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 you shall not gauge me by what we do to-night.

1672. Wycherley, Love in a Wood, wks. III. (1712), 382. That were as hard as to bar a young parson in the pulpit, the fifth of November,—railing at the Church of Rome.

1697. Vanbrugh, Æsop, Act ii. What I have in my mind, out it comes: but bar that; I'se an honest lad as well as another.

1752. Foote, Taste, Act ii. I don't suppose now, but, barring the nose, Roubiliac could cut as good a head every whit.

1818. Scott, Rob Roy, ch. iii. 'I should like to try that daisy-cutter of yours upon a piece of level road (barring canter) for a quart of claret at the next inn.'

1836. Dickens, Pickwick, ch. lv., E. 483. 'I'll bet you ten guineas to five, he cuts his throat,' said Wilkins Flasher, Esquire. 'Done,' replied Mr. Simmery. 'Stop! I bar,' said Wilkins Flasher, Esquire, thoughtfully. 'Perhaps he may hang himself.'

2. (American thieves'.)—To stop; to cease. Obviously an attributive meaning of the legitimate word.

3. (American colloquial.)—A spurious verb, the signification of which is derived from the drinking-bar. Thus a tippler is said to bar too much when given to inordinate drinking.

Baragan Tailor, subs. (tailors').—A rough-working tailor.

Barb, verb (old cant).—To barb gold was heretofore a cant term for clipping or shaving it. The modern term is to sweat (q.v.). [Apparently from to barber, to shave or trim.]

1610. Ben Jonson, Alchemist, I., i. Ay, and perhaps thy neck within a noose, for laundring gold, and barbing it.

Barber, verb. (University).—When impositions are worked off by deputy they are said to be barberised. Tradition relates that a learned barber was at one time frequently employed as a scapegoat in working off this species of punishment inflicted on peccant students—hence the expression. A story ben trovato esd non e vero!

That's the barber.—A street catch-phrase, says Grose, about the year 1760. There is nothing new under the sun; not even idiotic and wearisome street cries, which so many good philologists deplore as a sign of the depravity of the times. That's the barber, like 'Who's your hatter?' and 'How's your poor feet?' meant nothing, save a general and indefinite comment on any action, measure, or thing. 'All serene!' (q.v.) is presumably its nearest modern street equivalent.

Barber's-Cat, subs. (old).—A weak, sickly looking individual. In French such a person is called un faiblard and un astec, the latter an allusion to the Mexican dwarfs. According to Hotten, the term is also 'used in connexion with an expression too coarse to print.'

Barber's-Chair, subs. (old).—A prostitute; a drab; a strumpet. So called from a barber's-chair being common to all comers. It will be remembered that Shakspeare in All's Well [ii., 2.] likens an all-embracing answer to a question to 'a barber's-chair that fits all buttocks; the pin-buttock, the quatch-buttock, the brawn-buttock, or any buttock.'

1621. Burton, Anatomy of Melancholy, III. iv., I, iii. (1651), 665. A notorious strumpet as common as a barber's-chair. [m.]