Category: Word of the Day – B

ETYMOLOGY
from babble (to talk excessively, to chatter quickly) + -iaminy (of uncertain origin)

EXAMPLE
“… Out you babliaminy, you vnfetherd cremitoryed queane, you cullisance of scabiosity. …”

From: A Trick to Catch the Old-one
By Thomas Middleton, 1608

ETYMOLOGY
from Old French barateus, from barat: masculine (= It. baratto, Old Spanish barato, Provencal barat), also Old French barate feminine (= Old Spanish, Catalan, Provencal barata) ‘deceit, fraud, confusion, trouble, embarrassment’ + -ous

EXAMPLE
“… For other Analyses he ouerpassed, as impertinent, or not specially materiall. After such examination of their autorities, and argumentes, not with a rigorous Censure of either, but with a fauorable Construction of both: Pardon him, though he presume to deliuer some part of his animaduersions in such termes, as the instant occasion presenteth: not for any contentious, or sinister purpose (the world is too-full of litigious, and barratous pennes) but for the satisfaction of those, that de∣sire them, & the aduertisement of those, that regard them. …”

From: Pierces Supererogation or A New Prayse of the Old Asse
By Gabriel Harvey, 1593

ETYMOLOGY
from Old French baisier (modern baiser) (to kiss)

EXAMPLE
“… Fynably Medea conueyed Iason vnto his chambre dore and their began there amorouse baisiers & kyssinges vnto the time that it was force that Medea must withdrawe her & thenne she recommanded Iason in the garde of the goddes and shette fast the dore. …”

From: The History of Jason
By Raoul Le Fevre
Translated by William Caxton, 1477

ETYMOLOGY
n. 1. possibly a variant of baff (a blow with anything flat or soft)
n. 2. possibly a variant of baff (a big, clumsy person)
vb. possibly a variant of beft (to strike, to give blows)

EXAMPLE (for n. 1.)
“… Ye shak your head, but o’ my fegs,
Ye’ve set auld Scota on her legs;
Lang had she lien wi’ beffs and flegs,
Bumbaz’d and dizzie,
Her fiddle wanted strings and pegs,
Wae’s me, poor hizzie. …”

From: Aberdeen Journal, June 1768
The Poems of Beattie
By James Beattie

ETYMOLOGY
from back (n.) or (adv.) + friend;
possibly originally a friend who ‘kept back,’ and did not come forward to assist, and so was no real friend

EXAMPLE (for n. 1.)
“… And as for my lorde chamberleyn, he is nott yit comen to town. When he comythe, than schall I woote whatt to doo. Syr John off Parre is yowre freende and myn, and I gaffe hym a fayre armyng sworde wyth-in thys iij dayes. I harde somwhatt by hym off a bakk freende off yowrys; ye schall knowe moore here-afftre. …”

From: Paston Letters and Papers of the Fifteenth Century
By Paston family, 1472
Published for the Early English Text Society – Edited by Norman Davis, Richard Beadle, and Colin Richmond. 2004

ETYMOLOGY
from by- + wipe (sarcastic reproof or rebuff)

EXAMPLE (for n. 1.)
“… Wherefore should ye begin with the devil’s name, descanting upon the number of your opponents? Wherefore that conceit of Legion with a by-wipe? Was it because you would have men take notice how you esteem them, whom through all your book so bountifully you call your brethren? We had not thought that Legion could have furnished the Remonstrant with so many brethren. …”

From: Animadversions upon the Remonstrants Defence Against Smectymnuus
By John Milton, 1641

ETYMOLOGY
from blob, variant of blab (to talk indiscreetly) + tale

EXAMPLE
“… These Blob-tales, when they could find no other News to keep their Tongues in motion, laid open our Bishop for a Malignant, because he gave Entertainment at his Board, to such as carried a Grudge to the Lord Duke’s Prosperity; who, if such, came in their course to his House upon old acquaintance, but upon no factious design, that ever was proved. …”

From: Scrinia Reserata; a memorial offer’d to the great deservings of John Williams, D. D., who some time held the places of Ld Keeper of the Great Seal of England, Ld Bishop of Lincoln, and Ld Archbishop of York
By John Hacket, a1670

ETYMOLOGY
from bauble (n.) + -ing

EXAMPLE (for adj. 1.)
“…euen so by the smalest booke that can be written, by ye most babling ballet that can be made, and by the least word that can be spoken, his strange and wonderful workes in man, with his most liberall and incomparable guiftes vnto thē do as perfectly set forth and shew themselues as by the greatest volume yt euer was written, by the wayghtyest or wysest concept that euer was made, or by the most eloquente or learned oration that euer was vttered. …”

From: A Short Inuentory of Certayne Idle Inuentions
By C. Thimelthorpe, 1581

ETYMOLOGY
apparently shortened from baty bummill (a lazy or feckless person; an idler), perhaps by association with bum (the buttocks)

EXAMPLE
“… For cozy skoug and rest;
Sae did that Abbey people a’
Effrey’t flee to the Frater-ha’,
Canon, and monk, and dean, and prior,
And batie-bum, and beggin’ freir,
A congregation wode wi’ fear,
Though fat, in dulesome dreiry cheir: …”

From: Papistry Storm’d
Or, The Dingin’ Down O’ The Cathedral
By William Tennant, 1827

ETYMOLOGY
from Latin basiat- participial stem of basiare, from basium (kiss)

EXAMPLE
(With apologies to William B. Felts;
Taken from Hernarne: A Comedy, 1891
“I kissed my love and he kissed me
And so we kissed each other” )

I basiated my love and he basiated me
And so we basiated each other