s. an explo

sion of foul air in a coal mine.

And oft a chilling damp or unctuous mist,

Loos'd from the crumbling caverns, issues forth,

Stopping the springs of life.—Jago's Edgehill.

BLATE, v. to bleat or bellow.
BLATE, a. shy, bashful, timid.

Dryden uses blatant.

Su.-Got. blode.

"A toom

(empty) purse makes a blate merchant."-Scot. Prov. BLATHER, to talk a great deal of nonsense. "He blathers and talks," is a common phrase where much is said to little purpose. A person of this kind is, by way of pre-eminence, styled a blathering hash. One of my correspondents derives the word from blatant, used by Spenser and others; another ingeniously suggests that it may be from the noise of an empty bladder;" but it appears to me to be either from Teut. blæteren, to talk foolishly, or Su.-Got. bladdra, garrire. Hence BLATHERDASH, Balderdash, the discourse itself. See BILDER.

BLAZE, to take salmon by striking them with a three pronged

and barbed dart, called a leister. I have often seen it practised in an evening, in the River Tees. In Craven, a torch was made of the dry bark of holly, besmeared with pitch. The water was so transparent that the smallest pebbles were visible at the bottom. One man carried the torch (when dark) either on foot or on horseback, while another, advancing with him, struck the salmon on the red, the place where the roe is deposited, with the leister. V. Crav. Gloss. bloazing.

BLEA, a pale bluish colour, often applied to the discolouration of the skin by a blow or contusion. It is also sometimes used to denote a bad colour in linen, indicating the necessity of bleaching.

BLEA-BERRY, BLAY-BERRY, the bilberry, or whortle berry. Isl. blaber, vaccinium vulgare myrtillus.

BLEB, BLOB, a drop of water or bubble; a blister or rising of the skin.

BLEE, colour, complexion. An old word, not obsolete, as stated in Todd's Johnson.

BLEED, to yield, applied to corn, which is said to "bleed well," when on thrashing it happens to be very productive. BLENDINGS, peas and beans mixed together. BLINK, to smile, to look kindly, but with a modest eye, the word being generally applied to females. Dan. blinke. BLINKARD, BLENKARD, a person near sighted or almost blind.

A fighting cock with only one eye is termed a blenker. BLIRT, BLURT, to cry, to make a sudden indistinct or unpleasant noise.

BLOACHER, any large animal.

BLOUSY, or BLOWSY, wild, disordered, confused. Johnson has

blowzy, sun burnt, high coloured.

BLOW, the blossom of fruit trees. Sax. blowan, to bloom. The Crav. Gloss. has blume, blossom, from Germ. blum.