Category: Word of the Day – B

ETYMOLOGY
from Latin bilinguis (speaking two languages)
from bi- (two) + lingua (tongue, language) + -ous

EXAMPLE
“…Besides this, we having a Greek translation of this history and that of Manetho, by Eusebius and others, this manuscript, like the Rosetta stone, affords a bilinguous inscription, and serves, by its considerable number of proper names, more than any other, to decide upon Champollion’s hieroglyphical system…”

From: The Literary Gazette,
and Journal of the Belles Lettres, Art, Sciences, Etc. for the year 1828.
Saturday, July 19, 1828.
Literary and Learned.
Remarks upon an Egyptian History, in Egyptian Characters, 
in the Royal Museum at Turin….
By Dr. G. Seyffarth

ETYMOLOGY
from be- + blubber (to weep effusively) + -ed

EXAMPLE
“…Thee seas, thee regions and eeche place worldlye beholding,
On Lybye land lastly fixt his celestial eyesight.
And thus as he mused, with tears Venus heauye beblubberd
Prest foorth in presence, and whimpring framed her errand…”

From: The First Booke of Virgil His Aeneis
Translated by Richard Stanyhurst, 1582

ETYMOLOGY
from bajulat-, participial stem of bajulare (to carry), from bajulus (porter);

BADGER – a person who buys corn and other commodities and carries them elsewhere to sell; an itinerant dealer who acts as a middleman between producer (farmer, fisherman, etc.) and consumer; a cadger, hawker, or huckster

EXAMPLE
“…Hence it is, that in the late Order for regulating the wages of Coach-men, at such a price a day and distance from London, Sussex alone was excepted, as wherein shorter way or better pay was allowed. Yet, the Gentry of this County well content themselves in the very badness of passage therein, as which secureth their provisions at reasonable prices; which, if mended, Higglers would mount, as bajulating them to London.…”

From: The History of the Worthies of England
By Thomas Fuller, 1662

ETYMOLOGY
from Latin bimaris,
from bi– (two) and mare (the sea)

EXAMPLE
The Tale of Two Seas is a bimarical tale.

ETYMOLOGY
from blunder, taken in sense of ‘blunderer’ + -kin

EXAMPLE
“…I vtterly despaire of them, or not so much despaire of them, as count them a paire of poore ideots, being not only but also two brothers, two blockheads, two blunderkins, hauing their braines stuft with nought but balder-dash, but that they are the verie botts & the glanders to the gentle Readers…”

From: Haue with you to Saffron-Walden; or, Gabriell Harueys Hunt is Vp
By Thomas Nashe, 1596

ETYMOLOGY
probably from blow (vb.) + -viate

EXAMPLE
“…Peter P. Low, Esq., will with open throat…bloviate about the farmers being taxed upon the full value of their farms, while bankers are released from taxation…”

From: Huron Reflector (Norwalk, Ohio)
October 14, 1845

PRONUNCIATION
BLOH-vee-ayt

ETYMOLOGY
from be- + flum;
perhaps influenced by Scots blaflum, bleflum (to cajole)

EXAMPLE
“…that are but ill settled yet, till they durst na on ony errand whatsoever gang ower the door-stane after gloaming, for fear John Heatherblutter, or some siccan dare-the diel, should tak a baff at them: then, on the hand, I beflum’d them wi’ Colonel Talbot – wad they offer to keep up the price again the Duke’s friend? did na they ken wha was master?…”

From: Waverley; or, ‘Tis Sixty Years Since,
By Walter Scott, 1814

ETYMOLOGY
from French bel (belle) ami (fair friend)

EXAMPLE
“…Thenne aunsweryd the kyng off Fraunce To Kyng Richard withouten destaunce, ” I suffre, sere, bele amys, Thou hast wrong, sere, be Seynt Denis, That thou thretest that markys, That thè never yit dede amysse…”

From: Richard Coer de Lion
A Middle English Romance, c1325

ETYMOLOGY
from belly (n.) + cheer

EXAMPLE
“…so they would contynue, in case theyr ordinaries, Curates, & ministers were not trylers and hynderours therof, and if they were not seduced, and taught by sedicious earewhisperours contrary to the worde of God & the Kynges hyghnes mooste godly gracious procedinges, onely for pelfe , belycheare, ease and lucre. But take me not, that I meane all them to be triflers, hynderours, or sinistre resisters, that are ordinaries, curates or ministres…”

From: The Seconde Tome or Volume of the Paraphrase of Erasmus
By Desiderius Erasmus
Translated by John Olde, 1549

ETYMOLOGY
of uncertain origin;
possibly from bum (to give a beating to, especially as a punishment) + feague (to beat, to whip)

EXAMPLE
“…I wil presently proue both maior and minor of this sillogisme. And hold my cloake there sombody, that I may go roundly to worke. For ise so bumfeg the Cooper, as he had bin better to haue hooped halfe the tubbes in Winchester, then write against my worships pistles…”

From: The Marprelate Tracts
‘Penned and compiled by Martin the Metropolitane’
Hay Any Worke for Cooper, 1523