Batter, wear and tear; “can’t stand the BATTER,” i.e., not equal to the task; “on the BATTER,” “on the streets,” “on the town,” or given up to roystering and debauchery.
Batty, wages, perquisites. Derived from BATTA, an extra pay given to soldiers while serving in India.
Batty-Fang, to beat; BATTY-FANGING, a beating; also BATTER-FANG. Used metaphorically as early as 1630.
“So batter-fanged and belabour’d with tongue mettle, that he was weary of his life.”—Taylor’s Works.
Beach-Comber, a fellow who prowls about the sea-shore to plunder wrecks, and pick up waifs and strays of any kind.—Sea.
Beak, originally a magistrate, judge, or policeman; now a magistrate only; “to baffle the BEAK,” to get remanded. Ancient Cant, BECK. Saxon, BEAG, a necklace or gold collar—emblem of authority. Sir John Fielding was called the BLIND-BEAK in the last century. Maybe connected with the Italian BECCO, which means a (bird’s) beak, and also a blockhead.—See [WALKER].
Beaker-Hunter, or BEAK-HUNTER, a stealer of poultry.
Beans, money; “a haddock of BEANS,” a purse of money; formerly, BEAN meant a guinea; French, BIENS, property.
Bear, one who contracts to deliver or sell a certain quantity of stock in the public funds on a forthcoming day at a stated place, but who does not possess it, trusting to a decline in public securities to enable him to fulfil the agreement and realize a profit.—See [BULL]. Both words are slang terms on the Stock Exchange, and are frequently used in the business columns of newspapers.
“He who sells that of which he is not possessed is proverbially said to sell the skin before he has caught the BEAR. It was the practice of stock-jobbers, in the year 1720, to enter into a contract for transferring South Sea stock at a future time for a certain price; but he who contracted to sell had frequently no stock to transfer, nor did he who bought intend to receive any in consequence of his bargain; the seller was, therefore, called a BEAR, in allusion to the proverb, and the buyer a BULL, perhaps only as a similar distinction. The contract was merely a wager, to be determined by the rise or fall of stock; if it rose, the seller paid the difference to the buyer, proportioned to the sum determined by the same computation to the seller.”—Dr. Warton on Pope.