1718.—"The Heathens ... too shy to venture into the Churches of the Blanks (so they call the Christians), since these were generally adorned with fine cloaths and all manner of proud apparel."—(Ziegenbalg and Plutscho), Propagation of the Gospel, &c. Pt. I., 3rd ed., p. 70.
[BLATTY, adj. A corr. of wilāyatī, 'foreign' (see [BILAYUT]). A name applied to two plants in S. India, the Sonneratia acida, and Hydrolea zeylanica (see Mad. Admin. Man. Gloss. s.v.). In the old records it is applied to a kind of cloth. Owen (Narrative, i. 349) uses Blat as a name for the land-wind in Arabia, of which the origin is perhaps the same.
[1610.—"Blatty, the corge Rs. 060."—Danvers, Letters, i. 72.]
BLIMBEE, s. Malayāl. vilimbi; H. belambū [or bilambū;] Malay. bălimbing or belimbing. The fruit of Averrhoa bilimbi, L. The genus was so called by Linnæus in honour of Averrhoes, the Arab commentator on Aristotle and Avicenna. It embraces two species cultivated in India for their fruits; neither known in a wild state. See for the other [CARAMBOLA].
BLOOD-SUCKER, s. A harmless lizard (Lacerta cristata) is so called, because when excited it changes in colour (especially about the neck) from a dirty yellow or grey, to a dark red.
1810.—"On the morn, however, I discovered it to be a large lizard, termed a blood-sucker."—Morton's Life of Leyden, 110.
[1813.—"The large seroor, or lacerta, commonly called the bloodsucker."—Forbes, Or. Mem. i. 110 (2nd ed.).]
BOBACHEE, s. A cook (male). This is an Anglo-Indian vulgarisation of bāwarchī, a term originally brought, according to Hammer, by the hordes of Chingiz Khan into Western Asia. At the Mongol Court the Bāwarchī was a high dignitary, 'Lord Sewer' or the like (see Hammer's Golden Horde, 235, 461). The late Prof. A. Schiefner, however, stated to us that he could not trace a Mongol origin for the word, which appears to be Or. Turki. [Platts derives it from P. bāwar, 'confidence.']
c. 1333.—"Chaque émir a un bâwerdjy, et lorsque la table a éte dressée, cet officier s'assied devant son maître ... le bâwerdjy coupe la viande en petits morceaux. Ces gens-là possèdent une grande habileté pour dépecer la viande."—Ibn Batuta, ii. 407.
c. 1590.—Bāwarchī is the word used for cook in the original of the Āīn (Blochmann's Eng. Tr. i. 58).