going out for the purpose of stealing pocket-handkerchiefs.
Billy-stink (Anglo-Indian), a name given by Europeans in India to the vile liquids of native manufacture sold in the bazaars.
Billy-stink is the very appropriate name given by Europeans to one of those maddening native compounds. It would indeed be very hard to say what the component properties of this very highly-flavoured fluid consist of. ... When drinking any of the odoriferous mixture it is a common thing for individuals to press the apertures pertaining to their nasal appendage between thumb and forefinger.—Brunlees Patterson: Life in the Ranks.
Bims, bimshise (West Indian). Barbadoes and its inhabitants are so nicknamed throughout the West Indies. A recent traveller hazards the following ingenious explanation—which if not true ought to be so—of these terms, which are confessedly obscure in their derivation. "Barbadoes is known all the world over as the little island that pays her way; it has never been conquered; its people are enterprising and energetic, go-ahead and driving; in short, the business men of these islands (the Caribbees). Barbadian may therefore be said to mean a man with 'go' and grit, energy and vim."
Bing (gypsy), the devil; (old cant) a liquor shop, as a rum bing; to bing, to go, to attack, shoot.
"Could you not have turned him on his back like a turtle, and left him there?" said Lord Etherington. "And had an ounce of lead in my body for my pains? No, no! we have already had footpad work enough. I promise you the old buck was armed as if he meant to bing folks on the low toby."—Scott: St. Ronan's Well.
Bing avast (old cant derived from gypsy), an angry command to be off, meaning literally, "go to the devil." Beng English gypsy; Scottish gypsy bing, meaning the devil, and avast from avāva second present indicative and imperative, avāsa or avéssa "thou goest," or "go thou." Full form, bing avas tu! or awaste. It is probable that in Harman's vocabulary a is by accident separated from wast. Bing, the devil, is not to be confounded with the same word in "to bing out," in old cant, nor avast with avast, in its other meaning. It is probable that those who made the old cant, having learned from gypsies that bing avast meant "go to the devil," considered that bing meant "go" or "come" a distance, and used it as such.
Bing out, bien morts and toure,
For all your duds are binged awast.
Binge (Oxford), a big drinking bout. To binge is a provincialism for to soak a vessel in water to prevent its leaking. It is also a nautical term meaning to rinse a cask. This word seems to be connected with bung, the orifice in the bilge of a cask, through which it is filled.
