Quotes: B

2151 quotations.

Baa

He treble baas for help, but none can get.

Babble

In every babbling brook he finds a friend.
These [words] he used to babble in all companies.
The babble of our young children.
The babble of the stream.

Babbler

Great babblers, or talkers, are not fit for trust.

Babel

Therefore is the name of it called Babel.
— Gen. xi. 9.
That babel of strange heathen languages.
The grinding babel of the street.
— R. L. Stevenson.

Babul

In place of Putney's golden gorse The sickly babul blooms.
— Kipling.

Baby

She clung about his neck, gave him ten kisses, Toyed with his locks, looked babies in his eyes.
— Heywood.

Babylonish

The . . . injurious nickname of Babylonish.
— Gage.

Baccare

Baccare! you are marvelous forward.

Bacchanalian

Even bacchanalian madness has its charms.

Bachelor

As merry and mellow an old bachelor as ever followed a hound.

Back

[The mountains] their broad bare backs upheave Into the clouds.
Methought Love pitying me, when he saw this, Gave me your hands, the backs and palms to kiss.
— Donne.
This project Should have a back or second, that might hold, If this should blast in proof.
A bak to walken inne by daylight.
I will back him [a horse] straight.
Great Jupiter, upon his eagle backed, Appeared to me.
A garden . . . with a vineyard backed.
The chalk cliffs which back the beach.
Have still found it necessary to back and fortify their laws with rewards and punishments.
The mate backed the captain manfully.
— Blackw. Mag.
Cleon at first . . . was willing to go; but, finding that he [Nicias] was in earnest, he tried to back out.
— Jowett (Thucyd. )
The angel of the Lord . . . came, and rolled back the stone from the door.
— Matt. xxviii. 2.
The Lord hath kept thee back from honor.
— Numb. xxiv. 11.
What have I to give you back?

Backbite

They are arrant knaves, and will backbite.

Backbiting

Backbiting, and bearing of false witness.
— Piers Plowman.

Backbone

The lofty mountains on the north side compose the granitic axis, or backbone of the country.
We have now come to the backbone of our subject.
— Earle.
Shelley's thought never had any backbone.
— Shairp.

background

I fancy there was a background of grinding and waiting before Miss Torry could produce this highly finished . . . performance.
— Mrs. Alexander.
A husband somewhere in the background.

Backlog

There was first a backlog, from fifteen to four and twenty inches in diameter and five feet long, imbedded in the ashes.
— S. G. Goodrich.

Backset

Slackwater, or the backset caused by the overflow.

Backsettler

The English backsettlers of Leinster and Munster.

Backsliding

Turn, O backsliding children, saith the Lord.
— Jer. iii. 14.
Our backslidings are many.
— Jer. xiv. 7.

Backstairs

A backstairs influence.
Female caprice and backstair influence.
— Trevelyan.

Backward

Thou wilt fall backward.
Some reigns backward.
The work went backward.
We might have . . . beat them backward home.
For wiser brutes were backward to be slaves.
And flies unconscious o'er each backward year.
In the dark backward and abysm of time.

Backwardly

And does he think so backwardly of me?

Bad

The strong antipathy of good to bad.

Badaud

A host of stories . . . dealing chiefly with the subject of his great wealth, an ever delightful topic to the badauds of Paris.
— Pall Mall Mag.

Badge

Sweet mercy is nobility's true badge.

Baffle

He by the heels him hung upon a tree, And baffled so, that all which passed by The picture of his punishment might see.
The art that baffles time's tyrannic claim.
A suitable scripture ready to repel and baffle them all.
Calculations so difficult as to have baffled, until within a . . . recent period, the most enlightened nations.
The mere intricacy of a question should not baffle us.

Bag

A bee bagged with his honeyed venom.

Bagatelle

Rich trifles, serious bagatelles.

baggage

The baronet's baggage on the roof of the coach.
We saw our baggage following below.
A disreputable, daring, laughing, painted French baggage.

Bah

Twenty-five years ago the vile ejaculation, Bah! was utterly unknown to the English public.

Bail

The bail of a canoe . . . made of a human skull.
— Capt. Cook.
Buckets . . . to bail out the water.
— Capt. J. Smith.
By the help of a small bucket and our hats we bailed her out.
Ne none there was to rescue her, ne none to bail.
Silly Faunus now within their bail.
The bail must be real, substantial bondsmen.
A. and B. were bail to the arrest in a suit at law.
— Kent.
Excessive bail ought not to be required.

Bailiff

Lausanne is under the canton of Berne, governed by a bailiff sent every three years from the senate.

Bailment

Bailment . . . is the saving or delivery of a man out of prison before he hath satisfied the law.
— Dalton.

Bairn

Has he not well provided for the bairn?

Bait

A crooked pin . . . baited with a vile earthworm.
Evil news rides post, while good news baits.
My lord's coach conveyed me to Bury, and thence baiting at Newmarket.

Baize

A new black baize waistcoat lined with silk.

Bake

The earth . . . is baked with frost.
They bake their sides upon the cold, hard stone.

Balance

A fair balance of the advantages on either side.
And hung a bottle on each side To make his balance true.
The order and balance of the country were destroyed.
— Buckle.
English workmen completely lose their balance.
— J. S. Mill.
I still think the balance of probabilities leans towards the account given in the text.
— J. Peile.
One expression . . . must check and balance another.
— Kent.
Balance the good and evil of things.
I am very well satisfied that it is not in my power to balance accounts with my Maker.
He would not balance or err in the determination of his choice.

Bald

On the bald top of an eminence.
In the preface to his own bald translation.

Balderdash

Indeed beer, by a mixture of wine, hath lost both name and nature, and is called balderdash.
— Taylor (Drink and Welcome).
The wine merchants of Nice brew and balderdash, and even mix it with pigeon's dung and quicklime.

Baldness

This gives to their syntax a peculiar character of simplicity and baldness.
— W. D. Whitney.

Baldric

A radiant baldric o'er his shoulder tied Sustained the sword that glittered at his side.

Bale

Let now your bliss be turned into bale.

Balefire

Sweet Teviot! on thy silver tide The glaring balefires blaze no more.

Baleful

Four infernal rivers that disgorge Into the burning lake their baleful streams.

Balk

Bad plowmen made balks of such ground.
Tubs hanging in the balks.
A balk to the confidence of the bold undertaker.
Ten thousand bold Scots, two and twenty knights, Balk'd in their own blood did Sir Walter see.
By reason of the contagion then in London, we balked the inns.
Sick he is, and keeps his bed, and balks his meat.
Nor doth he any creature balk, But lays on all he meeteth.
They shall not balk my entrance.
In strifeful terms with him to balk.

Ball

Move round the dark terrestrial ball.

Ballast

It [piety] is the right ballast of prosperity.
'T is charity must ballast the heart.

Ballot

The insufficiency of the ballot.
None of the competitors arriving to a sufficient number of balls, they fell to ballot some others.

Balmoral

A man who uses his balmorals to tread on your toes.
— George Eliot.

Balmy

Tired nature's sweet restorer, balmy sleep!

baloney

No matter how thin you slice it, it's still baloney!
— Al Smith.

Balsam

Was not the people's blessing a balsam to thy blood?

bam

To relieve the tedium, he kept plying them with all manner of bams.
— Prof. Wilson.

Bamboozle

What oriental tomfoolery is bamboozling you?

Banality

The highest things were thus brought down to the banalities of discourse.
— J. Morley.

Band

Every one's bands were loosed.
— Acts xvi. 26.
Troops of horsemen with his bands of foot.
Certain of the Jews banded together.
— Acts xxiii. 12.

Bandage

Zeal too had a place among the rest, with a bandage over her eyes.

Bandeau

Around the edge of this cap was a stiff bandeau of leather.

Banderole

From the extremity of which fluttered a small banderole or streamer bearing a cross.

Bandit

No savage fierce, bandit, or mountaineer.
Deerstealers are ever a desperate banditti.

Bandog

The keeper entered leading his bandog, a large bloodhound, tied in a leam, or band, from which he takes his name.

Bandy

Like tennis balls bandied and struck upon us . . . by rackets from without.
— Cudworth.
Let not obvious and known truth be bandied about in a disputation.
Fit to bandy with thy lawless sons.

Bane

The cup of deception spiced and tempered to their bane.
Money, thou bane of bliss, and source of woe.

Bang

The desperate tempest hath so banged the Turks.
Many a stiff thwack, many a bang.
— Hudibras.
His hair banged even with his eyebrows.
— The Century Mag.
His hair cut in front like a young lady's bang.
— W. D. Howells.

Banish

How the ancient Celtic tongue came to be banished from the Low Countries in Scotland.
— Blair.

Banishment

He secured himself by the banishment of his enemies.
Round the wide world in banishment we roam.

Banister

He struggled to ascend the pulpit stairs, holding hard on the banisters. Sir W. Scott.

Bank

They cast up a bank against the city.
— 2 Sam. xx. 15.
Tiber trembled underneath her banks.
Placed on their banks, the lusty Trojan sweep Neptune's smooth face, and cleave the yielding deep.
Let it be no bank or common stock, but every man be master of his own money.

Banquet

We'll dine in the great room, but let the music And banquet be prepared here.
Just in time to banquet The illustrious company assembled there.
Were it a draught for Juno when she banquets, I would not taste thy treasonous offer.
Where they did both sup and banquet.
— Cavendish.

Banquette

My brother-in-law . . . took refuge in the banquette.
— Mrs. Howe.

Banter

Hag-ridden by my own fancy all night, and then bantered on my haggard looks the next day.
If they banter your regularity, order, and love of study, banter in return their neglect of them.
— Chatham.
We diverted ourselves with bantering several poor scholars with hopes of being at least his lordship's chaplain.
Part banter, part affection.

Bantling

In what out of the way corners genius produces her bantlings.

Baptization

Their baptizations were null.

Baptize

I'll be new baptized; Henceforth I never will be Romeo.

Bar

Thou shalt make bars of shittim wood.
— Ex. xxvi. 26.
Must I new bars to my own joy create?
He barely looked the idea in the face, and hastened to bar it in its dungeon.
Nay, but I bar to-night: you shall not gauge me By what we do to-night.
For the sake of distinguishing the feet more clearly, I have barred them singly.
— Burney.

Barb

The barbel, so called by reason of his barbs, or wattles in his mouth.
— Walton.
But rattling storm of arrows barbed with fire.

Barbarian

Therefore if I know not the meaning of the voice, I shall be unto him that speaketh a barbarian, and he that speaketh shall be a barbarian unto me.
— 1 Cor. xiv. 11.

Barbarism

A heinous barbarism . . . against the honor of marriage.
The Greeks were the first that branded a foreign term in any of their writers with the odious name of barbarism.
— G. Campbell.

Barbarity

Treating Christians with a barbarity which would have shocked the very Moslem.

Barbarize

The Roman empire was barbarizing rapidly from the time of Trajan.
The ill habit . . . of wretched barbarizing against the Latin and Greek idiom, with their untutored Anglicisms.
The hideous changes which have barbarized France.

Barbarous

Barbarous gold.
By their barbarous usage he died within a few days, to the grief of all that knew him.
A barbarous expression
— G. Campbell.

Barbated

A dart uncommonly barbated.
— T. Warton.

Barbecue

They use little or no salt, but barbecue their game and fish in the smoke.
— Stedman.
Send me, gods, a whole hog barbecued.

Barded

Fifteen hundred men . . . barded and richly trapped.
— Stow.

Bare

When once thy foot enters the church, be bare.
Bare in thy guilt, how foul must thou appear !
It appears by their bare liveries that they live by your bare words.
Nor are men prevailed upon by bare words.
You have touched the very bare of naked truth.
— Marston.

Barely

R. For now his son is duke. W. Barely in title, not in revenue.

Bargain

A contract is a bargain that is legally binding.
— Wharton.
And whon your honors mean to solemnize The bargain of your faith.
She was too fond of her most filthy bargain.
So worthless peasants bargain for their wives.

Bark

They bark, and say the Scripture maketh heretics.
— Tyndale.
Where there is the barking of the belly, there no other commands will be heard, much less obeyed.

Barmaid

A bouncing barmaid.

Barn

Men . . . often barn up the chaff, and burn up the grain.

Barnacle

The barnacles . . . give pain almost equal to that of the switch.
— Youatt.

Baronage

The baronage of the kingdom.

Barrack

He lodged in a miserable hut or barrack, composed of dry branches and thatched with straw.

Barren

She was barren of children.
Brilliant but barren reveries.
Some schemes will appear barren of hints and matter.

Barrenness

A total barrenness of invention.

Barricade

Such a barricade as would greatly annoy, or absolutely stop, the currents of the atmosphere.
— Derham.
The further end whereof [a bridge] was barricaded with barrels.
— Hakluyt.

Barrier

No sooner were the barriers opened, than he paced into the lists.
'Twixt that [instinct] and reason, what a nice barrier!

Barter

The spirit of huckstering and barter.

Base

Why bastard? wherefore base?
The trebles squeak for fear, the bases roar.
To their appointed base they went.
If any . . . based his pike.
— Sir T. North.
Metals which we can not base.

Baseness

I once did hold it a baseness to write fair.

Bash

His countenance was bold and bashed not.
Bash her open with a rock.
— Kipling.

Basilican

There can be no doubt that the first churches in Constantinople were in the basilican form.

Basilisk

Make me not sighted like the basilisk.

Basis

If no basis bear my rising name.
The basis of public credit is good faith.
— A. Hamilton.

Bask

Basks in the glare, and stems the tepid wave.
Basks at the fire his hairy strength.

Basset

Some dress, some dance, some play, not to forget Your piquet parties, and your dear basset.

Basswood

All the bowls were made of basswood, White and polished very smoothly.

Bastard

Brown bastard is your only drink.
That bastard self-love which is so vicious in itself, and productive of so many vices.

Bastardize

The law is so indulgent as not to bastardize the child, if born, though not begotten, in lawful wedlock.

Baste

One man was basted by the keeper for carrying some people over on his back through the waters.

Bastile

The high bastiles . . . which overtopped the walls.

Bat

Silent bats in drowsy clusters cling.

Bate

He must either bate the laborer's wages, or not employ or not pay him.
To whom he bates nothing of what he stood upon with the parliament.
Bate me the king, and, be he flesh and blood, He lies that says it.
About autumn bate the earth from about the roots of olives, and lay them bare.
When baseness is exalted, do not bate The place its honor for the person's sake.
Abate thy speed, and I will bate of mine.

Bath

Among the ancients, the public baths were of amazing extent and magnificence.
— Gwilt.

Bathe

Chancing to bathe himself in the River Cydnus.
And let us bathe our hands in Cæsar's blood.

Bating

We have little reason to think that they bring many ideas with them, bating some faint ideas of hunger and thirst.

Baton

He held the baton of command.

Battalia

A drawing up the armies in battalia.

Battel

A battel soil for grain, for pasture good.

Batten

The pampered monarch lay battening in ease.
— Garth.
Skeptics, with a taste for carrion, who batten on the hideous facts in history, -- persecutions, inquisitions.

Battle

The whole intellectual battle that had at its center the best poem of the best poet of that day.
— H. Morley.
The king divided his army into three battles.
The cavalry, by way of distinction, was called the battle, and on it alone depended the fate of every action.
— Robertson.
To meet in arms, and battle in the plain.

Battlemented

A battlemented portal.

Bauble

The ineffective bauble of an Indian pagod.
— Sheridan.

Bavaroy

Let the looped bavaroy the fop embrace.

Bawdy

It [a garment] is al bawdy and to-tore also.

Bay

The patriot's honors and the poet's bays.
— Trumbull.
The hounds at nearer distance hoarsely bayed.
Embolden'd by despair, he stood at bay.
The most terrible evils are just kept at bay by incessant efforts.

Bayard

Blind bayard moves the mill.
— Philips.

Bayonet

To bayonet us into submission.

Bayou

A dark slender thread of a bayou moves loiteringly northeastward into a swamp of huge cypresses.
— G. W. Cable.

Be

To be contents his natural desire.
To be, or not to be: that is the question.
The field is the world.
— Matt. xiii. 38.
The seven candlesticks which thou sawest are the seven churches.
— Rev. i. 20.

beachcomber

I was fortunate enough, however, to forgather with a Scotchman who was a beach-comber.
— F. T. Bullen.

Beached

The beached verge of the salt flood.

Beachy

The beachy girdle of the ocean.

Beacon

No flaming beacons cast their blaze afar.
Modest doubt is called The beacon of the wise.
That beacons the darkness of heaven.
— Campbell.

Beadroll

On Fame's eternal beadroll worthy to be filed.
It is quite startling, on going over the beadroll of English worthies, to find how few are directly represented in the male line.

Beadsman

Whereby ye shall bind me to be your poor beadsman for ever unto Almighty God.

Beam

The beams of a vessel are strong pieces of timber stretching across from side to side to support the decks.
— Totten.
The doubtful beam long nods from side to side.
How far that little candle throws his beams!
Mercy with her genial beam.
He beamed, the daystar of the rising age.
— Trumbull.

Beamed

Tost his beamed frontlet to the sky.

Beamy

His double-biting ax, and beamy spear.
Beamy stags in toils engage.

