Page:Dictionary of Slang, Jargon & Cant (1889) by Barrere & Leland.djvu/143

 Bile (old slang), an old term used for the female organ of generation.

Bilk (common), to defraud, to cheat, to obtain goods without paying for them, to cheat the driver of a hackney carriage or a girl from whom one has received the sexual favour; a bilk, a deception. The term has long been in use.

To "do a bilk," to defraud, specially used in the case of prostitutes who are cheated, in the French slang "poser un lapin." Most etymologists derive the word bilk from the Gothic bilaikan, to mock, to deride.

Bilk, as provincial or old English, meaning to cheat or defraud (Wright), is a form of balk, which has the same meaning, in the sense of hindering a man in his rights. Balk, to hinder, is, according to Skeat (Etymol. Dict.) from balk, a beam or bar; to put a balk or bar in a man's way. Anglo-Saxon balea. But as English it is probably from a Danish source, bjæḷka, Old Norse bialki (Ettmüller, Lex. Ang. Saxonicum), which brings us directly to bilk.

"Bilking the blues," in prison slang, is evading the police. In society a man who, though never actually found out, is strongly suspected of cheating at cards, would be called a bilk.

Bilker (common), same meaning as bilk in the sense of cheat, but specially applied to rascals who defraud prostitutes or cabmen.

(Popular), one who gets a bed at a lodging-house and does not pay for it.

Bilking (popular), explained by quotation.

The consequence is that all duties are discharged in such a place in the most slovenly manner, and that as many as