Page:Farmer - Slang and its analogues past and present - Volume 1.pdf/179

 'dressing' of Christmas beef by butchers.

To make beef, phr. (thieves').—To run away; to decamp. For synonyms, see Amputate.

Beef! intj. (Australian).—Stop thief.' Cf., To cry or give beef.

Beef up! phr. (common).—Put on your strength !' 'Give a long pull and a strong pull!'

Beef-Brained, adj. (common).—Doltish; obtuse; thickheaded; a reference to the heavy, dullness of appearance of oxen.

Beef-Head, subs. (common).—A dolt; a stupid, thickheaded person. Cf., Beef-brained.

Beef It, verb (common).—Considered originally a provincialism, but now common. The lower classes in the East End of London frequently speak of beefing it, either in reality or anticipation (mostly latter), when referring to a meat meal, more particularly when it happens to be beef.

Beefment. On the beefment, adv. phr. (thieves').—On the alert; on the look out.

Beef-Stick, subs. (military).—The bone in a joint of beef. At mess it is 'first come, best served'; and those who come last sometimes get little more than the beef-stick.

Beef Straight.—See Straight.

Beef to the Heels, like a Mullingar heifer, phr. (Irish).—-A stalwart man, or a fine woman; i.e., one whose superiority is manifest from the crown of the head to the sole of the foot; literally, all beef down to the heels.

c. 1880. Rhoda Broughton, Cometh up as a Flower, p. 193. Dolly was not a fine woman as they say, at all; not beef to the heels, by any means; in a grazier's eye she would have had no charm whatsoever.

Beef-Witted, adj. (common).—See Beef-brained.

1594. Nashe, Terrors of the Night, in wks. (Grosart) III., 257. Liues there anie such slowe yce-braind beefe-witted gull.

1863. Reader, 22 Aug. This British bull-neckedness, this British beef-wittedness. [M.]

Beefy, adj. (common).—Fleshy; unduly thick, or obese. [From beef + y: a transferred sense.] Also beefiness, subs., fleshy development. The ankles of women are sometimes ungallantly spoken of as beefy, with which compare beef to the heels. A run of luck and good fortune, generally, is likewise referred to as beefy.

1859. Sala, Gaslight and Daylight, ch. xi. To see him in his huge shirt-sleeves, with his awkward beefy hands hanging inanely by his side, and his great foolish mouth open.

Bee-Line. To take or make a bee-line [for a place or object], phr. (originally American; now common).—To go direct; 'as the crow flies'; without circumlocution. Bees, when fully laden with pollen, make for the hive in a straight, or bee-line. One of the American railways is called the Bee-Line Road from the direct route it takes between its termini. Cf., Straight shoot.