Chapter Biblia Sauperum to Binks of B by Brewer's Readers Handbook

Sigismund Biederman, nicknamed “The Simple,” another brother.

Ulrick Biederman, youngest of the four brothers.—Sir W. Scott: Anne of Geierstein (time, Edward IV.)

Bi-forked Letter of the Greeks, ¡ (capital U), which resembles a bird flying.

[The birds] flying, write upon the sky
The bi-forked letter of the Greeks.
   —Longfellow: The Wayside Inn (prelude).

Bifrost, the bridge which spans heaven and earth. The rainbow is this bridge, and its colours are attributed to the precious stones which bestud it.—Scandinavian Myth.

Big-endians (The), a hypothetical religious party of Lilliput, who made it a matter of “faith” to break their eggs at the “big end.” Those who broke them at the other end were considered heretics, and called Little-endians.—Dean Swift: Gulliver’s Travels (1726).

Biglow Papers (The), a series of satirical poems in “Yankee dialect,” by Hosea Biglow (James Russell Lowell, of Boston, U.S.). First series, 1848; second series, 1864.

Bigot (De),seneschal of prince John.—Sir W. Scott: Ivanhoe (time, Richard I.).

“We will not forget it,” said prince John…“De Bigot,” he added to his seneschal, “thou wilt word this…summons so courteously as to gratify the pride of these Saxons…although, by the bones of Becket, courtesy to them is casting pearls before swine.”—Chap.xiii.

Bigot, in C. Lamb’s Essays, is John Fenwick, editor of the Albion newspaper

Big-Sea-Water, lake Superior, also called Gitcheé Gumee.

Forth upon the Gitche Gumee,
On the shining Big-Sea-Water…
All alone went Hiawatha.
   —Longfellow: Hiawatha, viii.

Bilander, a boat used in coast navigation [By-land-er].

Why choose we then like bilanders to creep
Along the coast, and land in view to keep,
When safely we may launch into the deep?
   —Dryden: Hind and the Panther (1687).

Bilbilis, a river in Spain. The high temper of the best Spanish blades is due to their being dipped into this river, the water of which is extremely cold.

Help me, I pray you, to a Spanish sword,
The trustiest blade that e’er in Bilbilis
Was dipt.
   —Southey: Roderick, etc., xxv. (1814).

Bilbo, a Spanish blade noted for its flexibility, and so called from Bilbao, where at one time the best blades were made.

Bilboes, a bar of iron with fetters annexed to it, by which mut inous sailors were at one time linked together. Some of the bilboes taken from the Spanish Armada are preserved in the British Museum. They are so called, not because they were first made at Bilbao, in Spain, but from the entanglements of the river on which Bilbao stands. These “entanglements” are called The Bilboes. Beaumont and Fletcher compare the marriage knot to bilboes.

Bildai, a seraph and the tutelar guardian of Matthew the apostle, the son of wealthy parents and brought up in great luxury.—Klopstock: The Messiah, iii. (1748).