Page:Farmer - Slang and its analogues past and present - Volume 1.pdf/190

 Belly-Piece, subs. (old).—1. An apron. Cf., Belly-cheat.

1689. Shadwell, Bury Fair. If thou shoulds cry, it would make streaks down thy face; as the tears of the tankard do upon my fat host's belly-pieces.

2. A mistress; a concubine; a whore.

1630. Randolph, Jealous Lovers. Asot: Come, blush not, bashfull belly-piece—I will meet thee: I ever keep my word with a fair lady. I will requite that jewell with a richer.

Belly Plea, subs. (old).—A plea of pregnancy, generally adduced by female felons capitally convicted. This they took care to provide for, previous to trial; every gaol had, as the Beggars' Opera informs us, one or more child-getters, who qualified the ladies for that expedient. The plea still holds good, execution of female convicts in 'an interesting condition' being deferred until after accouchement. In practice, it really means a commutation of the death penalty for life imprisonment. All chances, however, of becoming enceinte after arrest are sedulously guarded against by the rules of modern prison life.

Belly-Plumper, subs. (American).—See Belly-bumper.

Belly-Timber, subs. (old).—Food; provisions of all kinds. [From belly + timber.] This, like many other words of its class (e.g., back-timber, q.v.), was once in serious use, but for a long period it has been going down hill, and it is now a thorough-going vulgarism, only surviving dialectically, and as slang. Massinger and the older dramatists employed it seriously; toward the end of the seventeenth century it began to be used in a ludicrous and vulgar sense. Butler employs it thus, and in Charles Cotton's Scarronides (1678), the hero we are told—

Lay thinking now his guts grew limber, How they might get more belly-timber.

For synonyms generally, see Grub.

1614. Terence in English, Annona cara est. Corne is at a high price; victuals are deare; belly-timber is hard to come by.

1637. Massinger, Guardian, III., iii. Ador. Haste you unto my villa, and take all provisions along with you Car. Trust me for belly-timber.

1663-78. S. Butler, Hudibras. Through deserts vast, And regions desolate they pass'd, Where belly-timber, above ground Or under, was not to be found.

1719. Poor Robin's Almanack, Feb. On the 10th day of this month, being Shrove-Tuesday, is like to be a great innundation of belly-timber.

1748. T. Dyche, Dictionary (5 ed.). Belly-timber (s.), all sorts of food.

1820. Scott, Monastery, ch. xv. 'Yonder comes the monkish retinue I hope a'gad, they have not forgotten my trunk-mails of apparel amid the ample provision they have made for their own belly-timber'

Belly-Up, adv. phr. (old).—Applied to women when enceinte. From the protrusion of the abdomen which takes place under such circumstances.—See Belly-full.

Belly-Vengeance, subs. (common).—Sour beer, apt to cause gastralgia. The French call this pissin de cheval, i.e., 'horse urine.' For synonyms, see Swipes.