Chapter Blaze to Blindmen's Dinner of B by Brewer's Phrase & Fable

Blaze to Blindmen's Dinner

Blaze (To). To blaze abroad. To noise abroad is the German verb blasen, to blow or sound. Shakespeare uses the noun blazon:

“But this eternal blazon must not be
To ears of flesh and blood.”
Hamlet, i. 5.

Blazer (A). A boatman's jacket. Properly and originally applied to the Johnian crew (Camb.), whose boat jackets are the brightest possible scarlet.

“A blazer is the red flannel boating jacket worn by the Lady Margaret, St. John's College, Cambridge, Boat Club.”- Daily News, August 22nd, 1889.

Blazon [Blazonry]. To blazon is to announce with a trumpet, hence the Ghost in Hamlet says, “But this eternal blazon must not be to ears of flesh and blood,” i.e. this babbling about eternal things, or things of the other world, must not be made to persons still in the flesh. Knights were wont to be announced by the blast of a trumpet on their entrance into the lists; the flourish was answered by the heralds, who described aloud the arms and devices borne by the knight; hence, to blazon came to signify to “describe the charges borne”; and blazonry is “the science of describing or deciphering arms.” (German, blasen, to blow.)

Ble Manger son blé en herbe (French), to eat the calf before it is cast; to spend your fortune before it comes to you; to spend your income in advance. Literally, to feed off your green wheat.

Blear-eyed (The). Aurelius Brandolini, the Italian poet, called Il Lippo (1440-1497).

Bleed To make a man bleed is to make him pay dearly for something; to victimise him. Money is the life-blood of commerce.
    It makes my heart bleed. It makes me very sorrowful.

“She found them indeed,
But it made her heart bleed.”
Little Bo-Peep.

Bleeding of a Dead Body (The). It was at one time believed that, at the approach of a murderer, the blood of the murdered body gushed out. If in a dead body the slightest change was observable in the eyes, mouth, feet, or hands, the murderer was supposed to be present. The notion still survives in some places.

Blefuscu An island severed from Lilliput by a channel 800 yards wide, inhabited by pigmies. Swift meant it for France. (Gulliver's Travels.)

Bleidablik [vast splendour]. The abode of Baldur, the Scandinavian Apollo.

Blemmyes (of Africa). Men said to have no head, their eyes and mouth being placed in the breast. (See Acephalites; Caora. )

Blenheim Dog A small spaniel; so called from Blenheim Palace in Oxfordshire, where the breed has been preserved ever since the palace was built.

Blenheim House (Oxfordshire). The house given by the nation to the Duke of Marlborough, for his victory over the French at Blenheim, in Bavaria, in the reign of Queen Anne (1704).

“When Europe freed confessed the saving power
Of Marlborough's hand, Britain. who sent him forth,
Chief of confederate hosts, to fight the cause
Of liberty and justice, grateful raised
This palace, sacred to the leader's fame.”
Littleton: Blenheim.

Blenheim Steps Once noted for an anatomical school, over which Sir Astley Cooper presided. Here “resurrectionists” were sure to find a ready mart for their gruesome wares, for which they received sums