bourdel, a brothel. Farquhar, Constant Couple, ii. 2. 4. See [bordello].
bout, bowt, a coil; a circuit, orbit. Sir T. Wyatt, Song of Iopas, 45; in Tottel’s Misc., p. 94. See [bought].
boute-feu, a fire-brand, incendiary. Bacon, Hen. VII, ed. Lumby, p. 66, l. 13; Butler, Hudibras, i. 1. 786. F. boute-feu, ‘a boute-feu, a wilful or voluntary firer of houses; also, a fire-brand of sedition, a kindler of strife and contention’ (Cotgr.).
bout-hammer, a heavy two-handed hammer. Beaumont and Fl., Faithful Friends, v. 4 (Pergamus). For about-hammer, the largest hammer employed by blacksmiths; it is slung round (or about) near the extremity of the handle. An East Anglian word (EDD.).
bouzing-ken, drinking-house, ale-house. (Cant.) Fletcher, Beggar’s Bush, ii. 1 (Higgen); Middleton, Roaring Girl, v. 1 (Trapdoor). See Harman, Caveat, p. 83.
bovoli, snails, cockles; considered as delicacies. B. Jonson, Cynthia’s Revels, ii. 1 (Mercury). Ital. bovolo (pl. bovoli), ‘a snayle, a cockle, periwinkle’ (Florio).
bowd, a weevil, malt-worm. Tusser, Husbandry, § 19. 39; ‘A boude, vermis frumentarius’, Coles, Dict. (1679). ME. bowde, malte-worme (Prompt.). An East Anglian word, see EDD. (s.v. Boud).
bow-dye, a scarlet dye; name from Bow, near Stratford, Essex, where the dyers mostly lived, in the 17th cent. Hence, as attrib., ‘My bowdy stockings’, Wycherley, Gent. Dancing-master, iv. 1 (Prue).
bowerly, comely, portly, ‘burly’. Udall, tr. of Apoph., Alexander, § 8. In common use in Somerset, Devon, and Cornwall (EDD.). See Notes on Eng. Etym. (s.v. Burly).
bow-hand, the hand that holds the bow, the left hand. In phr. wide o’ th’ bow-hand, wide of the mark (towards the left); L. L. L. iv. 1. 135; much o’ th’ bow-hand, Fletcher, Noble Gentleman, iv. 2 (end); Coxcomb, i. 3. 2.