Page:Dictionary of Slang, Jargon & Cant (1889) by Barrere & Leland.djvu/163

 Blethers (Scottish), wind or windy; nonsense. Robert Burns jocosely laments that his business was to string up blethers in rhyme for fools to sing. Bletherhead is a loquacious fool. Bletherumskite is a synonymous word, but expressive of still greater contempt by the use of the word "skite" or "skyte," which signifies excrement. To blether or blather is to talk tediously and foolishly. The word is akin to "bladder," that is, filled with wind.

Blew or blue (common), to waste, to spend, to dissipate. "I blew a bob (I wasted a shilling)," said a costermonger, "when I went to an exhibition of pictures." To spend or lose one's money in gambling or betting.

Blewed (common), spent, disposed of. Lost or been robbed of. Primarily, to pay out, to spend. German blauen, which suggests blue, and not to blow, as the original. Ins blaue hinein (away into the blue), vanished, gone; the French passé au bleu has the same signification. Faire passer au bleu, to suppress, dissipate, spend, squander, appropriate. An allusion to a distant, undefined place in the blue above.

Bligee, bligey (pidgin), obliged.

Blimey (common), an apparently meaningless, abusive term.

Blind (popular), "in the blind," in the night, in darkness.