Bear

I 'll bear your logs the while.
Bear them to my house.
Every man should bear rule in his own house.
— Esther i. 22.
The ancient grudge I bear him.
Should such a man, too fond to rule alone, Bear, like the Turk, no brother near the throne.
I cannot bear The murmur of this lake to hear.
My punishment is greater than I can bear.
— Gen. iv. 13.
Some think to bear it by speaking a great word.
She was . . . found not guilty, through bearing of friends and bribing of the judge.
He shall bear their iniquities.
— Is. liii. 11.
Somewhat that will bear your charges.
In all criminal cases the most favorable interpretation should be put on words that they can possibly bear.
Hath he borne himself penitently in prison?
His faithful dog shall bear him company.
Here dwelt the man divine whom Samos bore.
This age to blossom, and the next to bear.
But man is born to bear.
I can not, can not bear.
These men bear hard on the suspected party.
Her sentence bore that she should stand a certain time upon the platform.

Beard

No admiral, bearded by these corrupt and dissolute minions of the palace, dared to do more than mutter something about a court martial.

Bearing

I know him by his bearing.
But of this frame, the bearings and the ties, The strong connections, nice dependencies.
[His mother] in travail of his bearing.
— R. of Gloucester.
A carriage covered with armorial bearings.

Beast

A righteous man regardeth the life of his beast.
— Prov. xii. 10.
'Tain't a fit night out for man nor beast.
— W. C. Fields.

Beastly

Beastly divinities and droves of gods.
The beastly vice of drinking to excess.

Beat

Thou shalt beat some of it [spices] very small.
— Ex. xxx. 36.
They did beat the gold into thin plates.
— Ex. xxxix. 3.
To beat the woods, and rouse the bounding prey.
A frozen continent . . . beat with perpetual storms.
Pass awful gulfs, and beat my painful way.
— Blackmore.
He beat them in a bloody battle.
For loveliness, it would be hard to beat that.
Why should any one . . . beat his head about the Latin grammar who does not intend to be a critic?
The men of the city . . . beat at the door.
— Judges. xix. 22.
A thousand hearts beat happily.
Sees rolling tempests vainly beat below.
They [winds] beat at the crazy casement.
The sun beat upon the head of Jonah, that he fainted, and wished in himself to die.
— Jonah iv. 8.
Public envy seemeth to beat chiefly upon ministers.
To still my beating mind.
He, with a careless beat, Struck out the mute creation at a heat.
Quite beat, and very much vexed and disappointed.
It's a beat on the whole country.
— Scribner's Mag.
Bears coming out of holes in the rocks at the last moment, when the beat is close to them.
— Encyc. of Sport.

Beatify

The common conceits and phrases that beatify wealth.

Beaufet

A beaufet . . . filled with gold and silver vessels.

Beautiful

A circle is more beautiful than a square; a square is more beautiful than a parallelogram.
— Lord Kames.

Beautify

The arts that beautify and polish life.

Beauty

Beauty consists of a certain composition of color and figure, causing delight in the beholder.
The production of beauty by a multiplicity of symmetrical parts uniting in a consistent whole.
The old definition of beauty, in the Roman school, was, “multitude in unity;” and there is no doubt that such is the principle of beauty.
All the admired beauties of Verona.
She stained her hair yellow, which was then the beauty.

Beaver

A brown beaver slouched over his eyes.

Becalm

Soft whispering airs . . . becalm the mind.
— Philips.

Because

And the multitude rebuked them because they should hold their peace.
— Matt. xx. 31.
Because of these things cometh the wrath of God upon the children of disobedience.
— Eph. v. 6.

Bechance

God knows what hath bechanced them.

Beck

The brooks, the becks, the rills.
When gold and silver becks me to come on.
They have troops of soldiers at their beck.

Beckon

His distant friends, he beckons near.
It beckons you to go away with it.

Becloud

If thou becloud the sunshine of thine eye.
— Quarles.

Become

The Lord God . . . breathed into his nostrils the breath of life; and man became a living soul.
— Gen. ii. 7.
That error now which is become my crime.
But, madam, where is Warwick then become!
What is then become of so huge a multitude?
It becomes me so to speak of so excellent a poet.
I have known persons so anxious to have their dress become them, as to convert it, at length, into their proper self, and thus actually to become the dress.

Becomed

And gave him what becomed love I might.

Becoming

A low and becoming tone.
Such discourses as are becoming of them.

Becomingness

The becomingness of human nature.
— Grew.

Bed

And made for him [a horse] a leafy bed.
I wash, wring, brew, bake, . . . make the beds.
In bed he slept not for my urging it.
George, the eldest son of his second bed.
So sinks the daystar in the ocean bed.
I'll to the Tuscan wars, and never bed her.
Among all chains or clusters of mountains where large bodies of still water are bedded.
If he be married, and bed with his wife.
— Wiseman.

Bedaub

Bedaub foul designs with a fair varnish.

Bedeck

Bedecked with boughs, flowers, and garlands.
— Pennant.

Bedevil

Bedeviled and used worse than St. Bartholomew.

Bedewy

Night with her bedewy wings.

Bedizen

Remnants of tapestried hangings, . . . and shreds of pictures with which he had bedizened his tatters.

Bedlam

Let's get the bedlam to lead him.

Bedroom

Then by your side no bed room me deny.

Bedrop

The yellow carp, in scales bedropped with gold.

Bedsite

Of the three bedrooms, two have fireplaces, and all are of fair size, with windows and bedsite well placed.

Bedstaff

Hostess, accommodate us with a bedstaff.
Say there is no virtue in cudgels and bedstaves.
— Brome.

Bedye

Briton fields with Sarazin blood bedyed.

Bee

The cellar . . . was dug by a bee in a single day.
— S. G. Goodrich.

Beef

A herd of beeves, fair oxen and fair kine.

Been

Assembled been a senate grave and stout.

beer belly

In one of the less surprising revelations of the year, researchers at the University of North Carolina (UNC) and colleagues have confirmed that excessive consumption of beer can lead to the condition commonly known as beer belly. At the same time, however, they discovered that, beyond aesthetic concerns, the condition may point to health hazards of a more serious nature. In a comparison of beer drinkers and wine drinkers, the scientists found that beer tends to build a central paunch, or “potbelly”, while wine drinkers tend to have narrower waists, even when the same amount of alcohol and calories is consumed by both.
— The Scientist -- December 11, 1995.

Beetle

To the dreadful summit of the cliff That beetles o'er his base into the sea.
Each beetling rampart, and each tower sublime.

Beeve

They would knock down the first beeve they met with.

Befall

I beseech your grace that I may know The worst that may befall me.
I have revealed . . . the discord which befell.

Befit

That name best befits thee.

Befool

This story . . . contrived to befool credulous men.

Before

His angel, who shall go Before them in a cloud and pillar of fire.
Before Abraham was, I am.
— John viii. 58.
Before this treatise can become of use, two points are necessary.
The golden age . . . is before us.
He that cometh after me is preferred before me.
— John i. 15.
The eldest son is before the younger in succession.
Abraham bowed down himself before the people.
— Gen. xxiii. 12.
Wherewith shall I come before the Lord?
— Micah vi. 6.
If a suit be begun before an archdeacon.
— Ayliffe.
The world was all before them where to choose.
The battle was before and behind.
— 2 Chron. xiii. 14.
You tell me, mother, what I knew before.
When the butt is out, we will drink water; not a drop before.

Beforehand

Agricola . . . resolves to be beforehand with the danger.
The last cited author has been beforehand with me.
They may be taught beforehand the skill of speaking.
Rich and much beforehand.

Beforetime

[They] dwelt in their tents, as beforetime.
— 2 Kings xiii. 5.

Befortune

I wish all good befortune you.

Befriend

By the darkness befriended.

Beg

I do beg your good will in this case.
[Joseph] begged the body of Jesus.
— Matt. xxvii. 58.
Yet have I not seen the righteous forsaken, nor his seed begging bread.
— Ps. xxxvii. 25.
Else some will beg thee, in the court of wards.
— Harrington.
I can not dig; to beg I am ashamed.
— Luke xvi. 3.

Begem

Begemmed with dewdrops.
Those lonely realms bright garden isles begem.

Beget

Yet they a beauteous offspring shall beget.
Love is begot by fancy.
— Granville.

Beggar

It beggared all description.

Beggarly

Beggarly sins, that is, those sins which idleness and beggary usually betray men to; such as lying, flattery, stealing, and dissimulation.

Beggary

The freedom and the beggary of the old studio.

Begin

Vast chain of being! which from God began.
When I begin, I will also make an end.
— 1 Sam. iii. 12.
Ye nymphs of Solyma ! begin the song.
The apostle begins our knowledge in the creatures, which leads us to the knowledge of God.

Beginner

A sermon of a new beginner.

Beginning

In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth.
— Gen. i. 1.
I am . . . the beginning and the ending.
— Rev. i. 8.
Mighty things from small beginnings grow.

Begnaw

The worm of conscience still begnaw thy soul.

Begrime

Books falling to pieces and begrimed with dust.

Beguile

The serpent beguiled me, and I did eat.
— Gen. iii. 13.
When misery could beguile the tyrant's rage.
Ballads . . . to beguile his incessant wayfaring.

Behalf

In behalf of his mistress's beauty.
Against whom he had contracted some prejudice in behalf of his nation.

Behave

He did behave his anger ere 't was spent.
Those that behaved themselves manfully.
— 2 Macc. ii. 21.

Behavior

A gentleman that is very singular in his behavior.

Behest

To do his master's high behest.
The time is come that I should send it her, if I keep the behest that I have made.
— Paston.

Behight

Behight by vow unto the chaste Minerve.
— Surrey.
The keys are to thy hand behight.
The second was to Triamond behight.
More than heart behighteth.
All the lookers-on him dead behight.
Whom . . . he knew and thus behight.
He behight those gates to be unbarred.

Behind

A tall Brabanter, behind whom I stood.
A small part of what he left behind him.
I was not a whit behind the very chiefest apostles.
— 2 Cor. xi. 5.
We can not be sure that there is no evidence behind.
Forgetting those things which are behind.
— Phil. ii. 13.
Leave not a rack behind.

Behindhand

In this also [dress] the country are very much behindhand.

Behither

Two miles behither Clifden.

Behold

When he beheld the serpent of brass, he lived.
— Num. xxi. 9.
Behold the Lamb of God, which taketh away the sin of the world.
— John. i. 29.
And I beheld, and, lo, in the midst of the throne, . . . a lamb as it had been slain.
— Rev. v. 6.

Beholden

But being so beholden to the Prince.

Beholding

I was much bound and beholding to the right reverend father.
— Robynson (More's Utopia).
So much hath Oxford been beholding to her nephews, or sister's children.

Behoof

No mean recompense it brings To your behoof.

Behoove

And thus it behooved Christ to suffer.
— Luke xxiv. 46.
It shall not be to his behoove.
— Gower.

Behowl

The wolf behowls the moon.

Beild

The random beild o' clod or stane.

Being

A man who is being strangled.
While the article on Burns was being written.
Fresh experience is always being gained.
— Jowett (Thucyd. )
In Him we live, and move, and have our being.
— Acts xvii. 28.
What a sweet being is an honest mind !
A Being of infinite benevolence and power.
Claudius, thou Wast follower of his fortunes in his being.
— Webster (1654).
It was a relief to dismiss them [Sir Roger's servants] into little beings within my manor.
And being you have Declined his means, you have increased his malice.

Belabor

Ajax belabors there a harmless ox.

Belamour

Her snowy brows, like budded belamours.

Belay

Jacket . . . belayed with silver lace.

Belch

I belched a hurricane of wind.
Within the gates that now Stood open wide, belching outrageous flame.

Beldam

To show the beldam daughters of her daughter.
Around the beldam all erect they hang.
— Akenside.

Beleaguer

The wail of famine in beleaguered towns.

Belgic

How unlike their Belgic sires of old.

Belial

What concord hath Christ with Belia ?
— 2 Cor. vi. 15.

Belie

Their trembling hearts belie their boastful tongues.
Should I do so, I should belie my thoughts.
Thou dost belie him, Percy, thou dost belie him.

Belief

Belief admits of all degrees, from the slightest suspicion to the fullest assurance.
— Reid.
No man can attain [to] belief by the bare contemplation of heaven and earth.
Superstitious prophecies are not only the belief of fools, but the talk sometimes of wise men.
In the heat of persecution to which Christian belief was subject upon its first promulgation.

Believe

Our conqueror (whom I now Of force believe almighty).
King Agrippa, believest thou the prophets ?
— Acts xxvi. 27.
Often followed by a dependent clause. I believe that Jesus Christ is the Son of God.
— Acts viii. 37.
Lord, I believe; help thou mine unbelief.
— Mark ix. 24.
With the heart man believeth unto righteousness.
— Rom. x. 10.
I will not believe so meanly of you.

Believer

Thou didst open the Kingdom of Heaven to all believers.
— Book of Com. Prayer.

Belike

Belike, boy, then you are in love.

Bell

As loud as belleth wind in hell.
The wild buck bells from ferny brake.

Bellicose

Arnold was, in fact, in a bellicose vein.

Bellow

The bellowing voice of boiling seas.

Belluine

Animal and belluine life.

Belly

Underneath the belly of their steeds.
Before I formed thee in the belly I knew thee.
— Jer. i. 5.
Out of the belly of hell cried I.
— Jonah ii. 2.
Your breath of full consent bellied his sails.
The bellying canvas strutted with the gale.

Bellycheer

A pack of clergymen [assembled] by themselves to bellycheer in their presumptuous Sion.

Bellyful

King James told his son that he would have his bellyful of parliamentary impeachments.

Belong

A desert place belonging to . . . Bethsaids.
— Luke ix. 10.
The mighty men which belonged to David.
— 1 Kings i. 8.
Strong meat belongeth to them that are of full age.
— Heb. v. 14.
No blame belongs to thee.
Bastards also are settled in the parishes to which the mothers belong.
More evils belong us than happen to us.

Belonging

Few persons of her ladyship's belongings stopped, before they did her bidding, to ask her reasons.

Beloved

Antony, so well beloved of Cæsar.
This is my beloved Son.
— Matt. iii. 17.
My beloved is mine, and I am his.
— Cant. ii. 16.

Below

They beheld, with a just loathing and disdain, . . . how below all history the persons and their actions were.
Who thinks no fact below his regard.
Lord Marmion waits below.
The fairest child of Jove below.
What business brought him to the realms below.

Belt

The shining belt with gold inlaid.
He cannot buckle his distempered cause Within the belt of rule.
A coarse black robe belted round the waist.
— C. Reade.
They belt him round with hearts undaunted.

Beltane

The quarter-days anciently in Scotland were Hallowmas, Candlemas, Beltane, and Lammas.

Belted

Three men with belted brands.

Bemaze

Intellects bemazed in endless doubt.

Bemeet

Our very loving sister, well bemet.

Bemire

Bemired and benighted in the dog.

Bemoan

Implores their pity, and his pain bemoans.

Bemock

Bemock the modest moon.

Bemuffle

Bemuffled with the externals of religion.

Bemuse

A parson much bemused in beer.

Bench

Mossy benches supplied the place of chairs.
To pluck down justice from your awful bench.
'T was benched with turf.
Stately theaters benched crescentwise.
Whom I . . . have benched and reared to worship.

Bend

Towards Coventry bend we our course.
Bending her eyes . . . upon her parent.
To bend his mind to any public business.
— Temple.
But when to mischief mortals bend their will.
The green earth's end Where the bowed welkin slow doth bend.
There is a cliff, whose high and bending head Looks fearfully in the confined deep.
To whom our vows and wished bend.
While each to his great Father bends.
Farewell, poor swain; thou art not for my bend.
— Fletcher.

Bene

What is good for a bootless bene ?

Bene placito

For our English judges there never was . . . any bene placito as their tenure.
— F. Harrison.

Beneath

Beneath a rude and nameless stone he lies.
Our country sinks beneath the yoke.
He will do nothing that is beneath his high station.
The earth you take from beneath will be barren.

Benediction

So saying, he arose; whom Adam thus Followed with benediction.
Homeward serenely she walked with God's benediction upon her.

Benedictionary

The benedictionary of Bishop Athelwold.
— G. Gurton's Needle.

Benefactress

His benefactress blushes at the deed.

Beneficence

And whose beneficence no charge exhausts.

Beneficent

The beneficent fruits of Christianity.

Beneficial

The war which would have been most beneficial to us.

Beneficiary

A feudatory or beneficiary king of England.
The rich men will be offering sacrifice to their Deity whose beneficiaries they are.

Benefit

Bless the Lord, O my soul, and forget not all his benefits.
— Ps. ciii. 2.
Men have no right to what is not for their benefit.
I will repent of the good, wherewith I said I would benefit them.
— Jer. xviii. 10.

Benevolence

The wakeful benevolence of the gospel.
— Chalmers.

benight

The clouds benight the sky.
— Garth.
Some virgin, sure, . . . benighted in these woods.
Shall we to men benighted The lamp of life deny ?
— Heber.

Benign

Creator bounteous and benign.
Kind influences and benign aspects.

Benignity

The benignity or inclemency of the season.
— Spectator.

Benim

Ire . . . benimeth the man fro God.

Benison

More precious than the benison of friends.

Bent

With a native bent did good pursue.
Bents and turns of the matter.
The full bent and stress of the soul.
— Norris.
His spear a bent, both stiff and strong.
Bowmen bickered upon the bent.
— Chevy Chase.

