“Take a pack of cards and open them, then take out all the honours ... and cut a little from the edges of the rest all alike, so as to make the honours broader than the rest, so that when your adversary cuts to you, you are certain of an honour. When you cut to your adversary cut at the ends, and then it is a chance if you cut him an honour, because the cards at the ends are all of a length. Thus you may make breefs end-ways as well as sideways.”
Modern card-players of a certain kind have considerably improved on this.
Breeks, breeches.—Scotch, now common.
Brick, a “jolly good fellow;” “a regular BRICK,” a staunch fellow. About the highest compliment that in one word can be paid one man. Said to be derived from an expression of Aristotle’s—τετραγωνος ἀνηρ.
Bridge, a cheating trick at cards, by which any particular card is cut by previously curving it by the pressure of the hand. Used in France as well as in England, and termed in the Parisian Argot FAIRE LE PONT.
Brief, a pawnbroker’s duplicate; a raffle card, or a ticket of any kind.
Briefs, cards constructed on a cheating principle. See [BRIDGE], [CONCAVES and CONVEXES], [LONGS, and SHORTS], REFLECTORS, &c. From the German, BRIEFE, which Baron Heinecken says was the name given to the cards manufactured at Ulm. Brief is also the synonym for a card in the German Rothwälsch dialect, and BRIEFEN to play at cards. “Item—beware of the Joners, (gamblers,) who practice Beseflery with the BRIEF, (cheating at cards,) who deal falsely and cut one for the other, cheat with Boglein and spies, pick one BRIEF from the ground, and another from a cupboard,” &c.—Liber Vagatorum, ed. by Martin Luther, in 1529. English translation, by J. C. Hotten, 1860, p. 47. See [BREEF].
Brim, a violent irascible woman, as inflammable and unpleasant as brimstone, from which the word is contracted.
Briney, the sea. A “dip in the BRINEY” once a year is a great attraction to Cockney excursionists. A story is told of one excursionist saying to another, as they stripped in a double machine, “Why, ’Arry, what dirty feet you’ve got!” “’Ave I; well yer see I wasn’t down last year.”
Bring-up, or BRING-TO, to stop suddenly, as a team of horses or a vessel. To BRING-UP also means to feed, clothe, and educate a child. To BRING-UP by hand is to bring up a newly-born child or animal without assistance from the natural fount.