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

time to time, becomes familiar to those who dwell there, and takes an interest in their fate." - Sir W. Scott: The Betrothed, chap. 15.

Bail (French, bailler). To deliver up.

Common bail or bail below. A bail given to the sheriff, after arresting a person, to guarantee that the defendant will appear in court at any day and time the court demands. Special bail or bail above, consists of persons who undertake to satisfy all claims made on the defendant, and to guarantee his rendering himself up to justice when required.

Bail. (See Leg-bail)

To bail up. To disarm before robbing, to force to throw up the arms. (Australian.)

Bailey The space enclosed within the external walls of a castle, not including the "Keep." The entrance was over a drawbridge, and through the embattled gate (Middle-age Latin balium or ballium, a corruption of vallum, a rampart).

When there were two courts to a castle, they were distinguished as the outer and inner bailey (rampart). Subsequently the word included the court and all its buildings; and when the court was abolished, the term was attached to the castle, as the Old Bailey (London) and the Bailey (Oxford).

Bailiff At Constantinople, the person who had charge of the imperial children used to be called the bajulus, from baios, a child. The word was subsequently attached to the Venetian consul at Constantinople, and the Venetian ambassador was called the balio, a word afterwards extended to any superintendent or magistrate. In France the bailli was a superintendent of the royal domains and commander of the troops. In time, any superintendent of even a private estate was so called, whence our farmer's bailiff. The sheriff is the king's bailiff - a title now applied almost exclusively to his deputies or officers. (See Bumbailiff.)

Bailleur Un bon bâilleur en fait bâiller deux (French). Yawning is catching.

Baillif (Herry) Mine host in Chaucer's Canterbury Tales. When the poet began the second "Fit" of the Rime of Sir Thopas, Herry Baillif interrupts him with unmitigated contempt: -

""No mor of this, for Goddes dignitie!"
Quod our host, "for thou makest me
So wery ... that
Mine eerës asken for thy nasty speeche."" Verse 15327.