Benting time

Bare benting times . . . may come.

Benumb

The creeping death benumbed her senses first.

Bepaint

Else would a maiden blush bepaint my cheek.

Beplaster

Beplastered with rouge.

Bequeath

My heritage, which my dead father did bequeath to me.
To bequeath posterity somewhat to remember it.
To whom, with all submission, on my knee I do bequeath my faithful services And true subjection everlastingly.

Berdash

A treatise against the cravat and berdash.

Bereave

Madam, you have bereft me of all words.
Bereft of him who taught me how to sing.
— Tickell.
All your interest in those territories Is utterly bereft you; all is lost.
Shall move you to bereave my life.

Berg

Glittering bergs of ice.

Bergamot

The better hand . . . gives the nose its bergamot.

Beseech

I beseech you, punish me not with your hard thoughts.
But Eve . . . besought his peace.

Beseem

A duty well beseeming the preachers.
What form of speech or behavior beseemeth us, in our prayers to God ?
— Hocker.

Beseeming

I . . . did company these three in poor beseeming.

Beseemly

In beseemly order sitten there.
— Shenstone.

Beset

A robe of azure beset with drops of gold.
— Spectator.
The garden is so beset with all manner of sweet shrubs that it perfumes the air.
Let thy troops beset our gates.

Beshrew

Beshrew me, but I love her heartily.

Beside

[You] have done enough To put him quite beside his patience.
Wise and learned men beside those whose names are in the Christian records.
Paul, thou art beside thyself.
— Acts xxvi. 24.
Lovely Thais sits beside thee.
Only be patient till we have appeased The multitude, beside themselves with fear.
It is beside my present business to enlarge on this speculation.
Besides this, there are persons in certain situations who are expected to be charitable.
— Bp. Porteus.
And, besides, the Moor May unfold me to him; there stand I in much peril.
That man that does not know those things which are of necessity for him to know is but an ignorant man, whatever he may know besides.

Besides

The men said unto Lot, Hast thou here any besides ?
— Gen. xix. 12.
To all beside, as much an empty shade, An Eugene living, as a Cæsar dead.
Besides your cheer, you shall have sport.

Besiege

Till Paris was besieged, famished, and lost.

Besmear

Besmeared with precious balm.

Besom

I will sweep it with the besom of destruction.
— Isa. xiv. 23.
The housemaid with her besom.
Rolls back all Greece, and besoms wide the plain.
— Barlow.

Besort

Such men as may besort your age.
With such accommodation and besort As levels with her breeding.

Besot

Fools besotted with their crimes.
— Hudibras.

Bespangle

The grass . . . is all bespangled with dewdrops.

Bespatter

Whom never faction could bespatter.

Bespeak

Concluding, naturally, that to gratify his avarice was to bespeak his favor.
[They] bespoke dangers . . . in order to scare the allies.
When the abbot of St. Martin was born, he had so little the figure of a man that it bespoke him rather a monster.
He thus the queen bespoke.

Bespread

The carpet which bespread His rich pavilion's floor.
— Glover.

Besprent

His face besprent with liquid crystal shines.
— Shenstone.
The floor with tassels of fir was besprent.

Besprinkle

The bed besprinkles, and bedews the ground.

Best

When he is best, he is a little worse than a man.
Heaven's last, best gift, my ever new delight.
He prayeth best, who loveth best All things both great and small.
Had we best retire? I see a storm.
Had I not best go to her?

Bestead

They shall pass through it, hardly bestead and hungry: . . . and curse their king and their God.
— Is. viii. 21.
Many far worse bestead than ourselves.

Bestial

Among the bestial herds to range.

Bestialize

The process of bestializing humanity.
— Hare.

Bestiary

A bestiary . . . in itself one of the numerous mediæval renderings of the fantastic mystical Zoology.
— Saintsbury.

Bestick

Truth shall retire Bestuck with slanderous darts.

Bestir

You have so bestirred your valor.
Rouse and bestir themselves ere well awake.

Bestow

See that the women are bestowed in safety.
Empire is on us bestowed.
Though I bestow all my goods to feed the poor.
— 1 Cor. xiii. 3.
I could have bestowed her upon a fine gentleman.
— Tatler.
How might we see Falstaff bestow himself to-night in his true colors, and not ourselves be seen ?

Bestowment

If we consider this bestowment of gifts in this view.
— Chauncy.
They almost refuse to give due praise and credit to God's own bestowments.

Bestride

That horse that thou so often hast bestrid.
Why, man, he doth bestride the narrow world Like a Colossus.

Bet

John a Gaunt loved him well, and betted much money on his head.
I'll bet you two to one I'll make him do it.
— O. W. Holmes.

Betake

They betook themselves to treaty and submission.
The rest, in imitation, to like arms Betook them.
Whither shall I betake me, where subsist?

Beteem

So loving to my mother, That he might not beteem the winds of heaven Visit her face too roughly.

Bethink

I have bethought me of another fault.
The rest . . . may . . . bethink themselves, and recover.
We bethink a means to break it off.

Betide

What will betide the few ?
A salve for any sore that may betide.

Betime

To measure life learn thou betimes.
To rise betimes is often harder than to do all the day's work.
He tires betimes that spurs too fast betimes.

Betoken

A dewy cloud, and in the cloud a bow . . . Betokening peace from God, and covenant new.

Betrap

After them followed two other chariots covered with red satin, and the horses betrapped with the same.
— Stow.

Betray

Jesus said unto them, The Son of man shall be betrayed into the hands of men.
— Matt. xvii. 22.
But when I rise, I shall find my legs betraying me.
Willing to serve or betray any government for hire.
Be swift to hear, but cautious of your tongue, lest you betray your ignorance.
— T. Watts.
Genius . . . often betrays itself into great errors.
— T. Watts.
All the names in the country betray great antiquity.

Betroth

He, in the first flower of my freshest age, Betrothed me unto the only heir.
Ay, and we are betrothed.
What man is there that hath betrothed a wife, and hath not taken her?
— Deut. xx. 7.

Better

Could make the worse appear The better reason.
To obey is better than sacrifice.
— 1 Sam. xv. 22.
It is better to trust in the Lord than to put confidence in princes.
— Ps. cxviii. 9.
My dear, my better half (said he), I find I must now leave thee.
By all that's holy, he had better starve Than but once think this place becomes thee not.
Their betters would hardly be found.
I could have better spared a better man.
The better to understand the extent of our knowledge.
Never was monarch better feared, and loved.
Love betters what is best.
He thought to better his circumstances.
The constant effort of every man to better himself.
The works of nature do always aim at that which can not be bettered.
Weapons more violent, when next we meet, May serve to better us and worse our foes.

Betty

The powerful betty, or the artful picklock.

Betumble

From her betumbled couch she starteth.

Between

If things should go so between them.
Castor and Pollux with only one soul between them.
An intestine struggle, open or secret, between authority and liberty.
I . . . hope that between public business, improving studies, and domestic pleasures, neither melancholy nor caprice will find any place for entrance.

Betwixt

From betwixt two aged oaks.
There was some speech of marriage Betwixt myself and her.

Bevel

I may be straight, though they themselves be bevel.
Their houses are very ill built, the walls bevel.

Beverage

He knew no beverage but the flowing stream.

Bevy

What a bevy of beaten slaves have we here !

Bewail

Hath widowed and unchilded many a one, Which to this hour bewail the injury.

Beware

Beware of all, but most beware of man !
Beware the awful avalanche.
Behold, I send an Angel before thee. . . . Beware of him, and obey his voice.
— Ex. xxiii. 20, 21.
To wish them beware the son.

Bewilder

Lost and bewildered in the fruitless search.

Bewilderment

He . . . soon lost all traces of it amid bewilderment of tree trunks and underbrush.

Bewitch

See how I am bewitched; behold, mine arm Is like a blasted sapling withered up.
The charms of poetry our souls bewitch.

Bewitchery

There is a certain bewitchery or fascination in words.

Bewray

The murder being once done, he is in less fear, and in more hope that the deed shall not be bewrayed or known.
— Robynson (More's Utopia. )
Thy speech bewrayeth thee.
— Matt. xxvi. 73.

Beyond

Beyond that flaming hill.
— G. Fletcher.
A thing beyond us, even before our death.
Beyond any of the great men of my country.
That no man go beyond and defraud his brother in any matter.
— 1 Thess. iv. 6.
Lo, where beyond he lyeth languishing.

Bezonian

Great men oft die by vile bezonians.

Bias

Being ignorant that there is a concealed bias within the spheroid, which will . . . swerve away.
Strong love is a bias upon the thoughts.
Morality influences men's lives, and gives a bias to all their actions.
Me it had not biased in the one direction, nor should it have biased any just critic in the counter direction.

Bib

This miller hath . . . bibbed ale.
He was constantly bibbing.

Bibelot

Her pictures, her furniture, and her bibelots.
— M. Crawford.

Bicker

Two eagles had a conflict, and bickered together.
Petty things about which men cark and bicker.
They [streamlets] bickered through the sunny shade.

Bid

Neither bid him God speed.
— 2. John 10.
He bids defiance to the gaping crowd.
— Granrille.
That Power who bids the ocean ebb and flow.
Lord, if it be thou, bid me come unto thee.
— Matt. xiv. 28
I was bid to pick up shells.
— D. Jerrold.
As many as ye shall find, bid to the marriage.
— Matt. xxii. 9

Bide

All knees to thee shall bow of them that bide In heaven or earth, or under earth, in hell.
Poor naked wretches, wheresoe'er you are, That bide the pelting of this pitiless storm.

Biestings

The thick and curdy milk . . . commonly called biestings.
— Newton. (1574).

Big

[Day] big with the fate of Cato and of Rome.
God hath not in heaven a bigger argument.
I talked big to them at first.
“Bear interchanges in local use, now with barley, now with bigg.”

Bigamy

Base declension and loathed bigamy.

Biggin

An old woman's biggin for a nightcap.

Bigly

He brawleth bigly.
— Robynson (More's Utopia. )

Bigot

To doubt, where bigots had been content to wonder and believe.
In a country more bigot than ours.

Bigwig

In our youth we have heard him spoken of by the bigwigs with extreme condescension.

Bilander

Why choose we, then, like bilanders to creep Along the coast, and land in view to keep?

Bilberry

There pinch the maids as blue as bilberry.

Bilbo

Methought I lay Worse than the mutines in the bilboes.

Bilingualism

The bilingualism of King's English.
— Earle.

Bill

The bittern's hollow bill was heard.
France had no infantry that dared to face the English bows end bills.
She put up the bill in her parlor window.

Billet

The men who cling to easy billets ashore.
His shafts of satire fly straight to their billet, and there they rankle.
— Pall Mall Mag.
Billeted in so antiquated a mansion.
They shall beat out my brains with billets.

Billet-doux

A lover chanting out a billet-doux.
— Spectator.

Billow

Whom the winds waft where'er the billows roll.

Billowy

And whitening down the many-tinctured stream, Descends the billowy foam.

Billycock

Little acquiesced, and Ransome disguised him in a beard, and a loose set of clothes, and a billicock hat.
— Charles Reade.

Bind

He bindeth the floods from overflowing.
— Job xxviii. 11.
Whom Satan hath bound, lo, these eighteen years.
— Luke xiii. 16.
Who made our laws to bind us, not himself.
They that reap must sheaf and bind.

Bindweed

The fragile bindweed bells and bryony rings.

Bioscope

Bagman's Bioscope: Various Views of Men and Manners. [Book Title.]
— W. Bayley (1824).

Biped

By which the man, when heavenly life was ceased, Became a helpless, naked, biped beast.
— Byrom.

Birch

The threatening twigs of birch.

Birchen

He passed where Newark's stately tower Looks out from Yarrow's birchen bower.

Bird

That ungentle gull, the cuckoo's bird.
The brydds [birds] of the aier have nestes.
— Tyndale (Matt. viii. 20).
And by my word! the bonny bird In danger shall not tarry.
— Campbell.

Birdlime

Not birdlime or Idean pitch produce A more tenacious mass of clammy juice.
When the heart is thus birdlimed, then it cleaves to everything it meets with.
— Coodwin.

Birostrate

The capsule is bilocular and birostrated.

Birth

Elected without reference to birth, but solely for qualifications.
A foe by birth to Troy's unhappy name.
Poets are far rarer births than kings.
Others hatch their eggs and tend the birth till it is able to shift for itself.

Birthday

Those barbarous ages past, succeeded next The birthday of invention.
This is my birthday; as this very day Was Cassius born.

Birthmark

Most part of this noble lineage carried upon their body for a natural birthmark, . . . a snake.
— Sir T. North.

Birthnight

The angelic song in Bethlehem field, On thy birthnight, that sung thee Savior born.

Birthright

Lest there be any . . . profane person, as Esau, who for one morsel of meat sold his birthright.
— Heb. xii. 16.

Biscuit

According to military practice, the bread or biscuit of the Romans was twice prepared in the oven.

Bishop

Ye were as sheep going astray; but are now returned unto the Shepherd and Bishop of your souls.
— 1 Pet. ii. 25.
It is a fact now generally recognized by theologians of all shades of opinion, that in the language of the New Testament the same officer in the church is called indifferently “bishop” ( ) and “elder” or “presbyter.”
— J. B. Lightfoot.
If, by her bishop, or her “grace” alone, A genuine lady, or a church, is known.
— Saxe.

Bit

The foamy bridle with the bit of gold.
My young companion was a bit of a poet.
— T. Hook.

Bite

Such smiling rogues as these, Like rats, oft bite the holy cords atwain.
The last screw of the rack having been turned so often that its purchase crumbled, . . . it turned and turned with nothing to bite.
At the last it [wine] biteth like serpent, and stingeth like an adder.
— Prov. xxiii. 32.
I have known a very good fisher angle diligently four or six hours for a river carp, and not have a bite.
— Walton.
The baser methods of getting money by fraud and bite, by deceiving and overreaching.
— Humorist.

Bitter

It is an evil thing and bitter, that thou hast forsaken the Lord thy God.
— Jer. ii. 19.
Husbands, love your wives, and be not bitter against them.
— Col. iii. 19.
The Egyptians . . . made their lives bitter with hard bondage.
— Ex. i. 14.

Bitterness

The lip that curls with bitterness.
— Percival.
I will complain in the bitterness of my soul.
— Job vii. 11.
Thou art in the gall of bitterness, and in the bond of iniquity.
— Acts viii. 23.
Looking diligently, . . . lest any root of bitterness springing up trouble you.
— Heb. xii. 15.

Bituminous

Near that bituminous lake where Sodom flamed.

Bivious

Bivious theorems and Janus-faced doctrines.

Blab

And yonder a vile physician blabbing The case of his patient.
She must burst or blab.
For who will open himself to a blab or a babbler.

Black

O night, with hue so black!
I spy a black, suspicious, threatening cloud.
Black is the badge of hell, The hue of dungeons, and the suit of night.
Friends weeping, and blacks, and obsequies, and the like show death terrible.
That was the full time they used to wear blacks for the death of their fathers.
— Sir T. North.
The black or sight of the eye.
— Sir K. Digby.
Defiling her white lawn of chastity with ugly blacks of lust.
— Rowley.
They have their teeth blacked, both men and women, for they say a dog hath his teeth white, therefore they will black theirs.
— Hakluyt.
Sins which black thy soul.
— J. Fletcher.

Black-letter

Kemble, a black-letter man!
— J. Boaden.

Black Friday

The last week of October 1929 remains forever imprinted in the American memory. It was, of course, the week of the Great Crash, the stock market collapse that signaled the collapse of the world economy and the Great Depression of the 1930s. From an all-time high of 381 in early September 1929, the Dow Jones Industrial Average drifted down to a level of 326 on October 22, then, in a series of traumatic selling waves, to 230 in the course of the following six trading days. The stock market's drop was far from over; it continued its sickening slide for nearly three more years, reaching an ultimate low of 41 in July 1932. But it was that last week of October 1929 that burned itself into the American consciousness. After a decade of unprecedented boom and prosperity, there suddenly was panic, fear, a yawning gap in the American fabric. The party was over.
— Wall street Journal, October 28, 1977

Black hole

A discipline of unlimited autocracy, upheld by rods, and ferules, and the black hole.
— H. Spencer.

Black Monday

Then it was not for nothing that my nose fell a bleeding on Black Monday last.

Black pudding

And fat black puddings, -- proper food, For warriors that delight in blood.
— Hudibras.

Black Rod

Committed to the custody of the Black Rod.

Black wash

To remove as far as he can the modern layers of black wash, and let the man himself, fair or foul, be seen.
— C. Kingsley.

Blackball

He was blackballed at two clubs in succession.

Blacken

While the long funerals blacken all the way.

Blackguard

A lousy slave, that . . . rode with the black guard in the duke's carriage, 'mongst spits and dripping pans.
— Webster (1612).
A man whose manners and sentiments are decidedly below those of his class deserves to be called a blackguard.

Blacklist

If you blacklist us, we will boycott you.
— John Swinton.

Blackness

They're darker now than blackness.
— Donne.

Blacksmith

The blacksmith may forge what he pleases.

Blackstrap

No blackstrap to-night; switchel, or ginger pop.
— Judd.

