Chapter Badge of Poverty to Baillif of B by Brewer's Phrase & Fable

A bag of bones. Very emaciated; generally "A mere bag of bones."

A bag of game. A large battue. From the custom of carrying game home in "bags."

A bag of tricks or A whole bag of tricks. Numerous expedients. In allusion to the fable of the Fox and the Cat. The fox was commiserating the cat because she had only one shift in the case of danger, while he had a thousand tricks to evade it. Being set upon by a pack of hounds, the fox was soon caught, while puss ran up a tree and was quite secure.

A good bag. A large catch of game, fish, or other animals sought after by sportsmen.

Got the bag. Got his dismissal. (See Sack.)

The bottom of the bag. The last expedient, having emptied every other one out of his bag.

To empty the bag. To tell the whole matter and conceal nothing. (French, vider le sac, to expose all to view.)

To let the cat out of the bag. (See under Cat.)

Bag (To) To steal, or slip into one's bag, as a poacher or pilferer who slyly slips into his bag what he has contrived to purloin.

Bags A slang word for trousers, which are the bags of the body. When the pattern was very staring and "loud," they once were called howling-bags.

Bag-man (A) A commercial traveller, who carries a bag with specimens to show to those whose custom he solicits. In former times commercial travellers used to ride a horse with saddle-bags sometimes so large as almost to conceal the rider.

Bag o' Nails Some hundreds of years ago there stood in the Tyburn Road, Oxford Street, a public-house called The Bacchanals: the sign was Pan and the Satyrs. The jolly god, with his cloven hoof and his horns, was called "The devil;" and the word Bacchanals soon got corrupted into "Bag o' Nails." The Devil and the Bag o' Nails is a sign not uncommon even now in the midland counties.

Baga de Secretis Records in the Record Office of trials for high treason and other State offences from the reign of Edward IV. to the close of the reign of George III. These records contain the proceedings in the trials of Anne Boleyn, Sir Walter Raleigh, Guy Fawkes, the regicides, and of the risings of 1715 and 1745. (Baga = Bag.)

Bagatelle (A). A trifle; a thing of no consideration. "Oh! nothing. A mere bagatelle." In French, "Il dépense tout son argent en bagatelles" means, he squanders his money on trash. "Il ne s'amuse qu'à des bagatelles," he finds no pleasure except in frivolities. Bagatelle! as an exclamation, means Nonsense! as "Vous dîtes qu'il me fera un procès. Bagatelle!" (fiddlesticks!)

"He considered his wife a bagatelle, to be shut up at pleasure" [i.e. a toy to be put away at pleasure]. - The Depraved Husband.

Baguette d'Armide (La) The sorcerer's wand. Armida is a sorceress in Tasso's Jerusalem Delivered. Baguette is a rod or wand.

Bahagnia Bohemia; Bahaignons, Bohemians. (1330.)

Bahr Geist (A). A banshee or grey-spectre.

"Know then (said Eveline) it [the Bahr Geist] is a spectre, usually the image of the departed person, who, either for wrong suffered sustained during life, or through treasure hidden, haunts the spot from