battle. See [battaille].
battled, ‘embattled’, furnished with battlements. Fletcher, Woman’s Prize, iii. 2 (Maria).
battree, a battle, encounter. Udall, tr. of Apoph., Julius, 16; Pompey, 1. Variant of battery.
baudkin, a rich embroidered stuff, a rich brocade. Holland, Camden’s Brit. i. 174; Gascoigne, Steel Glas, 777. Hence, cloth of bodkin, Shirley, Lady of Pleasure, iii. 2 (Frederick); B. Jonson, Discoveries, lxviii; Massinger, City Madam, ii. 1. OF. baudequin, med. L. baldakinus (Ducange), cp. Ital. baldacchino, lit. belonging to Baldacco, the Italian name for Bagdad.
baudricke, ‘a baldric’, belt, girdle. Spenser calls the zodiac the baudricke (or bauldricke) of the heavens, F. Q. v. 1. 11; Prothalamion, 174. ME. bawdryk (Prompt.), MHG. balderich, a girdle (Schade). See Dict. (s.v. Baldric).
†bause (?). Only in this passage: ‘My spaniel slept, whilst I baus’d leaves’, Marston, What you Will, ii. 2 (Lam.).
bauson, bawson, a badger. Fitzherbert, Husbandry, § 71; bauzon’s skin; Drayton, Pastorals, Ecl. iv; Ballad of Dowsabel, st. 10. Bauson is a common north-country word for a badger, see EDD. Cp. OF. bausen, bauzan, black and white spotted, Ital. balzano, a horse with white feet (Florio). See NED. The French word for a badger is blaireau.
baux (a plural form), the name of a breed of swift hounds used in the chase; ‘Those dogges called Baux of Barbarie, of the whiche Phoebus doeth speake’, Turbervile, Hunting, ch. i. p. 3; ‘White dogges called Baux, and surnamed Greffiers’, id. ch. ii, p. 4; ‘Greffiers, a kind of white hounds, the same as Bauds’, Cotgrave; ‘Souillard, the name of a dog, between which and a bitch called Baude, the race of the Bauds (white and excellent hounds) was begun’ (id.). Comb. Baux-hound, Holme’s Academy of Armory, p. 184. F. baud, ‘chien courant, originaire de Barbarie’ (Hatzfeld). Probably of Germanic origin, cp. OHG. bald, bold (Schade).
bavian, a baboon, an occasional character in the old Morris dance. He appears in Two Noble Kinsmen, iii. 5. See Nares. Du. baviaan.
bawcock, a fine fellow, Hen. V, iii. 2. 27; Twelfth Night, iii. 4. 125. A Lincolnshire word for a foolish person (EDD.). Hence probably the surname ‘Bawcock’, see Bardsley, 475. F. beau coq, a fine cock.