Blade

The crimson dulse . . . with its waving blade.
— Percival.
First the blade, then ear, after that the full corn in the ear.
— Mark iv. 28.
He saw a turnkey in a trice Fetter a troublesome blade.
“Lower blade” implies, of course, the lower instead of the upper surface of the tongue.
— H. Sweet.
As sweet a plant, as fair a flower, is faded As ever in the Muses' garden bladed.
— P. Fletcher.

Bladed

Decking with liquid pearl the bladed grass.

Blain

Blotches and blains must all his flesh emboss.

Blame

We have none to blame but ourselves.
She . . . blamed her noble blood.
You were to blame, I must be plain with you.
Let me bear the blame forever.
— Gen. xiiii. 9.
Holy and without blame before him in love.
— Eph. i. 4.

Blameless

A bishop then must be blameless.
— 1 Tim. iii. 2.
Blameless still of arts that polish to deprave.
— Mallet.
We will be blameless of this thine oath.
— Josh. ii. 17.

Blanch

Blanch over the blackest and most absurd things.
[Bones] blanching on the grass.
Ifs and ands to qualify the words of treason, whereby every man might express his malice and blanch his danger.
I suppose you will not blanch Paris in your way.
— Reliq. Wot.
Books will speak plain, when counselors blanch.

Blancher

And Gynecia, a blancher, which kept the dearest deer from her.
And so even now hath he divers blanchers belonging to the market, to let and stop the light of the gospel.

Blandish

Mustering all her wiles, With blandished parleys.

Blandishment

Cowering low with blandishment.
Attacked by royal smiles, by female blandishments.

Blank

To the blank moon Her office they prescribed.
Adam . . . astonied stood, and blank.
The blank . . . glance of a half returned consciousness.
I can not write a paper full, I used to do; and yet I will not forgive a blank of half an inch from you.
From this time there ensues a long blank in the history of French legislation.
I was ill. I can't tell how long -- it was a blank.
In Fortune's lottery lies A heap of blanks, like this, for one small prize.
The freemen signified their approbation by an inscribed vote, and their dissent by a blank.
— Palfrey.
Let me still remain The true blank of thine eye.
I have stood . . . within the blank of his displeasure For my free speech.
Each opposite that blanks the face of joy.

Blanket

Nor heaven peep through the blanket of the dark To cry, “Hold, hold!”
I'll . . . blanket my loins.
We'll have our men blanket 'em i' the hall.

Blanketing

That affair of the blanketing happened to thee for the fault thou wast guilty of.

Blare

To blare its own interpretation.
With blare of bugle, clamor of men.
His ears are stunned with the thunder's blare.
— J. R. Drake.

Blarney

Had blarneyed his way from Long Island.
— S. G. Goodrich.

Blaspheme

So Dagon shall be magnified, and God, Besides whom is no god, compared with idols, Disglorified, blasphemed, and had in scorn.
How long, O Lord, holy and true, dost thou not judge and avenge thyself on all those who thus continually blaspheme thy great and all-glorious name?
— Dr. W. Beveridge.
You do blaspheme the good in mocking me.
Those who from our labors heap their board, Blaspheme their feeder and forget their lord.
He that shall blaspheme against the Holy Ghost hath never forgiveness.
— Mark iii. 29.

Blasphemer

And each blasphemer quite escape the rod, Because the insult's not on man, but God ?

Blasphemous

Nor from the Holy One of Heaven Refrained his tongue blasphemous.

Blasphemy

Punished for his blasphemy against learning.

Blast

And see where surly Winter passes off, Far to the north, and calls his ruffian blasts; His blasts obey, and quit the howling hill.
One blast upon his bugle horn Were worth a thousand men.
The blast of triumph o'er thy grave.
By the blast of God they perish.
— Job iv. 9.
Virtue preserved from fell destruction's blast.
Seven thin ears, and blasted with the east wind.
— Gen. xii. 6.
I'll cross it, though it blast me.
Blasted with excess of light.
— T. Gray.
Trumpeters, With brazen din blast you the city's ear.
Toke his blake trumpe faste And gan to puffen and to blaste.

Blasted

Upon this blasted heath.
Some of her own blasted gypsies.
The blasted quarry thunders, heard remote.

Blasting

I have smitten you with blasting and mildew.
— Amos iv. 9.

Blat

If I have anything on my mind, I have to blat it right out.
— W. D. Howells.

Blatant

A monster, which the blatant beast men call.
Glory, that blatant word, which haunts some military minds like the bray of the trumpet.

Blatter

They procured . . . preachers to blatter against me, . . . so that they had place and time to belie me shamefully.

Blaze

O dark, dark, dark, amid the blaze of noon!
For what is glory but the blaze of fame?
Three blazes in a perpendicular line on the same tree indicating a legislative road, the single blaze a settlement or neighborhood road.
— Carlton.
And far and wide the icy summit blazed.
I found my way by the blazed trees.
— Hoffman.
Champollion died in 1832, having done little more than blaze out the road to be traveled by others.
— Nott.
On charitable lists he blazed his name.
— Pollok.
To blaze those virtues which the good would hide.

Blazon

Their blazon o'er his towers displayed.
Obtrude the blazon of their exploits upon the company.
— Collier.
Thy tongue, thy face, thy limbs, actions, and spirit, Do give thee fivefold blazon.
Thyself thou blazon'st.
There pride sits blazoned on th' unmeaning brow.
— Trumbull.
To blazon his own worthless name.
She blazons in dread smiles her hideous form.
— Garth.
The coat of , arms, which I am not herald enough to blazon into English.

Blazonry

The principles of blazonry.
— Peacham.
The blazonry of Argyle.
— Lord Dufferin.

Bleach

The destruction of the coloring matters attached to the bodies to be bleached is effected either by the action of the air and light, of chlorine, or of sulphurous acid.
— Ure.
Immortal liberty, whose look sublime Hath bleached the tyrant's cheek in every varying clime.

Bleached

Let their bleached bones, and blood's unbleaching stain, Long mark the battlefield with hideous awe.

Bleak

When she came out she looked as pale and as bleak as one that were laid out dead.
— Foxe.
Wastes too bleak to rear The common growth of earth, the foodful ear.
At daybreak, on the bleak sea beach.

Blear

His blear eyes ran in gutters to his chin.
Power to cheat the eye with blear illusion.
That tickling rheums Should ever tease the lungs and blear the sight.

Blear-eyed

The blear-eyed Crispin.
— Drant.

Bleared

Dardanian wives, With bleared visages, come forth to view The issue of the exploit.

Bleat

Then suddenly was heard along the main, To low the ox, to bleat the woolly train.
The ewe that will not hear her lamb when it baas, will never answer a calf when he bleats.
The bleat of fleecy sheep.
— Chapman's Homer.

Bleater

In cold, stiff soils the bleaters oft complain Of gouty ails.
— Dyer.

Bleating

Then came the shepherd back with his bleating flocks from the seaside.

Bleb

Arsenic abounds with air blebs.
— Kirwan.

Blee

For him which is so bright of blee.
— Lament. of Mary Magd.
That boy has a strong blee of his father.
— Forby.

Bleed

The lamb thy riot dooms to bleed to-day.
For me the balm shall bleed.
A decaying pine of stately size, bleeding amber.
— H. Miller.

Blemish

Sin is a soil which blemisheth the beauty of thy soul.
— Brathwait.
There had nothing passed between us that might blemish reputation.
— Oldys.
He shall take two he lambs without blemish, and one ewe lamb of the first year without blemish.
— Lev. xiv. 10.
The reliefs of an envious man are those little blemishes and imperfections that discover themselves in an illustrious character.
— Spectator.

Blemishless

A life in all so blemishless.
— Feltham.

Blemishment

For dread of blame and honor's blemishment.

Blench

Blench not at thy chosen lot.
This painful, heroic task he undertook, and never blenched from its fulfillment.
— Jeffrey.
Though sometimes you do blench from this to that.
Ye should have somewhat blenched him therewith, yet he might and would of likelihood have gone further.
— Sir T. More.
He now blenched what before he affirmed.
These blenches gave my heart another youth.

Blend

Blending the grand, the beautiful, the gay.
— Percival.
There is a tone of solemn and sacred feeling that blends with our conviviality.
— Irving.

Blent

Rider and horse, friend, foe, in one red burial blent.

Bless

And God blessed the seventh day, and sanctified it.
— Gen. ii. 3.
The quality of mercy is . . . twice blest; It blesseth him that gives and him that takes.
It hath pleased thee to bless the house of thy servant, that it may continue forever before thee.
— 1 Chron. xvii. 27 (R. V. )
Bless them which persecute you.
— Rom. xii. 14.
Then he took the five loaves and the two fishes, and looking up to heaven, he blessed them.
— Luke ix. 16.
Bless the Lord, O my soul: and all that is within me, bless his holy name.
— Ps. ciii. 1.
The nations shall bless themselves in him.
— Jer. iv. 3.
And burning blades about their heads do bless.
Round his armed head his trenchant blade he blest.
To bless the doors from nightly harm.

Blessed

O, run; prevent them with thy humble ode, And lay it lowly at his blessed feet.
All generations shall call me blessed.
— Luke i. 48.
Towards England's blessed shore.
Reverenced like a blessed saint.
Cast out from God and blessed vision.
Not a blessed man came to set her [a boat] free.
— R. D. Blackmore.

Blessedly

We shall blessedly meet again never to depart.

Blessedness

The assurance of a future blessedness.

Blessing

This is the blessing, where with Moses the man of God blessed the children of Israel.
— Deut. xxxiii. 1.
Nature's full blessings would be well dispensed.

Blest

White these blest sounds my ravished ear assail.
— Trumbull.

Blight

[This vapor] blasts vegetables, blights corn and fruit, and is sometimes injurious even to man.
Seared in heart and lone and blighted.
A blight seemed to have fallen over our fortunes.

Blind

He that is strucken blind can not forget The precious treasure of his eyesight lost.
But hard be hardened, blind be blinded more, That they may stumble on, and deeper fall.
This plan is recommended neither to blind approbation nor to blind reprobation.
— Jay.
The blind mazes of this tangled wood.
A blind guide is certainly a great mischief; but a guide that blinds those whom he should lead is . . . a much greater.
Her beauty all the rest did blind.
— P. Fletcher.
Such darkness blinds the sky.
The state of the controversy between us he endeavored, with all his art, to blind and confound.
— Stillingfleet.

Blindfold

And when they had blindfolded him, they struck him on the face.
— Luke xxii. 64.
Fate's blindfold reign the atheist loudly owns.

Blindly

By his imperious mistress blindly led.

Blindman's buff

Surely he fancies I play at blindman's buff with him, for he thinks I never have my eyes open.
— Stillingfleet.

Blindworm

Newts and blindworms do no wrong.

Blinkard

Among the blind the one-eyed blinkard reigns.

Blinker

Nor bigots who but one way see, through blinkers of authority.
— M. Green.

Bliss

An then at last our bliss Full and perfect is.

Blister

And painful blisters swelled my tender hands.
— Grainger.
Let my tongue blister.
My hands were blistered.
— Franklin.
This tyrant, whose sole name blisters our tongue.

Blithe

The blithe sounds of festal music.
A daughter fair, So buxom, blithe, and debonair.

Blithesome

The blithesome sounds of wassail gay.

Blobber

His blobber lips and beetle brows commend.

Block

Now all our neighbors' chimneys smoke, And Christmas blocks are burning.
— Wither.
All her labor was but as a block Left in the quarry.
Noble heads which have been brought to the block.
— E. Everett.
He wears his faith but as the fashion of his hat; it ever changes with the next block.
The new city was laid out in rectangular blocks, each block containing thirty building lots. Such an average block, comprising 282 houses and covering nine acres of ground, exists in Oxford Street.
— Lond. Quart. Rev.
What a block art thou !
With moles . . . would block the port.
A city . . . besieged and blocked about.

Blockade

Till storm and driving ice blockade him there.
Huge bales of British cloth blockade the door.

Blockhead

The bookful blockhead, ignorantly read, With loads of learned lumber in his head.

Bloncket

Our bloncket liveries been all too sad.

Blood

To share the blood of Saxon royalty.
A friend of our own blood.
Give us a prince of blood, a son of Priam.
I am a gentleman of blood and breeding.
Nor gives it satisfaction to our blood.
So wills the fierce, avenging sprite, Till blood for blood atones.
He was a thing of blood, whose every motion Was timed with dying cries.
When you perceive his blood inclined to mirth.
Seest thou not . . . how giddily 'a turns about all the hot bloods between fourteen and five and thirty?
It was the morning costume of a dandy or blood.
He washed . . . his clothes in the blood of grapes.
— Gen. xiix. 11.
Reach out their spears afar, And blood their points.
It was most important too that his troops should be blooded.
The auxiliary forces of the French and English were much blooded one against another.

Blood-boltered

The blood-boltered Banquo smiles upon me.

Bloodiness

All that bloodiness and savage cruelty which was in our nature.

Bloodless

The bloodless carcass of my Hector sold.
Thou bloodless remnant of that royal blood !

Bloodshot

His eyes were bloodshot, . . . and his hair disheveled.

Bloody

Some bloody passion shakes your very frame.

Bloom

The rich blooms of the tropics.
Every successive mother has transmitted a fainter bloom, a more delicate and briefer beauty.
A new, fresh, brilliant world, with all the bloom upon it.
A flower which once In Paradise, fast by the tree of life, Began to bloom.
A better country blooms to view, Beneath a brighter sky.
— Logan.
Charitable affection bloomed them.
While barred clouds bloom the soft-dying day.
— Keats.

Bloomy

But all the bloomy flush of life is fled.

Blooth

All that blooth means heavy autumn work for him and his hands.
— T. Hardy.

Blore

A most tempestuous blore.

Blossom

Blossoms flaunting in the eye of day.
In the blossom of my youth.
The moving whisper of huge trees that branched And blossomed.
Israel shall blossom and bud, and full the face of the world with fruit.
— Isa. xxvii. 6.

Blot

The brief was writ and blotted all with gore.
— Gascoigne.
It blots thy beauty, as frosts do bite the meads.
Blot not thy innocence with guiltless blood.
One act like this blots out a thousand crimes.
He sung how earth blots the moon's gilded wane.
— Cowley.
This deadly blot in thy digressing son.
He is too great a master of his art to make a blot which may be so easily hit.

Blotch

Spots and blotches . . . some red, others yellow.
— Harvey.
Foul scurf and blotches him defile.

Blotched

To give their blotched and blistered bodies ease.

bloviate

“We've had almost three weeks of lawyers bloviating about what the facts in the case are,” Mr. Rogan said. “Wouldn't it be easier to bring the witnesses?”
— Quoted by Eric Schmitt in The New York Times, Jan 22, 1999, p. A15.

Blow

How blows the citron grove.
The odorous banks, that blow Flowers of more mingled hue.
Well struck ! there was blow for blow.
A vigorous blow might win [Hanno's camp].
— T. Arnold.
A most poor man, made tame to fortune's blows.
Hark how it rains and blows !
— Walton.
Here is Mistress Page at the door, sweating and blowing.
There let the pealing organ blow.
The grass blows from their graves to thy own.
You blow behind my back, but dare not say anything to my face.
— Bartlett.
Off at sea northeast winds blow Sabean odors from the spicy shore.
Hath she no husband That will take pains to blow a horn before her?
Boy, blow the pipe until the bubble rise, Then cast it off to float upon the skies.
— Parnell.
Through the court his courtesy was blown.
His language does his knowledge blow.
— Whiting.
Look how imagination blows him.
To suffer The flesh fly blow my mouth.
I have blown him up well -- nobody can say I wink at what he does.
How far the very custom of hearing anything spouted withers and blows upon a fine passage, may be seen in those speeches from [Shakespeare's] Henry V. which are current in the mouths of schoolboys.
— C. Lamb.
A lady's maid whose character had been blown upon.

Blowzed

Huge women blowzed with health and wind.

Blubber

At his mouth a blubber stood of foam.
— Henryson.
She wept, she blubbered, and she tore her hair.
Dear Cloe, how blubbered is that pretty face!

Blubbering

He spake well save that his blubbering interrupted him.
— Winthrop.

Blue

The ladies were very blue and well informed.
For his religion . . . 'T was Presbyterian, true blue.
— Hudibras.

Bluebeard

The Bluebeard chamber of his mind, into which no eye but his own must look.

Bluey

We had to wring our blueys.
— Lawson.

Bluff

Its banks, if not really steep, had a bluff and precipitous aspect.
— Judd.
There is indeed a bluff pertinacity which is a proper defense in a moment of surprise.
Beach, bluff, and wave, adieu.

Blunder

I was never distinguished for address, and have often even blundered in making my bow.
Yet knows not how to find the uncertain place, And blunders on, and staggers every pace.
He blunders and confounds all these together.
— Stillingfleet.

Blunt

The murderous knife was dull and blunt.
His wits are not so blunt.
I find my heart hardened and blunt to new impressions.

Blunt-witted

Blunt-witted lord, ignoble in demeanor!

Bluntly

Sometimes after bluntly giving his opinions, he would quietly lay himself asleep until the end of their deliberations.
— Jeffrey.

Bluntness

The multitude of elements and bluntness of angles.

