Glossary list
Glossaries
| Term | Main definition |
|---|---|
| blue_ruin¹ | Gin. especially gin of poor quality [OED]
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| blue² | Depressed, low-spirited, sad, sorrowful; dismayed, downcast [OED] |
| blue¹ | A blue powder used to combat yellowing, and hence pre-serve the whiteness of garments and fabrics in laundering, by adding a slight tint of blue. [OED]
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| Blunderbuss(1) | A short gun with a large bore, firing many balls or slugs, and capable of doing execution within a limited range without exact aim [OED]
A blunderbuss made in Birmingham c.1840
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| Boa | A long round narrow slip of cloth or hanging part of dress, formerly worn, either attached to and forming part of the hood, head-dress, or sleeve, or loose, as a scarf or the like. Sometimes called a tippet by the English.
Lady Wearing a Feather Boa Mid 1830s
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| Boatman_Dance¹ | A black-face minstrel song dating to 1843. {Roud 5898}
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| boatswain | Boatswain: A ship's officer in charge of equipment (in a sailing ship, esp. the sails, rigging, cables, etc.) and the work of the crew on deck [OED]
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bosun |
| bobbies(1) | Policemen. A vernacular term derived from the name of Robert Peel who established the Metropolitan Police. The OED cites 1844 as the earliest use of the term.
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| Bobby(1) | Robert Peel 1788 – 1850. Re-introduced income tax in his 1842 Budget.
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| bob¹ | Shilling, 12 old pence or a coin to that value
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bobs¹ |
| boer¹ | A Dutch-speaking or (later) Afrikaans-speaking farmer in southern Africa. [OED]
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boers¹ |
| bohea¹ | A variety of Chinese tea The name was given in the beginning of the 18th cent. to the finest kinds of black tea; but the quality now known as ‘Bohea’ is the lowest, being the last crop of the season. [OED]. The OED cites "J. R. McCulloch Dict. Commerce 1290 The black teas..beginning with the lowest qualities: Bohea, Congou, Souchong, and Pekoe."
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| bombazine¹ | A twilled or corded dress-material, composed of silk and worsted; sometimes also of cotton and worsted, or of worsted alone. In black the material is much used in mourning. [OED]
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| book off(1) | record the end of your shift in a book
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| boothers(1) | Stones
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| boreas¹ | The north-wind; the god of the north-wind. [OED]
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| bowsprit | A large spar or boom running out from the stem of a vessel, to which (and the jib-boom and flying jib-boom, which extend beyond it) the foremast stays are fastened. [OED]
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| boxkeeper¹ | Box keeper: an attendant at the boxes in a theatre. [OED]
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box keeper¹, boxkeepers¹ |
| Bradshaw's_Guide¹ | George Bradshaw (1800-1853) published his first book of Railway Time Tables in 1839. It was immediately successful and Bradshaw's Railway Guide was published under varying title, every month for 120 years.
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| Bradshaw(1) | Bradshaw's Railway Guide. A series of railway timetables and travel guide books published by W.J. Adams of London. George Bradshaw initiated the series in 1839. The Bradshaw's range of titles continued after his death in 1853 until 1961
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