Page:Dictionary of Slang, Jargon & Cant (1889) by Barrere & Leland.djvu/139

 course now (since "Cloisted time" 1872) on Wednesday instead of Saturday. A Bible-clerk's scob is the first "scob" (box spelt backwards, phonetically) on the right hand as you enter school. It bears a brass plate with the inscription engraved on it: "Τω δει δναγνωστη"—"To each successive reader," because Bible-clerks used to read the lessons at meals.

Bible-pounder (popular), a parson; termed also a "white-choker," a " devil-dodger," a "cushion-smiter."

Bibling (Winchester), a flogging consisting of six cuts on the small of the back administered by the head or second master. The term is obsolete. The bibling-rod was an instrument with which the punishment of bibling was administered. It consisted of a handle terminated by four apple-tree twigs.

Biddable (common), docile, obedient to order, tractable.

Biddy (Winchester College), a bath in college which was filled every morning for Prefects, &c., by the junior man in each "gallery" or bed-room. The origin of the word is possibly due to the French bidet, an article of bed-room furniture for the use of ladies, more common on the Continent than in England. (American), an Irish servant girl.

Bidree or bidry (Anglo-Indian). Of late years all amateurs of bric-à-brac in England have become familiar with a kind of niello-work of silver patterns on a black metal ground which comes from the Deccan, and which takes its name from the city of Bīdar. This is bidree work. The ground is made of three parts pewter to one of copper, which is inlaid with the silver, and the ground is then blackened. — Madras Literary Society Journal, New Series, i. 81-84.

Biff (Americanism), to give a "biff in the jaw," to strike one in the face. In England to "fetch you a wipe in the mug," or "give you a bang in the chops," are choice. Biff is from the provincial English befet or buffet, a blow; old French bufét. Possibly Anglo-Saxon bifjan, to shake.

Biffin (popular), "my biffin" is a friendly appellation.

Big as all out o' doors, a humorous Americanism for