Chapter Boots to Bos of B by Brewer's Phrase & Fable

Boots to Bos

Boots The youngest bishop of the House of Lords, whose duty it is to read prayers; so called because he walks into the house in a dead man's shoes or boots, i.e. he was not in the house till some bishop there died, and left a vacancy.

Boots To go to bed in his boots. To be very tipsy.

Boots at an Inn A servant whose duty it is to clean the boots. The Boots of the Holly-tree Inn, a Christmas tale by Charles Dickens (1855).

Bootless Errand An unprofitable or futile message. The Saxon bot means “reparation”- “overplus to profit”; as “I will give you that to boot”; “what boots it me?” (what does it profit me?).

“I sent him
Bootless home and weather-beaten back.”
Shakespeare: 1 Henry IV., iii. 1.

Bootes (Bo-o'-tees ), or the ox-driver, a constellation. According to ancient mythology, Boötes invented the plough, to which he yoked two oxen, and at death, being taken to heaven with his plough and oxen, was made a constellation. Homer calls it “the wagoner.”

“Wide o'er the spacious regions of the north,
That see Boötes urge his tardy wain.”
Thomson: Winter, 834- 5.

Booth Husband of Amelia. (Fielding: Amelia. )

Boozy Partly intoxicated. (Russian, busa, millet-beer; Latin, buza, from buo, to fill; Welsh, bozi; Old Dutch, buyzen, to tipple; Coptic, bouza, intoxicating drink.)

“In Egypt there is a beer called `Boozer,' which is intoxicating.”- Morning Chronicle, Aug. 27th, 1852.

Bor (in Norfolk) is a familiar term of address to a lad or young man; as, “Well, bor, I saw the moither you spoke of”- i.e. “Well, sir, I saw the lass. ...” “Bor” is the Dutch boer, a farmer; and “mor” the Dutch moer, a female.

Borachio A drunkard. From the Spanish borachoe or borrach'o, a bottle made of pig's skin, with the hair inside, dressed with resin and pitch to keep the wine sweet. (Minsheu.)
   Borachio. A follower of Don John, in Much Ado About Nothing, who thus plays upon his own name:-

“I will, like a true drunkard [borachio ], utter all to thee.”- Act iii. 5.

Borak or Al Borak (the lightning). The animal brought by Gabriel to carry Mahomet to the seventh heaven. It had the face of a man, but the cheeks of a horse; its eyes were like jacinths, but brilliant as the stars; it had the wings of an eagle, spoke with the voice of a man, and glittered all over with radiant light. This creature was received into Paradise. (See Animals, Camel. )

Bord Halfpenny A toll paid by the Saxons to the lord for the privilege of having a bord or bench at some fair for the sale of articles.

Bordarii or Bordmen. A class of agriculturists superior to the Villani, who paid their rent by supplying the lord's board with eggs and poultry. (Domesday Book.)

Border (The ). The frontier of England and Scotland, which, from the eleventh to the fifteenth century, was the field of constant forays, and a most fertile source of ill blood between North and South Britain.

“March, march, Ettrick and Teviotdale;
Why the deil dinna-ye march forward in order?
March, march, Eskdale and Liddesdale-
All the Blue Bonnets are bound for the border.”
Sir Walter Scott: The Monastery.

Border Minstrel Sir Walter Scott, because he sang of the border. (1771-1832.)