Blur

But time hath nothing blurred those lines of favor Which then he wore.
Her eyes are blurred with the lightning's glare.
— J. R. Drake.
Sarcasms may eclipse thine own, But can not blur my lost renown.
— Hudibras.
As for those who cleanse blurs with blotted fingers, they make it worse.
Lest she . . . will with her railing set a great blur on mine honesty and good name.
— Udall.

Blurt

Others . . . can not hold, but blurt out, those words which afterward they are forced to eat.
— Hakewill.

Blush

To the nuptial bower I led her blushing like the morn.
In the presence of the shameless and unblushing, the young offender is ashamed to blush.
— Buckminster.
He would stroke The head of modest and ingenuous worth, That blushed at its own praise.
The sun of heaven, methought, was loth to set, But stayed, and made the western welkin blush.
Full many a flower is born to blush unseen.
— T. Gray.
To blush and beautify the cheek again.
I'll blush you thanks.
The rosy blush of love.
— Trumbull.
Light's last blushes tinged the distant hills.
— Lyttleton.

Blushful

While from his ardent look the turning Spring Averts her blushful face.

Blushing

The dappled pink and blushing rose.

Blushless

Vice now, secure, her blushless front shall raise.
— Dodsley.

Bluster

And ever-threatening storms Of Chaos blustering round.
Your ministerial directors blustered like tragic tyrants.
He bloweth and blustereth out . . . his abominable blasphemy.
— Sir T. More.
As if therewith he meant to bluster all princes into a perfect obedience to his commands.
To the winds they set Their corners, when with bluster to confound Sea, air, and shore.

Blustering

A tempest and a blustering day.

Bo tree

The sacred bo tree of the Buddhists (Ficus religiosa), which is planted close to every temple, and attracts almost as much veneration as the status of the god himself. . . . It differs from the banyan (Ficus Indica) by sending down no roots from its branches.
— Tennent.

Board

Fruit of all kinds . . . She gathers, tribute large, and on the board Heaps with unsparing hand.
Both better acquainted with affairs than any other who sat then at that board.
We may judge from their letters to the board.
— Porteus.
You board an enemy to capture her, and a stranger to receive news or make a communication.
— Totten.
We are several of us, gentlemen and ladies, who board in the same house.
— Spectator.
I will board her, though she chide as loud As thunder when the clouds in autumn crack.

Boarding

Both slain at one time, as they attempted the boarding of a frigate.
— Sir F. Drake.

Boarish

In his anointed flesh stick boarish fangs.

Boast

By grace are ye saved through faith; and that not of yourselves: . . not of works, lest any man should boast.
— Eph. ii. 8, 9.
In God we boast all the day long.
— Ps. xliv. 8
Lest bad men should boast Their specious deeds.
Boast not thyself of to-morrow.
— Prov. xxvii. 1
Reason and morals? and where live they most, In Christian comfort, or in Stoic boast!
The boast of historians.

Boasting

When boasting ends, then dignity begins.

Boat

I boated over, ran my craft aground.

Boatable

The boatable waters of the Alleghany.
— J. Morse.

Boathouse

Half the latticed boathouse hides.

Boation

The guns were heard . . . about a hundred Italian miles, in long boations.
— Derham.

Boatman

As late the boatman hies him home.
— Percival.

Bob

In jewels dressed and at each ear a bob.
Or yellow bobs, turned up before the plow, Are chiefest baits, with cork and lead enow.
— Lauson.
A plain brown bob he wore.
— Shenstone.
To bed, to bed, will be the bob of the song.
He that a fool doth very wisely hit, Doth very foolishly, although he smart, Not to seem senseless of the bob.
If any man happened by long sitting to sleep . . . he was suddenly bobbed on the face by the servants.
— Elyot.
Gold and jewels that I bobbed from him.
To play her pranks, and bob the fool, The shrewish wife began.
— Turbervile.
He ne'er had learned the art to bob For anything but eels.
— Saxe.

Bobbinet

The English machine-made net is now confined to point net, warp net, and bobbin net, so called from the peculiar construction of the machines by which they are produced.
— Tomlinsom.

Bobsled

The long wagon body set on bobsleds.
— W. D. Howells.

Bocardo

Baroko and Bocardo have been stumbling blocks to the logicians.
— Bowen.

Bode

A raven that bodes nothing but mischief.
Good onset bodes good end.
Whatever now The omen proved, it boded well to you.
The owl eke, that of death the bode bringeth.
There that night they bode.

Bodement

This foolish, dreaming, superstitious girl Makes all these bodements.

Bodice

Her bodice half way she unlaced.

Bodied

A doe . . . not altogether so fat, but very good flesh and good bodied.
— Hakluyt.

Bodiless

Phantoms bodiless and vain.

Bodily

You are a mere spirit, and have no knowledge of the bodily part of us.
— Tatler.
Be brought to bodily act.
For in him dwelleth all the fullness of the Godhead bodily.
— Col. ii. 9

Bodkin

When he himself might his quietus make With a bare bodkin.
Wedged whole ages in a bodkin's eye.

Body

Absent in body, but present in spirit.
— 1 Cor. v. 3
For of the soul the body form doth take. For soul is form, and doth the body make.
Who set the body and the limbs Of this great sport together?
The van of the king's army was led by the general; . . . in the body was the king and the prince.
Rivers that run up into the body of Italy.
Which are a shadow of things to come; but the body is of Christ.
— Col. ii. 17.
A dry, shrewd kind of a body.
A numerous body led unresistingly to the slaughter.
By collision of two bodies, grind The air attrite to fire.
As to the persons who compose the body politic or associate themselves, they take collectively the name of “people”, or “nation”.
— Bouvier.
Sol gold is, and Luna silver we threpe (=call), Mars yren (=iron), Mercurie quicksilver we clepe, Saturnus lead, and Jupiter is tin, and Venus coper.
Imagination bodies forth The forms of things unknown.

bog

Appalled with thoughts of bog, or caverned pit, Of treacherous earth, subsiding where they tread.
— R. Jago.
At another time, he was bogged up to the middle in the slough of Lochend.

Bogey

I have become a sort of bogey -- a kill-joy.
— Wm. Black.
I have become a sort of bogey -- a killjoy.
— Wm. Black.

Boggle

We start and boggle at every unusual appearance.
Boggling at nothing which serveth their purpose.

Bogy

There are plenty of such foolish attempts at playing bogy in the history of savages.
— C. Kingsley.

Bohemia

She knew every one who was any one in the land of Bohemia.
— Compton Reade.

Bohemian

Hers was a pleasant Bohemian life till she was five and thirty.
— Blackw. Mag.
Artists have abandoned their Bohemian manners and customs nowadays.
— W. Black.
She was of a wild, roving nature, inherited from father and mother, who were both Bohemians by taste and circumstances.

Boil

He maketh the deep to boil like a pot.
— Job xii. 31.
Then boiled my breast with flame and burning wrath.
— Surrey.
The stomach cook is for the hall, And boileth meate for them all.
— Gower.
To try whether seeds be old or new, the sense can not inform; but if you boil them in water, the new seeds will sprout sooner.

Boilingly

And lakes of bitumen rise boiling higher.

Bois d'arc

The bois d'arc seems to be the characteristic growth of the black prairies.
— U. S. Census (1880).

Boisterous

The waters swell before a boisterous storm.
The brute and boisterous force of violent men.
I like not that loud, boisterous man.
The heat becomes too powerful and boisterous for them.

Bold

Throngs of knights and barons bold.
Thou art too wild, too rude and bold of voice.
The cathedral church is a very bold work.
Shadows in painting . . . make the figure bolder.
Where the bold cape its warning forehead rears.
— Trumbull.

Bold-faced

I have seen enough to confute all the bold-faced atheists of this age.
— Bramhall.

Bolden

Ready speakers, being boldened with their present abilities to say more, . . . use less help of diligence and study.
— Ascham.

Bole

Enormous elm-tree boles did stoop and lean.
Open the bole wi'speed, that I may see if this be the right Lord Geraldin.

Boll

The barley was in the ear, and the flax was bolled.
— Ex. ix. 31.

Boln

Thin, and boln out like a sail.

Bolster

And here I'll fling the pillow, there the bolster, This way the coverlet, another way the sheets.
This arm shall be a bolster for thy head.
To bolster baseness.
Shoddy inventions designed to bolster up a factitious pride.
— Compton Reade.

Bolt

Look that the crossbowmen lack not bolts.
A fool's bolt is soon shot.
Away with him to prison! lay bolts enough upon him.
I hate when Vice can bolt her arguments.
Let tenfold iron bolt my door.
— Langhorn.
Which shackles accidents and bolts up change.
This Puck seems but a dreaming dolt, . . . And oft out of a bush doth bolt.
His cloudless thunder bolted on their heads.
[He] came bolt up against the heavy dragoon.
This gentleman was so hopelessly involved that he contemplated a bolt to America -- or anywhere.
— Compton Reade.
He now had bolted all the flour.
Ill schooled in bolted language.
Time and nature will bolt out the truth of things.
This bolts the matter fairly to the bran.
— Harte.
The report of the committee was examined and sifted and bolted to the bran.

Bomb

A pillar of iron . . . which if you had struck, would make . . . a great bomb in the chamber beneath.

Bombard

They planted in divers places twelve great bombards, wherewith they threw huge stones into the air, which, falling down into the city, might break down the houses.
Yond same black cloud, yond huge one, looks like a foul bombard that would shed his liquor.
Next, she means to bombard Naples.
His fleet bombarded and burnt down Dieppe.
— Wood.

Bombardman

They . . . made room for a bombardman that brought bouge for a country lady.

Bombast

A candle with a wick of bombast.
— Lupton.
How now, my sweet creature of bombast!
Doublets, stuffed with four, five, or six pounds of bombast at least.
— Stubbes.
Yet noisy bombast carefully avoid.
[He] evades them with a bombast circumstance, Horribly stuffed with epithets of war.
Nor a tall metaphor in bombast way.
— Cowley.
Not bombasted with words vain ticklish ears to feed.

Bombastic

A theatrical, bombastic, windy phraseology.

Bombastry

Bombastry and buffoonery, by nature lofty and light, soar highest of all.

Bombilation

To . . . silence the bombilation of guns.

Bond

Gnawing with my teeth my bonds in sunder, I gained my freedom.
A people with whom I have no tie but the common bond of mankind.
I love your majesty According to my bond, nor more nor less.
The Africander Bond, a league or association appealing to African, but practically to Boer, patriotism.
— James Bryce.
By one Spirit are we all baptized . . . whether we be Jews or Gentiles, whether we be bond or free.
— 1 Cor. xii. 13.

bond-servant

If thy brother . . . be waxen poor, and be sold unto thee; thou shalt not compel him to serve as a bond servant: but as an hired servant.
— Lev. xxv. 39, 40.

Bond service

Their children . . . upon those did Solomon levy a tribute of bond service.
— 1 Kings ix. 21.

Bondage

The King, when he designed you for my guard, Resolved he would not make my bondage hard.
He must resolve by no means to be . . . brought under the bondage of observing oaths.

Bondsman

Carnal, greedy people, without such a precept, would have no mercy upon their poor bondsmen.
— Derham.

Bondwoman

He who was of the bondwoman.
— Gal. iv. 23.

Bone

Joiners, etc., bone their work with two straight edges.
— W. M. Buchanan.

Boned

No big-boned men framed of the Cyclops' size.

Bonfire

Full soon by bonfire and by bell, We learnt our liege was passing well.

Bonify

To bonify evils, or tincture them with good.
— Cudworth.

Bonnet

And plaids and bonnets waving high.

Bonny

Till bonny Susan sped across the plain.
Far from the bonnie banks of Ayr.
Be you blithe and bonny.
Report speaks you a bonny monk, that would hear the matin chime ere he quitted his bowl.

Book

A good book is the precious life blood of a master spirit, embalmed and treasured up on purpose to a life beyond life.
Let it be booked with the rest of this day's deeds.
Here I am booked for three days more in Paris.
— Charles Reade.

Book-learned

Whate'er these book-learned blockheads say, Solon's the veriest fool in all the play.

Bookworm

I wanted but a black gown and a salary to be as mere a bookworm as any there.

Boom

At eve the beetle boometh Athwart the thicket lone.
Alarm guns booming through the night air.
She comes booming down before it.
— Totten.

Booming

O'er the sea-beat ships the booming waters roar.
— Falcone.

Boon

For which to God he made so many an idle boon.
Every good gift and every perfect boon is from above.
— James i. 17 (Rev. Ver. ).
Which . . . Nature boon Poured forth profuse on hill, and dale, and plain.
A boon companion, loving his bottle.

Boorish

Which is in truth a gross and boorish opinion.

Boot

He gaf the sike man his boote.
Thou art boot for many a bruise And healest many a wound.
Next her Son, our soul's best boot.
I'll give you boot, I'll give you three for one.
Then talk no more of flight, it is no boot.
Helen, to change, would give an eye to boot.
A man's heaviness is refreshed long before he comes to drunkenness, for when he arrives thither he hath but changed his heaviness, and taken a crime to boot.
What booteth it to others that we wish them well, and do nothing for them?
What subdued To change like this a mind so far imbued With scorn of man, it little boots to know.
What boots to us your victories?
And I will boot thee with what gift beside Thy modesty can beg.
So he was put to the torture, which in Scotland they call the boots; for they put a pair of iron boots close on the leg, and drive wedges between them and the leg.
Coated and booted for it.

Bootless

I'll follow him no more with bootless prayers.

Boottree

The pretty boots trimly stretched on boottrees.

Booze

This is better than boozing in public houses.
— H. R. Haweis.

Bopeep

I for sorrow sung, That such a king should play bopeep, And go the fools among.

Borachte

You're an absolute borachio.

Bordar

The cottar, the bordar, and the laborer were bound to aid in the work of the home farm.
— J. R. Green.

Border

Upon the borders of these solitudes.
— Bentham.
In the borders of death.
Wit which borders upon profaneness deserves to be branded as folly.
— Abp. Tillotson.
The country is bordered by a broad tract called the “hot region.”
Shebah and Raamah . . . border the sea called the Persian gulf.
That nature, which contemns its origin, Can not be bordered certain in itself.

Borderer

Borderers of the Caspian.
— Dyer.

Bore

I'll believe as soon this whole earth may be bored.
Short but very powerful jaws, by means whereof the insect can bore, as with a centerbit, a cylindrical passage through the most solid wood.
— T. W. Harris.
He bores me with some trick.
Used to come and bore me at rare intervals.
I am abused, betrayed; I am laughed at, scorned, Baffled and bored, it seems.
They take their flight . . . boring to the west.
The bores of wind instruments.
Love's counselor should fill the bores of hearing.
Yet are they much too light for the bore of the matter.
It is as great a bore as to hear a poet read his own verses.

Boreal

So from their own clear north in radiant streams, Bright over Europe bursts the boreal morn.

Boring

One of the most important applications of boring is in the formation of artesian wells.
— Tomlinson.

Born

No one could be born into slavery in Mexico.

Borrow

Rites borrowed from the ancients.
It is not hard for any man, who hath a Bible in his hands, to borrow good words and holy sayings in abundance; but to make them his own is a work of grace only from above.
The borrowed majesty of England.
Any drop thou borrowedst from thy mother.
Ye may retain as borrows my two priests.
Of your royal presence I'll adventure The borrow of a week.

Borrower

Neither a borrower nor a lender be.

boskage

Thridding the somber boskage of the wood.

Bosky

Darkened over by long bosky shadows.
— H. James.

Bosom

You must prepare your bosom for his knife.
Tut, I am in their bosoms, and I know Wherefore they do it.
If I covered my transgressions as Adam, by hiding my iniquity in my bosom.
— Job xxxi. 33.
Within the bosom of that church.
He put his hand into his bosom: and when he took it out, behold, his hand was leprous as snow.
— Ex. iv. 6.
Bosom up my counsel, You'll find it wholesome.
To happy convents bosomed deep in vines.

Bosporian

The Alans forced the Bosporian kings to pay them tribute and exterminated the Taurians.
— Tooke.

Botch

Botches and blains must all his flesh emboss.
To leave no rubs nor botches in the work.
Young Hylas, botched with stains.
— Garth.
Sick bodies . . . to be kept and botched up for a time.
— Robynson (More's Utopia).
For treason botched in rhyme will be thy bane.

Both

She alone is heir to both of us.
Abraham took sheep and oxen, and gave them unto Abimelech; and both of them made a covenant.
— Gen. xxi. 27.
He will not bear the loss of his rank, because he can bear the loss of his estate; but he will bear both, because he is prepared for both.
— Bolingbroke.
Thy weal and woe are both of them extremes.
This said, they both betook them several ways.
To judge both quick and dead.
A masterpiece both for argument and style.
To whom bothe heven and erthe and see is sene.
Both mongrel, puppy, whelp, and hound.
He prayeth well who loveth well Both man and bird and beast.

Both-hands

He is his master's both-hands, I assure you.

Bother

Without bothering about it.
— H. James.

Bottleholder

Lord Palmerston considered himself the bottleholder of oppressed states.
— The London Times.

Bottom

Or dive into the bottom of the deep.
Barrels with the bottom knocked out.
No two chairs were alike; such high backs and low backs and leather bottoms and worsted bottoms.
My ventures are not in one bottom trusted.
Not to sell the teas, but to return them to London in the same bottoms in which they were shipped.
He was at the bottom of many excellent counsels.
Action is supposed to be bottomed upon principle.
Those false and deceiving grounds upon which many bottom their eternal state].
Find on what foundation any proposition bottoms.
Silkworms finish their bottoms in . . . fifteen days.
As you unwind her love from him, Lest it should ravel and be good to none, You must provide to bottom it on me.

