Chapter Beauty of Buttermere to Bee of B by Brewer's Phrase & Fable

it. In the reign of Edward I., Sir John Chichester had a mock skirmish with his servant (Sir John with his rapier and the servant with the bed-staff), in which the servant was accidentally killed. Wright, in his Domestic Manners, shows us a chamber-maid of the seventeenth century using a bed-staff to beat up the bedding. “Twinkling” means a rapid twist or turn. (Old French, guincher: Welsh, gwing, gwingaw, our wriggle.)

“Ill do it instantly, in the twinkling of a bed-staff.”-Shadwell: Virtuoso, 1676.

“He would have cut him down in the twinkling of a bed-post.”-“Rabelais,” done into English.

   Bobadil, in Every Man in his Humour, and Lord Duberley, in the Heir-at-Law, use the same expression.

Bede (Adam ). A novel by George Eliot (Marian Evans), 1859. One of the chief characters is Mrs. Poyser, a woman of shrewd observation, and as full of wise saws as Sancho Panza.

Bedell The Vice-chancellor's bedell (not beadle). The officer who carries the mace before the Vice- Chancellor, etc., in the universities is not a beadle but a bedell (the same word in an older form).

Beder A valley famous for the victory gained by Mahomet, in which “he was assisted by 3,000 angels, led by Gabriel, mounted on his horse Haïzum.” (Al Koran ).
   Beder. King of Persia, who married Giauha'rê daughter of the most powerful of the under-sea emperors. Queen Labê tried to change him into a horse, but he changed her into a mare instead. (Arabian Nights, “Beder and Giauharê.”)

Bedford Saxon, Bedean-forda (fortress ford)- that is, the ford at the fortress of the river Ouse.

Bedford Level Land drained by the Earl of Bedford in 1649. This large tract of fenny land lay in the counties of Norfolk, Suffolk, Cambridge, Huntingdonshire, Northamptonshire, and Lincolnshire.

Bedfordshire I am off to Bedfordshire. To the land of Nod, to bed. The language abounds with these puns, e.g. “the marrowbone stage,” “A Dunse scholar,” “Knight of the beerbarrel,” “Admiral of the blue,” “Master of the Mint” (q.v.), “Master of the Rolls” (q.v.), etc. And the French even more than the English.

Bediver A knight of the Round Table, and the butler of King Arthur.

Bedlam A lunatic asylum or madhouse; a contraction for Bethlehem, the name of a religious house in London, converted into a hospital for lunatics.
   Tom o' Bedlam. (See Tom.)
    St. Mary of Bethlehem, London, was founded as a priory in 1247, and in 1547 it was given to the mayor and corporation of London, and incorporated as a royal foundation for lunatics.

Bedlamite (3 syl.). A madman, a fool, an inhabitant of a Bedlam.

Bedouins [Bed-wins]. The homeless street poor are so called. Thus the Times calls the ragged, houseless boys “the Bedouins of London” The Bedouins are the nomadic tribes of Arabia (Arabic, bedawin, a dweller in a desert; badw, a desert). (See Street Arabs .)

“These Bedouins of the prairie invariably carry their lodges with them.”- A. D. Richardson: Beyond the Mississippi, chap. v.

Bedreddin' Hassan in the story of Noureddin' and his Son, in the Arabian Nights.

“Comparing herself to Bedreddin Hassan, whom the vizier ... discovered by his superlative skill in composing cream-tarts without pepper in them.”- Scott: Heart of Midlothian.