ben, a cant term for good; ben cove, a good fellow. Middleton, Roaring Girl, v. 1 (Tearcat).
ben bouse, a slang term for good drink. Middleton, Roaring Girl, v. 1 (Trapdoor).
bend (in heraldry), an oblique stripe on a shield. Morte Arthur, leaf 216. 27; bk. x. c. 12; ‘Our bright silver bend’, Drayton, Heroical Epistles, Surrey to Lady Geraldine, 95. The bend is usually the bend dexter, from the dexter chief to the sinister base; the bend sinister slopes the other way.
bend, a band or company. Spenser, Shep. Kal., May, 32. F. bende (Cotgr.). See NED.
bend, a piece of very thick leather, a piece of sole-leather. ‘A bend of leather’, Heywood, First Part of K. Edw. IV (Hobs); vol. i. p. 40. Also, bend-leather (NED.). The words bend, bend-leather, bend of leather, leather bend are in use in Scotland and the north of England, see EDD. (s.v. Bend sb.1).
bend, to cock a musket, pistol, or other fire-arms. A transferred use, from bending a bow. ‘Like an engyn bent’, Two Noble Kinsmen, v. 3. 53 [‘With hackbut bent’, Scott, Cadyow Castle, 137]; to direct any weapon (spear, dart, &c.), ‘to bend that mortal dart’, Milton, P. L. ii. 729; ‘so bent his spear’, Spenser, F. Q. i. 3. 34; (figuratively), King Lear, ii. 1. 48.
bene-bouse, benbouse, good drink. (Cant.) Fletcher, Beggar’s Bush, iii. 3 (Higgen); B. Jonson, Gipsies Metamorphosed (Jackman).
bene whids, good words; to cut bene whids, to speak good words. (Cant.) Fletcher, Beggar’s Bush, ii. 1 (Higgen).
benedicite: phr. under ‘benedicite’ I speak it, Stubbes, Anat. Abuses (ed. Furnivall, 186). The expression is used by Stubbes, when making a serious charge against the magistrates, as an invocation for deliverance from evil. L. benedicite, bless ye.
benempt, pp. named. Spenser, Shep. Kal., July, 214. OE. benemned, pp. of benemnan, to name (Matt. ix. 9, Lind.).