Badger, to tease, to annoy by “chaffing.” Suggestive of drawing a badger.
Bad Lot, a term derived from auctioneering slang, and now generally used to describe a man or woman of indifferent morals.
Badminton, blood,—properly a peculiar kind of claret-cup invented at the Duke of Beaufort’s seat of that name. Badminton proper is made of claret, sugar, spice, cucumber peel, and ice, and was sometimes used by the patrons of the Prize Ring as a synonym for blood.
Bad Words, words not always bad of themselves but unpleasant to “ears polite,” from their vulgar associations.
Baffaty, calico. Term used in the drapery trade.
Bag, to seize or steal, equivalent to “collar.”
Bagman, a commercial traveller. This word is used more in reference to the old style of commercial travellers than to the present.
Bags, trousers. Trousers of an extensive pattern, or exaggerated fashion, have sometimes been termed HOWLING-BAGS, but only when the style has been very “loud.” The word is probably an abbreviation of bumbags. “To have the BAGS off,” to be of age and one’s own master, to have plenty of money. Bags of mystery is another phrase in frequent use, and refers to sausages and saveloys. Bag of tricks, refers to the whole of a means towards a result. “That’s the whole bag of tricks.”
Baked, seasoned, “he’s only HALF-BAKED,” i.e., soft, inexperienced.
Baker’s Dozen, thirteen. Originally the London bakers supplied the retailers, i.e., chandlers’ shopkeepers and itinerants, with thirteen loaves to the dozen, so as to make up what is known as the overweight, the surplus number, called the inbread, being thrown in for fear of incurring a penalty for short weight. To “give a man a BAKER’S DOZEN,” in a slang sense, sometimes means to give him an extra good beating or pummelling.