Bil'dai (2 syl.), a seraph and the tutelar guardian of Matthew the apostle, the son of wealthy parents and brought up in great luxury.—Klopstock, The Messiah, iii. (1748).
Billings (Josh). A.W. Shaw so signs His Book of Sayings (1866).
Ef a man hezn't a well-balanced mind I du admire to see him part his hair in the middle.
Ef thar iz wun sayin' trewer than anuther it is that the devil iz allwaies ready fur kumpany.
Josh Billings's Alminax (1870).
Billingsgate (3 syl.). Beling was a friend of "Brennus" the Gaul, who owned a wharf called Beling's-gate. Geoffrey of Momnouth derives the word from Belin, a mythical king of the ancient Britons, who "built a gate there," B.C. 400 (1142).
Billy Barlow, a merry Andrew, so-called from a semi-idiot, who fancied himself "a great potentate." He was well known in the east of London, and died in Whitechapel workhouse. Some of his sayings were really witty, and some of his attitudes truly farcical.
Billy Black, the conundrum-maker.—The Hundred-pound Note.
When Keeley was playing "Billy Black" at Chelmsford, he advanced to the lights at the close of the piece, and said, "I've one more, and this is a good un. Why is Chelmsford Theatre like a half-moon? D'ye give it up? Because it is never full."—Records of a Stage Veteran.
Bimater ("two-mother"). Bacchus was so called because at the death of his mother during gestation, Jupiter put the foetus into his own thigh for the rest of the time, when the infant Bacchus was duly brought forth.