Bouge

[They] made room for a bombardman that brought bouge for a country lady or two, that fainted . . . with fasting.

Bought

The boughts of the fore legs.

Bounce

Another bounces as hard as he can knock.
Against his bosom bounced his heaving heart.
Out bounced the mastiff.
Bounced off his arm+chair.
The bounce burst open the door.
This impudent puppy comes bounce in upon me.
— Bickerstaff.

Bouncer

The stone must be a bouncer.

Bouncing

Many tall and bouncing young ladies.

Bound

He hath compassed the waters with bounds.
— Job xxvi. 10.
On earth's remotest bounds.
— Campbell.
And mete the bounds of hate and love.
Where full measure only bounds excess.
Phlegethon . . . Whose fiery flood the burning empire bounds.
Before his lord the ready spaniel bounds.
And the waves bound beneath me as a steed That knows his rider.
A bound of graceful hardihood.

Boundary

But still his native country lies Beyond the boundaries of the skies.
— N. Cotton.
That bright and tranquil stream, the boundary of Louth and Meath.
Sensation and reflection are the boundaries of our thoughts.

Bounden

This holy word, that teacheth us truly our bounden duty toward our Lord God in every point.
— Ridley.
I am much bounden to your majesty.

Bounding

The bounding pulse, the languid limb.
— Montgomery.

Bounteous

But O, thou bounteous Giver of all good.

Bountiful

God, the bountiful Author of our being.

Bounty

Nature set in her at once beauty with bounty.
— Gower.
My bounty is as boundless as the sea.

Bourgeon

Gayly to bourgeon and broadly to grow.

Bourn

My little boat can safely pass this perilous bourn.
Where the land slopes to its watery bourn.
The undiscovered country, from whose bourn No traveler returns.
Sole bourn, sole wish, sole object of my song.
To make the doctrine . . . their intellectual bourne.

Bousy

In his cups the bousy poet songs.

Bout

In notes with many a winding bout Of linked sweetness long drawn out.
The prince . . . has taken me in his train, so that I am in no danger of starving for this bout.
The gentleman will, for his honor's sake, have one bout with you; he can not by the duello avoid it.

Boutefeu

Animated by . . . John à Chamber, a very boutefeu, . . . they entered into open rebellion.

Bovine

The bovine gaze of gaping rustics.
— W. Black.

Bow

We bow things the contrary way, to make them come to their natural straightness.
The whole nation bowed their necks to the worst kind of tyranny.
Adversities do more bow men's minds to religion.
Not to bow and bias their opinions.
They came to meet him, and bowed themselves to the ground before him.
— 2 Kings ii. 15.
Whose heavy hand hath bowed you to the grave.
They stoop, they bow down together.
— Is. xlvi. 2
O come, let us worship and bow down: let us kneel before the Lord our maker.
— Ps. xcv. 6.
Admired, adored by all circling crowd, For wheresoe'er she turned her face, they bowed.
I do set my bow in the cloud.
— Gen. ix. 13.

Bow-bells

People born within the sound of Bow-bells are usually called cockneys.
— Murray's Handbook of London.

Bow hand

Surely he shoots wide on the bow hand.

Bowdlerize

It is a grave defect in the splendid tale of Tom Jones . . . that a Bowdlerized version of it would be hardly intelligible as a tale.
— F. Harrison.

Bowel

He burst asunder in the midst, and all his bowels gushed out.
— Acts i. 18.
His soldiers . . . cried out amain, And rushed into the bowels of the battle.
Bloody Bonner, that corpulent tyrant, full (as one said) of guts, and empty of bowels.

Bower

His rawbone arms, whose mighty brawned bowers Were wont to rive steel plates and helmets hew.
Give me my lute in bed now as I lie, And lock the doors of mine unlucky bower.
— Gascoigne.

Bowery

A bowery maze that shades the purple streams.
— Trumbull.
The emigrants [in New York] were scattered on boweries or plantations; and seeing the evils of this mode of living widely apart, they were advised, in 1643 and 1646, by the Dutch authorities, to gather into “villages, towns, and hamlets, as the English were in the habit of doing.”

Bowing

Bowing constitutes a principal part of the art of the violinist, the violist, etc.
— J. W. Moore.

Bowl

Brought them food in bowls of basswood.
Like an uninstructed bowler, . . . who thinks to attain the jack by delivering his bowl straightforward upon it.
Break all the spokes and fellies from her wheel, And bowl the round nave down the hill of heaven.
Alas, I had rather be set quick i' the earth, And bowled to death with turnips

Bowman

The whole city shall flee for the noise of the horsemen and bowmen.
— Jer. iv. 29.

Bowne

We will all bowne ourselves for the banquet.

Bowssen

There were many bowssening places, for curing of mad men. . . . If there appeared small amendment he was bowssened again and again.

Box

Laughed at by the pit, box, galleries, nay, stage.
— Dorset.
The boxes and the pit are sovereign judges.
Yet since his neighbors give, the churl unlocks, Damning the poor, his tripple-bolted box.
— J. Warton.
Tight boxes neatly sashed.
A good-humored box on the ear.

Boxen

The faded hue of sapless boxen leaves.

Boy

My only boy fell by the side of great Dundee.
He reverted again and again to the labor difficulty, and spoke of importing boys from Capetown.
— Frances Macnab.
I shall see Some squeaking Cleopatra boy my greatness.

Boyish

A boyish, odd conceit.
— Baillie.

Brabble

This petty brabble will undo us all.

Brace

The little bones of the ear drum do in straining and relaxing it as the braces of the war drum do in that.
— Derham.
The laxness of the tympanum, when it has lost its brace or tension.
— Holder.
He is said to have shot . . . fifty brace of pheasants.
A brace of brethren, both bishops, both eminent for learning and religion, now appeared in the church.
But you, my brace of lords.
I embroidered for you a beautiful pair of braces.
For that it stands not in such warlike brace.
And welcome war to brace her drums.
— Campbell.
The women of China, by bracing and binding them from their infancy, have very little feet.
Some who spurs had first braced on.
A sturdy lance in his right hand he braced.

brach

A sow pig by chance sucked a brach, and when she was grown would miraculously hunt all manner of deer.
— Burton (Anatomy of Melancholy).

Brachygrapher

He asked the brachygrapher whether he wrote the notes of the sermon.
— Gayton.

Brack

Stain or brack in her sweet reputation.
— J. Fletcher.

Brackish

Springs in deserts found seem sweet, all brackish though they be.

Brag

Conceit, more rich in matter than in words, Brags of his substance, not of ornament.
Cæsar . . . made not here his brag Of “came,” and “saw,” and “overcame.”
Beauty is Nature's brag.
A brag young fellow.

Braggart

O, I could play the woman with mine eyes, And braggart with my tongue.

Braid

Braid your locks with rosy twine.
A braid of hair composed of two different colors twined together.
Since Frenchmen are so braid, Marry that will, I live and die a maid.

Braiding

A gentleman enveloped in mustachios, whiskers, fur collars, and braiding.

Brain

There thou mayst brain him.
It was the swift celerity of the death . . . That brained my purpose.
'T is still a dream, or else such stuff as madmen Tongue, and brain not.

Brained

If th' other two be brained like us.

Braise

A braising kettle has a deep cover which holds coals; consequently the cooking is done from above, as well as below.
— Mrs. Henderson.

Brake

Rounds rising hillocks, brakes obscure and rough, To shelter thee from tempest and from rain.
He stayed not for brake, and he stopped not for stone.
Pampered jades . . . which need nor break nor bit.
— Gascoigne.
A horse . . . which Philip had bought . . . and because of his fierceness kept him within a brake of iron bars.
— J. Brende.

Braky

In the woods and braky glens.
— W. Browne.

Bramble

The thorny brambles, and embracing bushes.

Bramble bush

He jumped into a bramble bush And scratched out both his eyes.
— Mother Goose.

Brambled

Forlorn she sits upon the brambled floor.
— T. Warton.

Brame

Heart-burning brame.

Branch

Most of the branches , or streams, were dried up.
It is a branch and parcel of mine oath.
His father, a younger branch of the ancient stock.
To branch out into a long disputation.
— Spectator.
The train whereof loose far behind her strayed, Branched with gold and pearl, most richly wrought.

Branching

Shaded with branching palm.
The sciences, with their numerous branchings.
— L. Watts.

Branchy

Beneath thy branchy bowers of thickest gloom.
— J. Scott.

Brand

Snatching a live brand from a wigwam, Mason threw it on a matted roof.
— Palfrey.
Paradise, so late their happy seat, Waved over by that flaming brand.
The brand of private vice.
— Channing.
The Inquisition branded its victims with infamy.
There were the enormities, branded and condemned by the first and most natural verdict of common humanity.
As if it were branded on my mind.
— Geo. Eliot.

Brandenburg

He wore a coat . . . trimmed with Brandenburgs.

Brandish

The quivering lance which he brandished bright.
— Drake.

Brangle

A brangle between him and his neighbor.

Brashy

Our progress was not at all impeded by the few soft, brashy floes that we encountered.
— F. T. Bullen.

Brass

Provide neither gold, nor silver, nor brass in your purses, nor scrip for your journey.
— Matt. x. 9.
The very scullion who cleans the brasses.
— Hopkinson.

Brast

And both his yën braste out of his face.
Dreadfull furies which their chains have brast.

Brat

O Israel! O household of the Lord! O Abraham's brats! O brood of blessed seed!
— Gascoigne.

bratchet

The bratchet's bay From the dark covert drove the prey.
— Scott, (Marmion, ii. int.).
To be plagued with a bratchet whelp -- Whence came ye, my fair-favoured little gossip? .
— Scott, (Kenilworth, II. xxi).

Bravado

In spite of our host's bravado.
— Irving.

Brave

Iron is a brave commodity where wood aboundeth.
It being a brave day, I walked to Whitehall.
Wear my dagger with the braver grace.
For I have gold, and therefore will be brave. In silks I'll rattle it of every color.
— Robert Greene.
Frog and lizard in holiday coats And turtle brave in his golden spots.
The star-spangled banner, O,long may it wave O'er the land of the free and the home of the brave.
— F. S. Key.
Hot braves like thee may fight.
Demetrius, thou dost overween in all; And so in this, to bear me down with braves.
These I can brave, but those I can not bear.
Thou [a tailor whom Grunio was browbeating] hast braved meny men; brave not me; I'll neither be faced or braved.

Bravely

And [she] decked herself bravely to allure the eyes of all men that should see her.
— Judith. x. 4.

Bravery

Remember, sir, my liege, . . . The natural bravery of your isle.
Reform, then, without bravery or scandal of former times and persons.
With scarfs and fans and double change of bravery.
Like a stately ship . . . With all her bravery on, and tackle trim.
A man that is the bravery of his age.

Braving

With so proud a strain Of threats and bravings.

Bravo

Safe from detection, seize the unwary prey. And stab, like bravoes, all who come this way.
— Churchill.

Brawl

Let a man that is a man consider that he is a fool that brawleth openly with his wife.
— Golden Boke.
Where the brook brawls along the painful road.
His sports were hindered by the brawls.

Brawling

She is an irksome brawling scold.
A brawling stream.
— J. S. Shairp.

Brawn

Formed well of brawns and of bones.
Brawn without brains is thine.
It was ordained that murderers should be brent on the brawn of the left hand.
— E. Hall.
And in my vantbrace put this withered brawn.
The best age for the boar is from two to five years, at which time it is best to geld him, or sell him for brawn.

Bray

Though thou shouldest bray a fool in a mortar, . . . yet will not his foolishness depart from him.
— Prov. xxvii. 22.
Laugh, and they Return it louder than an ass can bray.
Heard ye the din of battle bray?
Arms on armor clashing, brayed Horrible discord.
— MIlton.
And varying notes the war pipes brayed.
The bray and roar of multitudinous London.
— Jerrold.

Brazen

Sabina brazened it out before Mrs. Wygram, but inwardly she was resolved to be a good deal more circumspect.
— W. Black.

Breach

Once more unto the breach, dear friends, once more; Or close the wall up with our English dead.
The Lord hath broken forth upon mine enemies before me, as the breach of waters.
— 2 Sam. v. 20.
There's fallen between him and my lord An unkind breach.
Breach for breach, eye for eye.
— Lev. xxiv. 20.
The Lord had made a breach upon Uzza.
— 1. Chron. xiii. 11.

Bread

Give us this day our daily bread.
— Matt. vi. 11

Breadless

Plump peers and breadless bards alike are dull.
— P. Whitehead.

Breadth

Breadth of coloring is a prominent character in the painting of all great masters.
— Weale.

Break

Katharine, break thy mind to me.
Out, out, hyena! these are thy wonted arts . . . To break all faith, all vows, deceive, betray.
Go, release them, Ariel; My charms I'll break, their senses I'll restore.
The victim broke in pieces the musical instruments with which he had solaced the hours of captivity.
An old man, broken with the storms of state.
I'll rather leap down first, and break your fall.
Why, then thou canst not break her to the lute?
With arts like these rich Matho, when he speaks, Attracts all fees, and little lawyers breaks.
I see a great officer broken.
Else the bottle break, and the wine runneth out.
— Math. ix. 17.
The day begins to break, and night is fled.
And from the turf a fountain broke, and gurgled at our feet.
The clouds are still above; and, while I speak, A second deluge o'er our head may break.
At length the darkness begins to break.
See how the dean begins to break; Poor gentleman! he droops apace.
He that puts all upon adventures doth oftentimes break, and come to poverty.
— Bacn.
To break upon the score of danger or expense is to be mean and narrow-spirited.
— Collier.
Fear me not, man; I will not break away.
He had broken down almost at the outset.
This radiant from the circling crowd he broke.
All modern trash is Set forth with numerous breaks and dashes.

Breakdown

Don't clear out when the quadrilles are over, for we are going to have a breakdown to wind up with.
— New Eng. Tales.

Breaker

I'll be no breaker of the law.
The breakers were right beneath her bows.

Breakfast

A sorry breakfast for my lord protector.
The wolves will get a breakfast by my death.
First, sir, I read, and then I breakfast.

Breast

My brother, that sucked the breasts of my mother.
— Cant. viii. 1.
Mountains on whose barren breast The laboring clouds do often rest.
He has a loyal breast.
By my troth, the fool has an excellent breast.
The court breasted the popular current by sustaining the demurrer.

Breast-deep

Set him breast-deep in earth, and famish him.

Breasted

The close minister is buttoned up, and the brave officer open-breasted, on these occasions.
— Spectator.

Breastplate

Before his old rusty breastplate could be scoured, and his cracked headpiece mended.

Breath

Melted as breath into the wind.
Thou takest away their breath, they die.
— Ps. civ. 29.
Give me some breath, some little pause.
He smiles and he frowns in a breath.
The earthquake voice of victory, To thee the breath of life.
A breath can make them, as a breath has made.
Calm and unruffled as a summer's sea, when not a breath of wind flies o'er its surface.
The breath of flowers.
An after dinner's breath.

Breathe

Breathes there a man with soul so dead Who never to himself hath said, This is my own, my native land!
— Sir W. Scott [The Lay of the Last Minstrel].
Well! breathe awhile, and then to it again!
The air breathes upon us here most sweetly.
There breathes a living fragrance from the shore.
To view the light of heaven, and breathe the vital air.
Able to breathe life into a stone.
And the Lord God formed man of the dust of the ground, and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life.
— Gen. ii. 7.
He softly breathed thy name.
Or let the church, our mother, breathe her curse, A mother's curse, on her revolting son.
Others articles breathe the same severe spirit.
— Milner.
And every man should beat thee. I think thou wast created for men to breathe themselves upon thee.
A moment breathed his panting steed.
Mr. Tulkinghorn arrives in his turret room, a little breathed by the journey up.
The same sound may be pronounces either breathed, voiced, or whispered.
— H. Sweet.
Breathed elements, being already voiceless, remain unchanged [in whispering].
— H. Sweet.

Breathing

Subject to a difficulty of breathing.
— Melmoth.
Here is a lady that wants breathing too; And I have heard, you knights of Tyre Are excellent in making ladies trip.
I am sorry to give breathing to my purpose.
You shake the head at so long a breathing.

Breathless

But breathless, as we grow when feeling most.

Brecciated

The brecciated appearance of many specimens [of meteorites].
— H. A. Newton.

Brede

Half lapped in glowing gauze and golden brede.

Breech

A great man . . . anxious to know whether the blacksmith's youngest boy was breeched.
Their daggers unmannerly breeched with gore.
Had not a courteous serving man conveyed me away, whilst he went to fetch whips, I think, in my conscience, he would have breeched me.
— Old Play.

Breeches

His jacket was red, and his breeches were blue.

Breeching

I view the prince with Aristarchus' eyes, Whose looks were as a breeching to a boy.

Breechloader

For cavalry, the revolver and breechloader will supersede the saber.
— Rep. Sec. War (1860).

