Phrases and Sayings WHICH BY THEIR LITERAL FORM DO NOT BEAR OUT THE MEANING THEY ARE USED İN, and termS NOT YET SATISFACTORILY ACCOUNTED FOR. HE BEARDED HIM TO THE FACE. HE addressed him in a tone of defiance; spoke to him in an unbecoming manner, in a voice which showed he meant insult; bellowed to him; miscalled him. Hij berd, heet hem toe, dij vee's; q. e. he roared out, called out to him, thou ar't a blackguard; he growled like a bear, told him, thee ar't a beast! Baeren, beren, baren, to make the noise of the bear when enraged, to roar like a wild beast; implying, in the person so acting, the adopting a beastly and offensive tone of voice in the view of insult and defiance. Heeten, to say, to call, to tell. Vee, cattle, beast, and, when applied to a person, a term of reproach and insult, corresponding to dirty fellow, low rascal, blackguard, one of the rabble; de la canaille. The phrase is sometimes shortened to to beard, in the sense of to insult, to defy, to oppose openly, to behave outrageously towards. Baeren, beren, is the verb of baer, bere, beyer [a bear], and carries the meaning of both to make the outcry of that animal, and to act like a bear in other regards. We say, his manners are bearish, in the sense of rough, boisterous, rude, beastly. Bear was once spelt bere with us. "She [Zenobia] was so swift that she anon them hent, And when that she was eldir, she would kill Lions, libardes, and BERIS all to rent And her armis welde 'em at her will."-CHAUCER. VOL. II. B Berd, heet, sounds bearded. Dij vee's, sounds the face. TO KILL TWO BIRDS WITH ONE STONE. To do more than you intended; to overdo the business in point; to have taken supererogatory means [pains]; in attempting one thing, to do, unintentionally, two. T'u kille toe behoord's, wijse wan's toe hun; q. e. towards you a chilling [cold] manner is proper [fitting], to him such behaviour is wrong [misapplied]; checking, to a disposition like your's, is absolutely necessary; but to one such as his, would be ill-judged [unjustifiable]. To keep such as you at a distance may be right; but to him unnecessary; implying a direction to the person in question to distinguish between dispositions, and regulate his conduct towards each accordingly, otherwise he will be acting wrong to all those he has to do with. The relation, in point of meaning, in the original may be traced, notwithstanding the change incurred by the travesty. Behoord, the participle past of behooren, to be due, to become, to belong to, to appertain to, and sounds burd; and so we pronounce bird. wrong, bad, vain, useless [evidently of the same root as vanus, and our own terms want and wane], sounds one, the aspirate w disappearing. Wijse, manner, mode, form, way, rule, tune, air of a song, and sounds with. 'S toe hun [is to him] sounds stone. A STRUMPET. Wan, In the well-known meaning of a prostitute. Er stier ruime bed; q. e. there [with her] money [a present] makes room in the bed; with the one in question, a tribute [pay] procures a place in her bed; for money you may have her for your bedfellow; and, morally, implying a selfish brutal availment of the distress of the ruined female by the reckless man. JOHNSON says, the term is of doubtful origin, and then adds the Latin stuprum [a rape] and strope, which he gives as an old French term for lasciviousness [lechery], for the probable sources; but I suspect neither word can have any relation to her who is reduced to the sad plight implied by the term strumpet; setting aside the impossibility of finding out any relationship in point of form or sound. HORNE TOOKE tells us, with his accustomed confidence and ignorance, the word is as the Dutch stronpöt, by which he means strontpot, the coarsest, most low-lived, and disgusting term in the Dutch language for a chaisepercé [close stool]; as if there was another heart or head, but his own, which would devise such an unmanly, beastly, expression for a female, even of that unfortunate and much-to-be-commiserated class. Besides, what relation has it to the state inferred by the word strumpet? What analogy in sound to that word? It would apply more truly to the skull which contains a lucubration so characteristic both of his heart and brain. stuyr, tribute, pay, present, tax. make room, to make place [space]. as with us; but, d and t and b and p being wellknown intermutating sounds, we have only to pronounce d as t, and b as p, and the word sounds pet. Stier ruyme, sounds strum. Ruym and our room are the same word. Strontpot and schijtpot are equivalent terms for a same utensil. Stier, steur, Ruymen, to Bedde, bed, Stront [merda, stercus, ventris onus, oletum] plainly a same word with the French estronc, and the Italian stronzo, in a same sense; and probably as struntus, according to JOSEPH SCALIGER, apud veteres Latinos stercus rotundum. Danno di morso a gran bocconi, ciascuno in unu, e subito l'uno sputa fuori, e dice: Oimè, ch' e' sono STRONZI di cane. BURCH, Q. 83, ERRATA. VOL. 2. p. 238.-After the words, "the imperative put," add, "as pu't; q. e. put it, place it, take it; and necessarily implying let it go, place it from, away, or out of where it was before; and thus necessarily containing in a same term the import of adding to and taking from; in both which senses but is used. VOL. 2. p. 193.-The extract at the bottom of the page and the first line and half of the following, belong to the article DOG-CHEAP [p. 189], and are intended for the illustration of the verb to name. The article SHARPER appears at p. 64 and again at p. 181, but was intended for one article, and as separate propositions for the etymology of that term; of which I deem the first the true one. PET, for which two etymologies are suggested [voL. 2. p. 36, l. 9, and p. 156], belongs, I should think, to the last given. VOL. 2. p. 256, 1. 19, for Bearte read Beurte. Phrases and Sayings WHICH BY THEIR LITERAL FORM DO NOT BEAR OUT THE MEANING THEY ARE USED IN, AND TERMS NOT YET SATISFACTORILY ACCOUNTED FOR. HE BEARDED HIM TO THE FACE. HE addressed him in a tone of defiance; spoke to him in an unbecoming manner, in a voice which showed he meant insult; bellowed to him; miscalled him. Hij berd, heet hem toe, dij vee's; q. e. he roared out, called out to him, thou ar't a blackguard; he growled like a bear, told him, thee ar't a beast! Baeren, beren, baren, to make the noise of the bear when enraged, to roar like a wild beast; implying, in the person so acting, the adopting a beastly and offensive tone of voice in the view of insult and defiance. Heeten, to say, to call, to tell. Vee, cattle, beast, and, when applied to a person, a term of reproach and insult, corresponding to dirty fellow, low rascal, blackguard, one of the rabble; de la canaille. The phrase is sometimes shortened to to beard, in the sense of to insult, to defy, to oppose openly, to behave outrageously towards. Baeren, beren, is the verb of baer, bere, beyer [a bear], and carries the meaning of both to make the outcry of that animal, and to act like a bear in other regards. We say, his manners are bearish, in the sense of rough, boisterous, rude, beastly. Bear was once spelt bere with us. "She [Zenobia] was so swift that she anon them hent, And when that she was eldir, she would kill Lions, libardes, and BERIS all to rent And her armis welde 'em at her will."-CHAUCER. VOL. II. B |