thing unusually or abnormally large.
The infarnal villain! Tell me who he is, and if he was as big as all out-doors I'd walk into him.
He is looking as big as all out-doors jist now, and is waitin' for us to come to him.
Big-bird (theatrical), to "get the big-bird," to be hissed. The bird is supposed to be, and is very often, a goose. French actors call hissing "appeler Azor," this being the usual name for a dog.
Big bugs (American), an expression for great people, people of consequence, aristocrats. Bartlett thinks that this word suggests some anecdote which would be "worth finding out." There is no lack in American newspapers of anecdotes explaining the origin of popular phrases, but unfortunately about ninety-nine in a hundred of them are what Germans call Nachwerk, manufactured afterwards by some ingenious humourist to suit the case. The following, which is of recent origin, might easily pass for one of these valuable originals. Those which have already appeared on Chestnut, sworn to by as many authorities as those cited by Autolycus, would fill a chapter.
It puts me in mind of a story once heard from an old man. He was speaking of a rich neighbour who was going for the first time to New Orleans. "Yes," he said, "Mr. Jones is a mighty big man round here, but he won't stand a chance to shine down there. He'll be like the bug who lived on a pumpkin, and because he was twice as big as any other bug round there, he allowed he was the largest insect on earth. But one day there came two or three of them big gold beetles, and lit on the pumpkin in all their original splendour, and Mr. Pumpkin Bug jest turned pale and crawled down underneath. "Children," says he, "I wouldn't hev thought it, but there's bigger bugs in the world than what I be!"—Queer Bits.
While my wife goes out washin', an cleanin' big bug houses,
I'll have a shop down-town for renovatin' trousers.—A Bootblack's Soliloquy.
In the Australian lingo big bugs has also the meaning of man of importance.
"What's your brother doing?"
"Oh! he's an awful big bug now. The Minister of Railways has got him a billet in the Civil Service."
"What's the billet?"
"Railway-porter at Lal Lal."—Victorian Comic Paper.
Big country (sport), the open country.
In the roomy stalls of the stables yon make the acquaintance of Donative, who bore his lord and master to victory over three miles of big country.—The World.
Big dog with a brass collar, the, the principal or head of a concern, or the biggest "wig" of a place.
Big fellow (Australian Blackfellow's lingo), large, a quantity; a specimen of the pidgin English stuffed with Blackfellow's words used by the whites on stations in their intercourse with the aborigines.
