Chapter Bambocciades to Banner of B by Brewer's Phrase & Fable

Bandbox He comes out of a bandbox - i.e. he is so neat and precise, so carefully got up in his dress and person, that he looks like some company dress, carefully kept in a bandbox.

Neat as a bandbox. Neat as clothes folded and put by in a bandbox.

Bandbox Plot (The) Rapin (History of England, iv. 297) tells us that a bandbox was sent to the lord- treasurer, in Queen Anne's reign, with three pistols charged and cocked, the triggers being tied to a pack-thread fastened to the lid. When the lid was lifted, the pistols would go off, and shoot the person who opened the lid. He adds that [dean] Swift happened to be by at the time, and seeing the pack- thread, cut it, thereby saving the life of the lord-treasurer.

"Two ink-horn tops your Whigs did fill
With gunpowder and lead;
Which with two serpents made of quill,
You in a bandbox laid;
A tinder-box there was beside,
 Which had a trigger to it,
To which the very string was ty'd
 That was designed to do it." Plot upon Plot (about 1713).

Bande Noire Properly, a black band; metaphorically, the Vandal Society. Those capitalists that bought up the Church property confiscated in the great French revolution were so called, because they recklessly pulled down ancient buildings and destroyed relics of great antiquity.

Bandit plural banditti or bandits , properly means outlaw (Italian, bandito, banished, men pronounced "banned"). As these outlaws very often became robbers, the term soon came to signify banded highwaymen.

Bands Clerical bands are a relic of the ancient amice, a square linen tippet tied about the neck of priests during the administration of mass (Discontinued by the parochial clergy the latter part of the 19th century, but still used by clerics on the Continent.)

Legal bands are a relic of the wide collars which formed a part of the ordinary dress in the reign of Henry VIII, and which were especially conspicuous in the reign of the Stuarts. In the showy days of Charles II the plain bands were changed for lace ends.

"The eighth Henry, as I understand,
Was the first prince
that ever wore a band." John Taylor, the Water Poet (1580--1654).

Bandy I am not going to bandy words with you - i.e. to dispute about words. The reference is to a game called Bandy. The players have each a stick with a crook at the end to strike a wooden or other hard ball. The ball is bandied from side to side, each party trying to beat it home to the opposite goal. (Anglo-Saxon, bendan, to bend.)

"The bat was called a bandy from its being bent." - Brand: Popular Antiquities (article "Golf," p. 538).

Bane really means ruin, death, or destruction (Anglo-Saxon, bana, a murderer); and "I will be his bane," means I will ruin or murder him. Bane is, therefore, a mortal injury.

"My bane and antidote are both before it.
This [sword] in a moment brings me to an end.
But this [Plato] assures me I shall never die." Addison: Cuto.

Bangorian Controversy A theological paper-war stirred up by a sermon preached March 31st, 1717, before George I, by Dr. Hoadly, Bishop of Bangor, on the text, "My kingdom is not of this world." The best reply is by Law, in a series of Letters to Hoadly.

Bang-up or Slap-bang. First-rate, thumping, as a "thumping legacy." It is a slang punning synonym of thumping or striking. Slap-bang is double bang, or doubly striking.

Banian or Banyan (A). A loose coat (Anglo-Indian).

"His coat was brownish black perhaps of yore,
In summer time a banyan loose he wore." Lowell: Fitz Adam's Story (stanza 15).

Banian Days [Ban-yan ]. Days when no meat is served to a ship's crew. The term is derived from the Banians, a class of Hindu merchants, who carried on a most extensive