Breed

Yet every mother breeds not sons alike.
If the sun breed maggots in a dead dog.
To bring thee forth with pain, with care to breed.
Born and bred on the verge of the wilderness.
— Everett.
But no care was taken to breed him a Protestant.
His farm may not remove his children too far from him, or the trade he breeds them up in.
Lest the place And my quaint habits breed astonishment.
Children would breed their teeth with less danger.
That they breed abundantly in the earth.
— Gen. viii. 17.
The mother had never bred before.
— Carpenter.
Ant. Is your gold and silver ewes and rams? Shy. I can not tell. I make it breed as fast.
Heavens rain grace On that which breeds between them.
The kind of animal which you wish to breed from.
— Gardner.
Twice fifteen thousand hearts of England's breed.
Greyhounds of the best breed.
— Carpenter.
Are these the breed of wits so wondered at?
This courtesy is not of the right breed.

Breeder

She was a great breeder.
— Dr. A. Carlyle.
Italy and Rome have been the best breeders of worthy men.
— Ascham.

Breeding

She had her breeding at my father's charge.
Delicacy of breeding, or that polite deference and respect which civility obliges us either to express or counterfeit towards the persons with whom we converse.
Honest gentlemen, I know not your breeding.

Breeze

Into a gradual calm the breezes sink.

Breezeless

A stagnant, breezeless air becalms my soul.
— Shenstone.

Breezy

'Mid lawns and shades by breezy rivulets fanned.

Breme

From the septentrion cold, in the breme freezing air.

Bren

Consuming fire brent his shearing house or stall.
— W. Browne.

Brent

Grapes grow on the brant rocks so wonderfully that ye will marvel how any man dare climb up to them.
— Ascham.
Your bonnie brow was brent.

Breviary

A book entitled the abridgment or breviary of those roots that are to be cut up or gathered.

Breviate

I omit in this breviate to rehearse.
— Hakluyt.
The same little breviates of infidelity have . . . been published and dispersed with great activity.
— Bp. Porteus.

Brevity

Brevity is the soul of wit.
This argument is stated by St. John with his usual elegant brevity and simplicity.
— Bp. Porteus.

Brew

Go, brew me a pottle of sack finely.
Hence with thy brewed enchantments, foul deceiver!
I wash, wring, brew, bake, scour.
There is some ill a-brewing towards my rest.

Brewage

A rich brewage, made of the best Spanish wine.

Brewing

A brewing of new beer, set by old beer.
I am not able to avouch anything for certainty, such a brewing and sophistication of them they make.

Brewis

Let them of their Bonner's “beef” and “broth” make what brewis they please for their credulous guests.

Bribable

A more bribable class of electors.
— S. Edwards.

Bribe

Undue reward for anything against justice is a bribe.
— Hobart.
Not the bribes of sordid wealth can seduce to leave these everblooming sweets.
— Akenside.
Neither is he worthy who bribes a man to vote against his conscience.
— F. W. Robertson.
An attempt to bribe, though unsuccessful, has been holden to be criminal, and the offender may be indicted.
— Bouvier.
The bard may supplicate, but cannot bribe.

Bribeless

From thence to heaven's bribeless hall.

Briber

His service . . . were a sufficient briber for his life.

Brick

The Assyrians appear to have made much less use of bricks baked in the furnace than the Babylonians.
— Layard.
Some of Palladio's finest examples are of brick.
— Weale.

Brickle

As stubborn steel excels the brickle glass.
— Turbervile.

Brickwork

Niches in brickwork form the most difficult part of the bricklayer's art.
— Tomlinson.

Bridal

Sweet day, so cool, so calm, so bright, The bridal of the earth and sky.

Bride

Has by his own experience tried How much the wife is dearer than the bride.
— Lyttleton.
I will show thee the bride, the Lamb's wife.
— Rev. xxi. 9.

Bride-ale

The man that 's bid to bride-ale, if he ha' cake, And drink enough, he need not fear his stake.

Bridestake

Divide the broad bridecake Round about the bridestake.

Bridge

Their simple engineering bridged with felled trees the streams which could not be forded.
— Palfrey.
Xerxes . . . over Hellespont Bridging his way, Europe with Asia joined.

Bridle

He bridled her mouth with a silkweed twist.
— Drake.
Savoy and Nice, the keys of Italy, and the citadel in her hands to bridle Switzerland, are in that consolidation.
By her bridling up I perceived she expected to be treated hereafter not as Jenny Distaff, but Mrs. Tranquillus.
— Tatler.

Brief

How brief the life of man.
The brief style is that which expresseth much in little.
Adam, faltering long, thus answered brief.
Bear this sealed brief, With winged hastle, to the lord marshal.
And she told me In a sweet, verbal brief.
Each woman is a brief of womankind.
— Overbury.
It was not without some reference to it that I perused many a brief.
— Sir J. Stephen.

Brier

The thorns and briers of reproof.

Brigand

Giving them not a little the air of brigands or banditti.
— Jeffery.

Brigandine

Then put on all thy gorgeous arms, thy helmet, And brigandine of brass.

Bright

The sun was bright o'erhead.
The earth was dark, but the heavens were bright.
— Drake.
The public places were as bright as at noonday.
From the brightest wines He 'd turn abhorrent.
Bright as an angel new-dropped from the sky.
— Parnell.
Be bright and jovial among your guests.
In the brightest annals of a female reign.
— Cotton.
That he may with more ease, with brighter evidence, and with surer success, draw the bearner on.
Here the bright crocus and blue violet grew.
Dark with excessive bright thy skirts appear.
I say it is the moon that shines so bright.

Brighten

The present queen would brighten her character, if she would exert her authority to instill virtues into her people.
An ecstasy, which mothers only feel, Plays round my heart and brightens all my sorrow.
— Philips.
And night shall brighten into day.
— N. Cotton.
And, all his prospects brightening to the last, His heaven commences ere world be past.

Brightly

Looking brightly into the mother's face.

Brightness

A sudden brightness in his face appear.
— Crabbe.
The brightness of his parts . . . distinguished him.

Brillancy

With many readers brilliancy of style passes for affluence of thought.

Brilliant

Washington was more solicitous to avoid fatal mistakes than to perform brilliant exploits.
— Fisher Ames.
This snuffbox -- on the hinge see brilliants shine.

Brim

Saw I that insect on this goblet's brim I would remove it with an anxious pity.
The feet of the priests that bare the ark were dipped in the brim of the water.
— Josh. iii. 15.
Arrange the board and brim the glass.

Brimstone

From his brimstone bed at break of day A-walking the devil has gone.

Brine

Not long beneath the whelming brine . . . he lay.
What a deal of brine Hath washed thy sallow cheecks for Rosaline!

Bring

And as she was going to fetch it, he called to her, and said, Bring me, I pray thee, a morsel of bread.
— 1 Kings xvii. 11.
To France shall we convey you safe, And bring you back.
There is nothing will bring you more honor . . . than to do what right in justice you may.
In distillation, the water . . . brings over with it some part of the oil of vitriol.
It seems so preposterous a thing . . . that they do not easily bring themselves to it.
The nature of the things . . . would not suffer him to think otherwise, how, or whensoever, he is brought to reflect on them.

Bringer

Yet the first bringer of unwelcome news Hath but a losing office.

Brink

The plashy brink of weedy lake.

Brisk

Cheerily, boys; be brick awhile.
Brisk toil alternating with ready ease.
— Wordworth.

Bristle

Now for the bare-picked bone of majesty Doth dogged war bristle his angry crest.
Boy, bristle thy courage up.
His hair did bristle upon his head.
The hill of La Haye Sainte bristling with ten thousand bayonets.
Ports bristling with thousands of masts.

Bristly

The leaves of the black mulberry are somewhat bristly.

Brittle

Farewell, thou pretty, brittle piece Of fine-cut crystal.
— Cotton.

Broach

He turned a broach that had worn a crown.
I'll broach the tadpole on my rapier's point.
Whereat with blade, with bloody blameful blade, He bravely broached his boiling bloody breast.
You shall want neither weapons, victuals, nor aid; I will open the old armories, I will broach my store, and will bring forth my stores.
Those very opinions themselves had broached.

Broacher

On five sharp broachers ranked, the roast they turned.
Some such broacher of heresy.

Broad

A broad mixture of falsehood.
The words in the Constitution are broad enough to include the case.
— D. Daggett.
In a broad, statesmanlike, and masterly way.
— E. Everett.
As broad and general as the casing air.
It is as broad as long, whether they rise to others, or bring others down to them.

Broad-brimmed

A broad-brimmed flat silver plate.
— Tatler.

Broad Church

Side by side with these various shades of High and Low Church, another party of a different character has always existed in the Church of England. It is called by different names: Moderate, Catholic, or Broad Church, by its friends; Latitudinarian or Indifferent, by its enemies. Its distinctive character is the desire of comprehension. Its watch words are charity and toleration.
— Conybeare.

Broaden

The broadening sun appears.

Broadseal

Thy presence broadseals our delights for pure.

Broadsword

I heard the broadsword's deadly clang.

Brocade

A gala suit of faded brocade.

Brocaded

Brocaded flowers o'er the gay mantua shine.

Brocard

The legal brocard, “Falsus in uno, falsus in omnibus,” is a rule not more applicable to other witness than to consciousness.

Brock

Or with pretense of chasing thence the brock.

Brogue

Or take, Hibernis, thy still ranker brogue.
— Lloyd.

Broider

They shall make a broidered coat.
— Ex. xxviii. 4.

Broidery

The golden broidery tender Milkah wove.
— Tickell.

Broil

I will own that there is a haughtiness and fierceness in human nature which will which will cause innumerable broils, place men in what situation you please.
The planets and comets had been broiling in the sun.
— Cheyne.

Broiler

What doth he but turn broiler, . . . make new libels against the church?

Broke

We do want a certain necessary woman to broke between them, Cupid said.
— Fanshawe.
And brokes with all that can in such a suit Corrupt the tender honor of a maid.

Broken

The one being who remembered him as he been before his mind was broken.
The broken soldier, kindly bade to stay, Sat by his fire, and talked the night away.
The sacrifices of God are a broken spirit.
— Ps. li. 17.
Amidst the broken words and loud weeping of those grave senators.

Broken-hearted

She left her husband almost broken-hearted.

Brokenly

The pagans worship God . . . as it were brokenly and by piecemeal.
— Cudworth.

Brokery

And with extorting, cozening, forfeiting, And tricks belonging unto brokery.

Broking

Redeem from broking pawn the blemished crown.

Bromide

The bromide conforms to everything sanctioned by the majority, and may be depended upon to be trite, banal, and arbitrary.
— Gelett Burgess.

Bronze

A print, a bronze, a flower, a root.
Imbrowned with native bronze, lo! Henley stands.
The tall bronzed black-eyed stranger.
— W. Black.
The lawer who bronzes his bosom instead of his forehead.

Brooch

Honor 's a good brooch to wear in a man's hat.

Brood

As a hen doth gather her brood under her wings.
— Luke xiii. 34.
A hen followed by a brood of ducks.
— Spectator.
The lion roars and gluts his tawny brood.
Flocks of the airy brood, (Cranes, geese or long-necked swans).
Birds of calm sir brooding on the charmed wave.
Brooding on unprofitable gold.
Brooding over all these matters, the mother felt like one who has evoked a spirit.
When with downcast eyes we muse and brood.
You'll sit and brood your sorrows on a throne.

Brook

The Lord thy God bringeth thee into a good land, a land of brooks of water.
— Deut. viii. 7.
Empires itself, as doth an inland brook Into the main of waters.
Shall we, who could not brook one lord, Crouch to the wicked ten?

Broom

No gypsy cowered o'er fires of furze and broom.

Broomy

If land grow mossy or broomy.

Broth

I am sure by your unprejudiced discourses that you love broth better than soup.

Brother

Two of us in the churchyard lie, My sister and my brother.
We few, we happy few, we band of brothers, For he to-day that sheds his blood with me Shall be my brother.
He also that is slothful in his work is brother to him that is a great waster.
— Prov. xviii. 9.
That April morn Of this the very brother.
For of whom such massacre Make they but of their brethren, men of men?

Brotherhood

A brotherhood of venerable trees.

Brouded

Alle his clothes brouded up and down.

Brow

And his arched brow, pulled o'er his eyes, With solemn proof proclaims him wise.
— Churchill.
'T is not your inky brows, your brack silk hair.
Beads of sweat have stood upon thy brow.
To whom thus Satan with contemptuous brow.
He told them with a masterly brow.
Tending my flocks hard by i' the hilly crofts That brow this bottom glade.

Browbeat

My grandfather was not a man to be browbeaten.

Browbeating

The imperious browbeatings and scorn of great men.

Browdyng

Of goldsmithrye, of browdyng, and of steel.

Brown

Cheeks brown as the oak leaves.
A trembling twilight o'er welkin moves, Browns the dim void and darkens deep the groves.
— Barlow.

Brown bill

Many time, but for a sallet, my brainpan had been cleft with a brown bill.

Brownness

Now like I brown (O lovely brown thy hair); Only in brownness beauty dwelleth there.

Browse

Sheep, goats, and oxen, and the nobler steed, On browse, and corn, and flowery meadows feed.
Yes, like the stag, when snow the plasture sheets, The barks of trees thou browsedst.
Fields . . . browsed by deep-uddered kine.

Browsing

Browsings for the deer.

Bruise

Nor bruise her flowerets with the armed hoofs.
Bruising was considered a fine, manly, old English custom.
From the sole of the foot even unto the head there is no soundness in it; but wounds, and bruises.
— Isa. i. 6.

Bruiser

Like a new bruiser on Broughtonic sand, Amid the lists our hero takes his stand.
— T. Warton.

Bruit

The bruit thereof will bring you many friends.
I find thou art no less than fame hath bruited.

Brunt

It is instantly and irrecoverably scattered by our first brunt with some real affair of common life.

Brush

[As leaves] have with one winter's brush Fell from their boughts.
Let grow thy sinews till their knots be strong, And tempt not yet the brushes of the war.
Let us enjoy a brush across the country.
Some spread their sailes, some with strong oars sweep The waters smooth, and brush the buxom wave.
Brushed with the kiss of rustling wings.
As wicked dew as e'er my mother brushed With raven's feather from unwholesome fen.
And from the boughts brush off the evil dew.
You have commissioned me to paint your shop, and I have done my best to brush you up like your neighbors.
Snatching his hat, he brushed off like the wind.

Brutality

The . . . brutalities exercised in war.
— Brougham.

Brutalize

He mixed . . . with his countrymen, brutalized with them in their habits and manners.

Brute

A creature . . . not prone And brute as other creatures, but endued With sanctity of reason.
The influence of capital and mere brute labor.
— Playfair.
A great brute farmer from Liddesdale.
Brutes may be considered as either aërial, terrestrial, aquatic, or amphibious.
An ill-natured brute of a husband.
— Franklin.

Brutify

Any man not quite brutified and void of sense.

Brutish

O, let all provocation Take every brutish shape it can devise.
— Leigh Hunt.
Man may . . . render himself brutish, but it is in vain that he would seek to take the rank and density of the brute.

Bætulus

All the evidence goes to prove that these menhirs are bætuli, i. e., traditional and elementary images of the deity.
— I. Gonino (Perrot & Chipiez).

Bubble

Beads of sweat have stood upon thy brow, Like bubbles in a late disturbed stream.
Then a soldier . . . Seeking the bubble reputation Even in the cannon's mouth.
The milk that bubbled in the pail.
At mine ear Bubbled the nightingale and heeded not.

Bubbler

She has bubbled him out of his youth.
The great Locke, who was seldom outwitted by false sounds, was nevertheless bubbled here.
All the Jews, jobbers, bubblers, subscribers, projectors, etc.

Buck

The leading bucks of the day.
The brute that he was riding had nearly bucked him out of the saddle.
— W. E. Norris.

Bucket

The old oaken bucket, the iron-bound bucket, The moss-covered bucket, which hung in the well.

Buckle

Earlocks in tight buckles on each side of a lantern face.
Lets his wig lie in buckle for a whole half year.
'Gainst nature armed by gravity, His features too in buckle see.
— Churchill.
Cartwright buckled himself to the employment.
Buckled with the heat of the fire like parchment.
The Dutch, as high as they seem, do begin to buckle.
The bishop was as able and ready to buckle with the Lord Protector as he was with him.
In single combat thou shalt buckle with me.
To make our sturdy humor buckle thereto.
Before buckling to my winter's work.
— J. D. Forbes.

Buckler

Can Oxford, that did ever fence the right, Now buckler falsehood with a pedigree?

Buckskin

Cornwallis fought as lang's he dought, An' did the buckskins claw, man.
I have alluded to his buckskin.

Bucktooth

When he laughed, two white buckteeth protruded.

Bud

The apricot and the nectarine may be, and usually are, budded upon the peach; the plum and the peach are budded on each other.

Budge

I'll not budge an inch, boy.
The mouse ne'er shunned the cat as they did budge From rascals worse than they.
Those budge doctors of the stoic fur.

Budgeness

A Sara for goodness, a great Bellona for budgeness.
— Stanyhurst.

Budlet

We have a criterion to distinguish one bud from another, or the parent bud from the numerous budlets which are its offspring.
— E. Darwin.

Buff

A visage rough, Deformed, unfeatured, and a skin of buff.
To be in buff is equivalent to being naked.
— Wright.
Nathless so sore a buff to him it lent That made him reel.
And for the good old cause stood buff, 'Gainst many a bitter kick and cuff.
— Hudibras.

