Chapter Black Standard to Blaze of B by Brewer's Phrase & Fable

Black Standard to Blaze

Black Standard The dress, turbans, and standards of the Abbasside caliphs were all black. (D'Herbelot. )

Black Strap Bad port wine. A sailor's name for any bad liquor. In North America, “Black-strap” is a mixture of rum and molasses, sometimes vinegar is added.

“The seething blackstrap was pronounced ready for use.”- Pinkerton: Molly Magaires, chap. xvii. p. 174.

Black Swan (See Rara Avis .)

Black-thorn Winter (The ). The cold weather which frequently occurs when the black-thorn is in blossom. (See Borrowed Days .)

Black Thursday February 6th, 1851; so called in the colony of Victoria, from a terrible bush-fire which then occurred.

Black Tom The Earl of Ormonde, Lord Deputy of Ireland in the reign of Elizabeth; so called from his ungracious ways and “black looks.”

“He being very stately in apparel, and erect in port, despite his great age, yet with a dark, dour, and menacing look upon his face, so that all who met his gaze seemed to quake before the same.”- Hon. Emily Lawless: With Essex in Ireland, p. 105.

Black Watch Companies employed to watch the Islands of Scotland. They dressed in a “black” or dark tartan (1725). Subsequently they were enrolled into the 42nd regiment, under the Earl of Crawford, in 1737. Their tartan is still called “The Black Watch Tartan.” The regiment is now called “The Royal Highlanders.”

Black...White To swear black is white. To persist in an obvious untruth. The French locution, Si vous lui dites blanc, il répondra noir, means, He will contradict what you say point blank.

Blacks Mutes at funerals, who wore a black cloak; sometimes called the Black Guards.

“I do pray ye
To give me leave to live a little longer.
You stand about me like my Blacks.”
Beaumont and Fletcher: Mons. Thomas, iii. 1.

Blacks (The ), or “The 7th Dragoon Guards,” or “The Princess Royal's D. G” Called blacks from their facings. Nicknames: “The Virgin Mary's Guard,” “Straw boots,” “Lingoniers,” etc.

Blackacre (Widow ). The best of Wycherley's comic characters; she is a masculine, litigious, pettifogging, head-strong woman. (The Plain Dealer.)

Blackamoor Washing the blackamoor white- i.e. engaged upon a hopeless and useless task. The allusion is to one of Æsop's fables so entitled.

Blackness All faces shall gather blackness (Joel ii. 6)- i.e. be downcast in consequence of trouble.

Blacksmith The learned blacksmith. Elihu Burritt, U.S. (1811-1879.)

Bladamour The friend of Paridel in Spenser's Faërie Queene. The poet had his eye upon the Earl of Northumberland, one of the leaders in the northern insurrection of 1569. (See Paridel .)

Blade A knowing blade, a sharp fellow; a regular blade, a buck or fop. (Anglo-Saxon, blad or blæd, a branch or sprig.)
    Blæd = “branch,” whence “fruit, prosperity, glory,” etc. The compound, Blæd-daeg =a prosperous day; blæd-gifa, a glory-giver, i.e. a king, a “regular blade.”