Improve your Vocabulary

March 19, 2024 by Doctor Vernon Coleman

The Victorians had some wonderful words. Here’s a very small, tasty selection from `Vernon Coleman’s Dictionary of Old English Words and Phrases’.

Bawcock – term of friendship used between men as in ‘hello, my old bawcock’
Bawdy-Basket – female crook; most bawdy baskets sold pins, tape, ballads and obscene books but lived mostly by stealing
Beanfeast – a treat; a ripping good time had by all (originally, a beanfeast was an annual treat provided by employers and consisting of broad beans and boiled bacon); eventually a beanfeast was reduced to a ‘beano’
Beau trap – loose stone in a pavement under which water collects; when trodden on, water squirts up and damages the beau’s white stockings
Belly plea – plea of pregnancy offered by female felons to help them avoid the gallows (there were said to be warders in all gaols who would make female prisoners pregnant for this purpose)
Belly washer – lemonade or fizzy water
Bifarious – facing both ways; someone who will support anything and who will change their mind whenever they see a chance to improve themselves by so doing
Bit o’ Pooh – nonsensical flattery; blarney
Bit o’ Raspberry – attractive girl
Black-silk Barges – stout women who dress in black in the probably mistaken belief that it makes them look thinner if not actually svelte
Bloviate – say a great deal without saying anything, as illustrated by TV talk show hosts, members of the royal family and celebrities in general
Blunge – to make a mess of something
Bodacious – admirable or attractive
Bodice-ripper – historic, romantic and sexually explicit novel in which a bodice may well be ripped, usually with the permission of the wearer
Bohemian bungery – pub patronised by unsuccessful authors, of whom there are many
Boiled Owl – drunk (as drunk as a boiled owl, though there is no evidence that owls, boiled or otherwise, are likely to be intemperate)
Boko – large nose (an individual with a generously proportioned proboscis may be referred to as Boko)
Boobocracy – government by the uneducated and the ignorant; government by boobs;
Bosom bottle – in the 19th century women used to wear flowers in their cleavage; the flowers were usually held in place within a bosom bottle, a silver cone covered with ribbon, which was lodged between the breasts; the bosom bottle sometimes contained a little water to keep the flowers looking fresh
Bottle ache – hangover
Boy Jones – secret informant. The original Boy Jones was a chimney sweep who tumbled out of a chimney at Buckingham Palace and was suspected of having heard State secrets being discussed by Queen Victoria and Prince Albert. This incident dramatically accelerated the use of brushes and other equipment to clean chimneys, rather than sending up small boys to dislodge the soot
Bracket face – ugly man
Bradshaw – someone very precise and good at figures; taken from Bradshaw’s Railway Guide, without which no Victorian traveller would dare set foot out of doors
Broad-gauge Lady – a woman who is wide enough to make a railway seat rather crowded
Bullycock – someone who starts a quarrel in order to rob the people who are quarrelling
Bullytrap – brave man who falsely appears mild or effeminate and who, thereby, takes in bullies who wrongly see him as easy prey
Bum brusher – school master
Bumblesome bumblebug – clumsy person

A small selection of old English words, taken at random from the `B’ section of `Vernon Coleman’s Dictionary of Old English Words and Phrases’. You can purchase a copy of the book via the bookshop on www.vernoncoleman.com