"The condition of weapons, and their improvements, are the FETCHING a far off, for that out runs, as it is seen in ordnance and muskets."-BACON. "I'll FETCH a turn about the garden, pitying SHAKSPEARE. "Note a wild and wanton herd, Or race of youthful and unhandled colts IBID. CHAPMAN. "Mean time flew our ships and straight we FETCH'D§ The syren's isle." To fetch a price, is to reach a price, to reach the price or amount. HORNE TOOKE makes FETCH the past tense and past participle of feccan, to acquire by fraud, to induce, to bring to, fraude acquirere, adducere, and says it is as the Anglo Saxon fac; but that is not the sense of to fetch. Fetch my hat, is not induce [prevail on by art] my hat to come to me, but lay hold of it and reach or bring it to me. A BLUNDErbus. As the well known fire arm used for protection of person and property. Er bij lont tier-busse ; q. e. here, by the match a roaring barrel [tube, gun]; by being ignited the barrel thunders [makes a loud noise]; and thus a term analogous to that of the Dutch for the same arm; viz. donderbusse; q. e. thunder pipe, thundering barrel, roaring tube. Lont, lint, match. Tiere as the participle present of tieren, to roar, to make a loud noise. busse, buis, bos [a tube, a pipe, a barrel, and also a gun] the ellipsis of schiet-busse, a fire arm, a musket; and in fact whatever contains, encloses, or holds; as grounded in the thema bo-en, to * Taking effect, taking hold of, reaching. + Take. Taking. Bus, § Reached. bound, to confine, to envelope, to enclose; also to house, to cover, to shelter, to receive within; and in this second sense buis is synonymous with huis, huys, house. The Dutch say peperhuisje where we say pepper-box. A citizen's box in the country, is a citizen's house in the country, his villa. Hence also our term box and the Latin buxus [boxtree], as the wood of which pipes, flutes, and such like musical instuments are made; as well as our terms bower, to bound [formerly to boun, to bowne], and many other words. The French arquebuse, in the sense of a fire arm or musket, meant originally the tube or pipe belonging to a bow, anciently used by some of the western nations, where a tube was fixed, through which the arrow was carried, as the ball now is, through the barrel of the gun; and which kind of tube, after the invention of gunpowder, was applied as a pipe or barrel to the gun-stock. So that arquebuse means simply a bow or bent stock with this kind of pipe suited to pass the arrow by. The French trebuchet, as a trap, is the Dutch trekbus, a spring-gun, trapgun; and their bouche a feu, in the sense of a firearm, a piece of ordnance, is the metonomy of the Dutch vuurbusse [in German feuerbuchse] a firepipe, a fire-arm. The expression bouche a feu, in its literal form is sheer nonsense. The French term hacquebuse, in the sense of a firearm or musket, is the Dutch haeckbusse in the same import, and means the barrel or pipe with a hooked or crooked stock, such as the old musket or matchlock had. Haecke, haak, a hook, a crooked handle. "And yet againewarde skrikid every nonne, The pang of love so strainid them to crie; * Bound. CHAUCER. * "For soth, sir, and for your love, a thousand in this town Wold do hym worship, and be right feyne and BOWN To plese hym, and avail to have thank of you." TO GAMBLE. CHAUCER. To game or play unfairly, to use underhand means to obtain advantage of another in any mutual transaction between parties, but, by use, generally applied in relation to the gaming table: avoir l'art de corriger la fortune, to play the best of the game. Toe geheim bij el; q. e. all close in regard to the other, completely shut up as respects the other; and implying the keeping secret either the superiority in play, or the foul manœuvres, the one knows how to use in the game, or transaction, which is to take place between the one and the other party. But in fact without any grounded reference to the kind of transaction except such as may be inferred from the context; we say, to gamble in the funds; to gamble at cards; to gamble in railway transactions, &c. &c.; and failure makes no difference, for the intention was to take an unfair advantage. Disappointment no more makes it an innocent contrivance in the gambler, than being detected and hung for contriving a forgery, or a robbery of any other sort. A gamester may be an honest man though not a cunning one; a gambler may be a cunning man, but cannot be an honest one. Toe geheim, shut up in secret, quite close, all to himself; and sounds to gam. Bij el, in regard to another, with another, and sounds bel, ble. The original phrase resounding into the form of a verb in the travesty, has been adopted in use as such. JOHNSON, whose sagacity was probably never exceeded by that of any man, though he had not the clue to lead him to the ground distinction between GAMESTER and GAMBLER, and fancied for * Bound. want of this clue, that gambler was a cant term for gamester, yet by his definitions of the two, showed he felt the sound distinction between them. GAMESTER, he says, is one who is viciously addicted to play, that is, so fond of play that it is to a fault in him; but GAMBLER, he says, is a knave whose practice it is to invite the unwary to game and cheat them; how could he then, with the feeling of so wide a difference, imagine the two were a same word, or grounded in one which had the same meaning? A man may be vitiously addicted to drinking, but that don't make him a sharper or knave. A man may be addicted to racing or attending Newmarket, but he is not for that merely showed either a black-leg or sharper; and the difference between the two is nearly analogous to that between the gamester and the gambler. Among the lovers of racing we may count the honestest man in the country, but not one among the blacklegs or those who have a secret understanding with them or through them. Το game, has been explained above. A BLACK LEG. One who makes his trade the overreaching of those who are less adroit or knowing than himself in the transactions in question; a sharper; un chevalier d'industrie; one who lives by his wits; a term now principally used in regard to such as attend races and resorts of gaming, in the view of the vocation above explained. Er blycke legge; q. e. there waylaying [laying in wait, being upon the lay] is manifest; there scheme [contrivance, design] is clearly to be descried; there the being upon the watch to entrap is self-evident; there, the being upon the lay is as clear as day-light; implying, to all but the unwary dupes, or at least not perceived by them till they have fallen into the snare, and become the victims, and thus too late for themselves. Legghe, legge, the participle present of legghen, leggen, to lay, to place, to put, to set; jemand laagen [laeghen], leggen is, to lay a snare for a person, to take him in; jets weg leggen, to lay away, put a thing out of sight; te laste leggen, to accuse, to lay to the account of; nieuve lasten leggen, to lay on new taxes, and thus to set fresh traps for fresh prey, to play the sharper, to impose upon, implying also the laying, as done by those who have nothing in common with the public, and who are as it were, the black-legs of the community. Blycken, to appear, to be evident, and here as the third person of the potential mood; hence blyk, proof, evidence, which sounds as we utter black; and however different in letter the two words may appear, they are in fact grounded on the same primordial syllable, as will be explained in another article. A SHARPER. Er One always ready to seize any undue advantage of another; one who lives by doing mischief to [damaging] others [all those he can]; thus a pest to society; a common nuisance; a general curse. schde bij'r; q. e. there [here] mischief is close by; here misfortune [damage, detriment, injury] is at hand, ever ready to fall in [to take place]; and what else is a sharper? Schae, schade, schaede, schaade, as the participle present of schaeden, schaaden, to injure, to damage, to do mischief to, to inconvenience, to annoy, and by the lengthened sound infused by the double and broadly pronounced a, schad sounds as we utter schar. Bij 'r bij er, by there, hard by; and if we, as the Welsh naturally do, pronounce b as p, by er comes out per. "SHARPERS, as pikes, prey upon their own kind." L'ESTRANGE. |