bay to distinguish the native quarter.
Many cadets on their arrival are obliged to take up their residence in dirty punch-houses in the black town.—Munro's Narrative, 22.
Black wash (medical), a lotion consisting of calomel and limewater.
Black work (popular), undertaking.
Bladder of lard (popular), a bald-headed person. The French equivalent is "boule de vieux oing."
Blade (common). It is generally and plausibly assumed that this word for a man is derived from blade as a synonym for sword, and a soldier. And this seems to be borne out by the analogy of a similar French expression, une bonne lame, which formerly meant a man of the world, a dashing man. Blade is still used in the provinces for a brisk, mettlesome, sharp young man. But as it has the same pronunciation as the Dutch bloed, meaning "blood," and as a blood was the common term for "a fast, and high-mettled man" during the reigns of the Georges, it is not impossible it owes much to the latter. The word was also a personal noun in Dutch, as een arme bloed, a poor fellow. Bloed, a simpleton, is from a different root; bloode, timid, fearful; Irish blate, German blöde. Roysterers and debauchees were also termed "roaring boys."
I do not all this while account you in
The list of those are called the blades that roar
In brothels, and break windows; fright the streets
At midnight worse than constables.
Bladhunk (tinker), prison.
Blame (popular), a mild expletive used when one is dissatisfied or disappointed. Oftener heard in the provinces than in London, and much more so in America.
The keeper had fired four times at an Indian, but he said, with an injured air, that the Indian had skipped around so's to spile everything—and ammunition blamed skurse, too.—Mark Twain: Roughing It.
Yes, John Bull is a blamed blockhead.—Sam Slick.
"Man alive! This ain't the boat; this is the ferry house!"
"Yew—don'—sayso!" slowly ejaculated the sunburned old fellow. " An' here I've been a waitin' three hours for the blamed thing to start for Brooklyn!"—Drake's Traveller's Magazine.
"Damnation!" is sometimes softened into "blamenation!"
Blan (gypsy), the wind.
Blank (hunting), to draw a blank in coursing or hunting is to have a run without meeting with anything. Quite recently the term blank has been adopted as a substitute for "damn," "bloody," and other forcible expressions.