Buffet

Not when a gilt buffet's reflected pride Turns you from sound philosophy aside.
When on his cheek a buffet fell.
Those planks of tough and hardy oak that used for yeas to brave the buffets of the Bay of Biscay.
Fortune's buffets and rewards.
Go fetch us a light buffet.
— Townely Myst.
They spit in his face and buffeted him.
— Matt. xxvi. 67.
The sudden hurricane in thunder roars, Buffets the bark, and whirls it from the shores.
— Broome.
You are lucky fellows who can live in a dreamland of your own, instead of being buffeted about the world.
— W. Black.
If I might buffet for my love, or bound my horse for her favors, I could lay on like a butcher.
Strove to buffet to land in vain.

Buffeting

He seems to have been a plant of slow growth, but . . . fitted to endure the buffeting on the rudest storm.

Buffle-headed

So fell this buffle-headed giant.
— Gayton.

Bufflehead

What makes you stare so, bufflehead?
— Plautus (trans. 1694).

buffoon

To divert the audience with buffoon postures and antic dances.
— Melmoth.

Buffoonery

Nor that it will ever constitute a wit to conclude a tart piece of buffoonery with a “What makes you blush?”
— Spectator.

Buffoonly

Apish tricks and buffoonly discourse.
— Goodman.

Bug

Sir, spare your threats: The bug which you would fright me with I seek.

Bugaboo

But, to the world no bugbear is so great As want of figure and a small estate.
The bugaboo of the liberals is the church pray.
— S. B. Griffin.
The great bugaboo of the birds is the owl.
— J. Burroughs.

Buggy

Villebeck prevailed upon Flora to drive with him to the race in a buggy.
— Beaconsfield.

Bugle horn

One blast upon his bugle horn Were worth a thousand men.
And drinketh of his bugle horn the wine.

Build

Nor aught availed him now To have built in heaven high towers.
Who builds his hopes in air of your good looks.
I commend you to God, and to the word of his grace, which is able to build you up.
— Acts xx. 32.

Builder

In the practice of civil architecture, the builder comes between the architect who designs the work and the artisans who execute it.

Building

Hence it is that the building of our Sion rises no faster.
The execution of works of architecture necessarily includes building; but building is frequently employed when the result is not architectural.
— Hosking.
Thy sumptuous buildings and thy wife's attire Have cost a mass of public treasury.

Built

Like the generality of Genoese countrywomen, strongly built.

Bulge

And scattered navies bulge on distant shores.
— Broome.

Bulk

Against these forces there were prepared near one hundred ships; not so great of bulk indeed, but of a more nimble motion, and more serviceable.
The bulk of the people must labor, Burke told them, “to obtain what by labor can be obtained.”
— J. Morley.
My liver leaped within my bulk.
— Turbervile.
The fame of Warburton possibly bulked larger for the moment.
— Leslie Stephen.
Here, stand behind this bulk.

Bulky

A bulky digest of the revenue laws.

Bull

At last from Aries rolls the bounteous sun, And the bright Bull receives him.
A fresh bull of Leo's had declared how inflexible the court of Rome was in the point of abuses.
And whereas the papist boasts himself to be a Roman Catholic, it is a mere contradiction, one of the pope's bulls, as if he should say universal particular; a Catholic schimatic.

Bullary

And certain salt fats or bullaries.
— Bills in Chancery.

Bullbeggar

And being an ill-looked fellow, he has a pension from the church wardens for being bullbeggar to all the forward children in the parish.
— Mountfort (1691).

Bullet

A ship before Greenwich . . . shot off her ordnance, one piece being charged with a bullet of stone.
— Stow.

Bullion

And those which eld's strict doom did disallow, And damm for bullion, go for current now.
— Sylvester.
The clasps and bullions were worth a thousand pound.
— Skelton.

Bullish

Let me inform you, a toothless satire is as improper as a toothed sleek stone, and as bullish.

Bullock

Take thy father's young bullock, even the second bullock of seven years old.
— Judges vi. 25.
She shan't think to bullock and domineer over me.
— Foote.

Bully

Bullies seldom execute the threats they deal in.
— Palmerston.
For the last fortnight there have been prodigious shoals of volunteers gone over to bully the French, upon hearing the peace was just signing.
— Tatler.

Bulwark

The royal navy of England hath ever been its greatest defense, . . . the floating bulwark of our island.
Of some proud city, bulwarked round and armed With rising towers.
— Glover.

Bumble

As a bittern bumbleth in the mire.

Bummery

There was a scivener of Wapping brought to hearing for relief against a bummery bond.
— R. North.

Bump

It had upon its brow A bump as big as a young cockerel's stone.
As a bittern bumps within a reed.

Bumper

He frothed his bumpers to the brim.

Bunch

They will carry . . . their treasures upon the bunches of camels.
— Isa. xxx. 6.
Bunching out into a large round knob at one end.

Bunchy

An unshapen, bunchy spear, with bark unpiled.
— Phaer.

Buncombe

All that flourish about right of search was bunkum -- all that brag about hanging your Canada sheriff was bunkum . . . slavery speeches are all bunkum.
— Haliburton.

Bundesrath

By this united congress, the highest tribunal of Switzerland, -- the Bundesrath -- is chosen, and the head of this is a president.
— J. P. Peters (Trans. Müller's Pol. Hist.).

Bundle

The fable of the rods, which, when united in a bundle, no strength could bend.
They unmercifully bundled me and my gallant second into our own hackney coach.
— T. Hook.
Van Corlear stopped occasionally in the villages to eat pumpkin pies, dance at country frolics, and bundle with the Yankee lasses.

Bundobust

He has more bundobust than most men.
— Kipling.

Bung

You filthy bung, away.
He had bunged up his mouth that he should not have spoken these three years.
— Shelton (Trans. Don Quixote).

Bungle

I always had an idea that it would be bungled.
Those errors and bungles which are committed.
— Cudworth.

Bungler

If to be a dunce or a bungler in any profession be shameful, how much more ignominious and infamous to a scholar to be such!

Bungling

They make but bungling work.

Bunter

Her . . . daughters, like bunters in stuff gowns.

Buoy

Those old prejudices, which buoy up the ponderous mass of his nobility, wealth, and title.
Not one rock near the surface was discovered which was not buoyed by this floating weed.

Buoyancy

Such are buoyancies or displacements of the different classes of her majesty's ships.

Buoyant

The water under me was buoyant.

Bur

Amongst rude burs and thistles.
Bur and brake and brier.

Burden

Plants with goodly burden bowing.
Deaf, giddy, helpless, left alone, To all my friends a burden grown.
I mean not that other men be eased, and ye burdened.
— 2 Cor. viii. 13.
My burdened heart would break.
It is absurd to burden this act on Cromwell.
I would sing my song without a burden.

Burdensome

The debt immense of endless gratitude So burdensome.

Burglarious

To come down a chimney is held a burglarious entry.

Burial

The erthe schook, and stoones weren cloven, and biriels weren opened.
— Wycliff [Matt. xxvii. 51, 52].
Now to glorious burial slowly borne.

Burier

Till the buriers have buried it.
— Ezek. xxxix. 15.
And darkness be the burier of the dead.

Burke

The court could not burke an inquiry, supported by such a mass of a affidavits.
— C. Reade.

Burlesque

It is a dispute among the critics, whether burlesque poetry runs best in heroic verse, like that of the Dispensary, or in doggerel, like that of Hudibras.
Burlesque is therefore of two kinds; the first represents mean persons in the accouterments of heroes, the other describes great persons acting and speaking like the basest among the people.
The dull burlesque appeared with impudence, And pleased by novelty in spite of sense.
Who is it that admires, and from the heart is attached to, national representative assemblies, but must turn with horror and disgust from such a profane burlesque and abominable perversion of that sacred institute?
They burlesqued the prophet Jeremiah's words, and turned the expression he used into ridicule.
— Stillingfleet.

Burly

In his latter days, with overliberal diet, [he was] somewhat corpulent and burly.
— Sir T. More.
Burly and big, and studious of his ease.
It was the orator's own burly way of nonsense.
— Cowley.

Burn

This tyrant fever burns me up.
This dry sorrow burns up all my tears.
When the cold north wind bloweth, . . . it devoureth the mountains, and burneth the wilderness, and consumeth the ass as fire.
— Ecclus. xliii. 20, 21.
Your meat doth burn, quoth I.
Did not our heart burn within us, while he talked with us by the way?
— Luke xxiv. 32.
The barge she sat in, like a burnished throne, Burned on the water.
Burning with high hope.
The groan still deepens, and the combat burns.
The parching air Burns frore, and cold performs the effect of fire.

Burning

Like a young hound upon a burning scent.

Burnish

The frame of burnished steel, that east a glare From far, and seemed to thaw the freezing air.
Now the village windows blaze, Burnished by the setting sun.
— Cunningham.
A slender poet must have time to grow, And spread and burnish as his brothers do.
My thoughts began to burnish, sprout, and swell.

Burr

The graver, in plowing furrows in the surface of the copper, raises corresponding ridges or burrs.
— Tomlinson.

Burrow

Sir, this vermin of court reporters, when they are forced into day upon one point, are sure to burrow in another.

Burse

She says she went to the burse for patterns.
— Old Play.

Burst

From the egg that soon Bursting with kindly rupture, forth disclosed Their callow young.
No, no, my heart will burst, an if I speak: And I will speak, that so my heart may burst.
Tears, such as angels weep, burst forth.
And now you burst (ah cruel!) from my arms.
A resolved villain Whose bowels suddenly burst out.
We were the first that ever burst Into that silent sea.
To burst upon him like an earthquake.
My breast I'll burst with straining of my courage.
You will not pay for the glasses you have burst?
He burst his lance against the sand below.
— Fairfax (Tasso).
Bursts of fox-hunting melody.

Bury

To this very day, the chief house of a manor, or the lord's seat, is called bury, in some parts of England.
— Miege.
And all their confidence Under the weight of mountains buried deep.
Lord, suffer me first to go and bury my father.
— Matt. viii. 21.
I'll bury thee in a triumphant grave.
Give me a bowl of wine In this I bury all unkindness, Cassius.

Bush

To bind a bush of thorns among sweet-smelling flowers.
— Gascoigne.
If it be true that good wine needs no bush, 't is true that a good play needs no epilogue.

Bushel

Is a candle brought to be put under a bushel, or under a bed, and not to be set on a candlestick?
— Mark iv. 21.
The worthies of antiquity bought the rarest pictures with bushels of gold, without counting the weight or the number of the pieces.

Bushido

Unformulated, Bushido was and still is the animating spirit, the motor force of our country.
— Inazo Nitobé.

Bushless

O'er the long backs of the bushless downs.

Bushwhacker

They were gallant bushwhackers, and hunters of raccoons by moonlight.

Bushy

Dingle, or bushy dell, of this wild wood.

Business

Wist ye not that I must be about my Father's business?
— Luke ii. 49.
It seldom happens that men of a studious turn acquire any degree of reputation for their knowledge of business.
— Bp. Popteus.
The daughter of the King of France, On serious business, craving quick despatch, Importunes personal conference.
What business has the tortoise among the clouds?
It was a gentle business, and becoming The action of good women.
Bestow Your needful counsel to our business.

Busk

Her long slit sleeves, stiff busk, puff verdingall, Is all that makes her thus angelical.
— Marston.
Busk you, busk you, my bonny, bonny bride.
— Hamilton.
Ye might have busked you to Huntly banks.
— Skelton.

Buskin

The hunted red deer's undressed hide Their hairy buskins well supplied.
Great Fletcher never treads in buskins here, No greater Jonson dares in socks appear.

Buskined

Her buskined virgins traced the dewy lawn.

Buss

Kissing and bussing differ both in this, We buss our wantons, but our wives we kiss.
The Dutch whalers and herring busses.

bust

Ambition sighed: she found it vain to trust The faithless column, and the crumbling bust.

bust-up

With some antick bustoes in the niches.
— Ashmole.

Bustle

And leave the world for me to bustle in.
A strange bustle and disturbance in the world.

Busy

Sir, my mistress sends you word That she is busy, and she can not come.
Busy hammers closing rivets up.
Religious motives . . . are so busy in the heart.
To-morrow is a busy day.
On meddling monkey, or on busy ape.
Be it thy course to busy giddy minds With foreign quarrels.

Busybody

And not only idle, but tattlers also and busybodies, speaking things which they ought not.
— 1 Tim. v. 13.

But

So insolent that he could not go but either spurning equals or trampling on his inferiors.
Touch not the cat but a glove.
— Motto of the Mackintoshes.
Who can it be, ye gods! but perjured Lycon?
— E. Smith.
And but my noble Moor is true of mind . . . it were enough to put him to ill thinking.
It cannot be but nature hath some director, of infinite power, to guide her in all her ways.
There is no question but the king of Spain will reform most of the abuses.
Observe but how their own principles combat one another.
If they kill us, we shall but die.
— 2 Kings vii. 4.
A formidable man but to his friends.
Now abideth faith hope, charity, these three; but the greatest of these is charity.
— 1 Cor. xiii. 13.
When pride cometh, then cometh shame; but with the lowly is wisdom.
— Prov. xi. 2.
But and if that servant say in his heart, My lord delayeth his coming; . . . the lord of that servant will come in a day when he looketh not for him.
— Luke xii. 45, 46.
But this I read, that but if remedy Thou her afford, full shortly I her dead shall see.

Butcher

[Ithocles] was murdered, rather butchered.

Butchering

That dreadful butchering of one another.

Butcherly

What stratagems, how fell, how butcherly, This deadly quarrel daily doth beget!

Butchery

The perpetration of human butchery.
Like as an ox is hanged in the butchery.
— Fabyan.

Butler

The butler and the baker of the king of Egypt.
— Gen. xl. 5.
Your wine locked up, your butler strolled abroad.

Butt

Here is my journey's end, here my butt And very sea mark of my utmost sail.
The groom his fellow groom at butts defies, And bends his bow, and levels with his eyes.
I played a sentence or two at my butt, which I thought very smart.
To prove who gave the fairer butt, John shows the chalk on Robert's coat.
The hay was growing upon headlands and butts in cornfields.
— Burrill.
Amen; and make me die a good old man! That's the butt end of a mother's blessing.
And Barnsdale there doth butt on Don's well-watered ground.
A snow-white steer before thine altar led, Butts with his threatening brows.
Two harmless lambs are butting one the other.

Butte

The creek . . . passes by two remarkable buttes of red conglomerate.
— Ruxton.

Butter

I know what's what. I know on which side My bread is buttered.

Butterine

The manufacturers ship large quantities of oleomargarine to England, Holland, and other countries, to be manufactured into butter, which is sold as butterine or suine.

Buttery

All that need a cool and fresh temper, as cellars, pantries, and butteries, to the north.
And the major Oxford kept the buttery bar.
— E. Hall.

Butting

Without buttings or boundings on any side.
— Bp. Beveridge.

Button

He was a tall, fat, long-bodied man, buttoned up to the throat in a tight green coat.

buttoned-down

a colorful character in the buttoned-down, dull-gray world of business.
— Newsweek

Buttress

To set it upright again, and to prop and buttress it up for duration.

Buxom

So wild a beast, so tame ytaught to be, And buxom to his bands, is joy to see.
I submit myself unto this holy church of Christ, to be ever buxom and obedient to the ordinance of it.
— Foxe.
A daughter fair, So buxom, blithe, and debonair.
A parcel of buxom bonny dames, that were laughing, singing, dancing, and as merry as the day was long.
— Tatler.

Buy

Buy what thou hast no need of, and ere long thou wilt sell thy necessaries.
— B. Franklin.
Buy the truth and sell it not; also wisdom, and instruction, and understanding.
— Prov. xxiii. 23.
I will buy with you, sell with you.

Buzz

Like a wasp is buzzed, and stung him.
However these disturbers of our peace Buzz in the people's ears.
I will buzz abroad such prophecies That Edward shall be fearful of his life.
I found the whole room in a buzz of politics.
There is a buzz all around regarding the sermon.
There's a certain buzz Of a stolen marriage.

Buzzard

It is common, to a proverb, to call one who can not be taught, or who continues obstinately ignorant, a buzzard.

Buzzer

And wants not buzzers to infect his ear With pestilent speeches of his father's death.

By

By foundation or by shady rivulet He sought them both.
Long labors both by sea and land he bore.
By land, by water, they renew the charge.

By-blow

With their by-blows they did split the very stones in pieces.
The Aga speedily . . . brought her [his disgraced slave] to court, together with her pretty by-blow, the present Padre Ottomano.

By-corner

Britain being a by-corner, out of the road of the world.

By-end

“Profit or some other by-end.”

By-law

There was likewise a law to restrain the by-laws, or ordinances of corporations.
The law or institution; to which are added two by-laws, as a comment upon the general law.

By-street

He seeks by-streets, and saves the expensive coach.

By-view

No by-views of his own shall mislead him.

By-walk

He moves afterward in by-walks.

Bye

The Synod of Dort condemneth upon the bye even the discipline of the Church of England.

Bypath

God known, my son, By what bypaths, and indirect crooked ways, I met this crown.

Byronic

With despair and Byronic misanthropy.

Bystander

He addressed the bystanders and scattered pamphlets among them.
— Palfrey.

Byword

I knew a wise man that had it for a byword.
Thou makest us a byword among the heathen.