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 Bay Window, subs, (common).—A slang phrase applied to women when pregnant, or men who have 'corporations.' The allusion is obvious.

B. C., subs. (common).—A name jokingly applied to a person who brings a trumpery action for libel against another. Dr. Brewer in Phrase and Fable thus, in effect, explains the allusion:—A young woman complained to Mr. Ingham [the magistrate at Bow Street Police Court and now (1889) Sir James Ingham] of having been abused by a woman who called her a b. c. On being asked the meaning, the young woman said c meant 'cat' but the b, well, it was too shocking to utter, and the magistrate allowed her to whisper the word in his ear. It was a well-known word of sanguinary sound; but, though B.C. was hardly a pretty epithet, yet his worship could hardly grant a summons for libel against the person of whom complaint was made for using it.

Beach-Cadger, subs. (old).—A beggar whose 'pitch' is at watering-places, and sea-ports. [From beach, the sea-shore + cadger, a beggar.]

Beach-Comber, subs. (nautical).—One who hangs about the sea-shore on the look-out for jobs. It was chiefly applied to runaway seamen, deserters from whalers, who lived along the beach in South America, the South Sea Islands, etc. It is a term of contempt.—Clark Russell's Sailors' Language.

1847. Blackwood's Magazine, LXI., 757. A daring Yankee beech-comber. [m.]

1880. Athenæum, 18 Dec., p. 809, col. 2. The white scamps who, as beech-combers, have polluted these Edens and debauched their inhabitants.

1885. A. Lang, in Longm. Mag., VI., 417, note. Beach-comber is the local term for the European adventurers and long-shore loafers who infest the Pacific Archipelagoes. There is a well-known tale of an English castaway on one of the isles, who was worshipped as a deity by the ignorant people. At length he made his escape, by swimming, and was taken aboard a British vessel, whose captain accosted him roughly. The mariner turned aside and dashed away a tear: 'I've been a god for months and you call me a (something alliterative) beach-comber!' he exclaimed, and refused to be comforted.

2. A river boatman.

3 A thief who prowls about the sea-shore; a plunderer of wrecks; a picker-up of waifs and strays. This is derived from sense 4.

4. (American.)—A long wave rolling in from the ocean. Hence applied to those whose occupation it is to pick up, as pirates or wreckers, whatever these waves wash in to them.

Beach-Tramper, subs. (nautical).—coastguardsman. [From beach, the shore of the sea + tramp, to walk along + er.]

Bead. To draw a bead [on one], phr. (American).—To attack an opponent by speech or otherwise. The phrase has passed into colloquial use from backwoods parlance, where it signifies the process of taking aim and firing. The front sight of a gun is in appearance like a bead.

1841. Catlin, North American Indians (1844), 1., x., 77. I made several attempts to get near enough to draw a bead upon one of them.