bull, a jest; ‘To print his jests. Hazard. His bulls, you mean’, Shirley, Gamester, iii. 3.
bull-beggar, an object of terror, a hobgoblin. Middleton, A Trick to Catch, i. 4 (near the end); A Woman never vext, ii. 1 (Host); Bull-begger, ‘larva, Terriculamentum,’ Skinner (1671). Perhaps a corruption of bull-boggart. See NED.
bulled, swollen. B. Jonson, Sad Shepherd, i. 2 (George). Still in use in Northamptonsh. and Shropsh. (EDD.). ME. bolled, swollen (NED.).
bullions. The full form is bullion-hose (NED.), a term applied to trunk-hose, puffed out at the upper part, in several folds. ‘His bastard bullions’, Fletcher, Beggar’s Bush, iv. 4 (Higgen) [bastard is the name of a kind of cloth]; a pair of bullions, The Chances, v. 2 (John); in the bullion, i.e. wearing bullions, Massinger, Fatal Dowry, ii. 2 (Pontalier).
bully-rook, a familiar term of endearment, fine fellow. Merry Wives, i. 3. 2; ii. 1. 200; Shirley, Gent. of Venice, iii. 1 (Thomazo). See EDD. (s.v. Bully, sb.1).
bum, to strike, beat, thump. Massinger, Virgin Martyr, iv. 2 (Spungius); Greene, James IV, iii. 2 (Andrew). See EDD. (s.v. Bum, vb.3 1).
bum out, to project; ‘What have you bumming out there?’ Rowley, A Match at Midnight, i. 1 (Tim).
bum vay, a familiar contraction of by my fay, by my faith. Contention between Liberality and Prodigality, iv. 3, near the end; in Hazlitt’s Dodsley, viii. 364; by my vay, Wily Beguiled, Hazlitt, ix. 328. See EDD. (s.v. Fay, sb.1 1). ME. by my fey (Chaucer, C. T. A. 1126).
bumb-blade. (Cant.) Given in NED. as bum-blade, a large sword, Massinger, City Madam, i. 2 (Page).
bump, to make a noise like a bittern, to boom. Dryden, Wife of Bath, 194. Bumping, the boom of the bittern, Sir T. Browne, Vulgar Errors, bk. iii. c. 27 (4). See EDD. (s.v. Bump, vb.2).