Chapter Broach to Brown, Jones, and Robinson of B by Brewer's Phrase & Fable

Broach to Brown, Jones, and Robinson

Broach To broach a new subject. To start one in conversation. The allusion is to beer tubs. If one is flat, another must be tapped. A broach is a peg or pin, and to broach a cask is to bore a hole in the top for the vent-peg.

“I did broach this business to your highness.”
Shakespeare: Henry VIII., ii. 4.

Broad as Long 'Tis about as broad as it is long. One way or the other would bring about the same result.

Broad Arrow on Government stores. It was the cognisance of Henry, Viscount Sydney, Earl of Romney, master-general of the ordnance. (1693-1702.)
    It seems like a symbol of the Trinity, and Wharton says, “It was used by the Kelts to signify holiness and royalty.”

Broad Bottom Ministry (1744). Formed by a coalition of parties: Pelham retained the lead; Pitt supported the Government; Bubb Doddington was treasurer of the navy.

Broadcloth The best cloth for men's clothes. So called from its great breadth. It required two weavers, side by side, to fling the shuttle across it. Originally two yards wide, now about fifty-four inches; but the word is now used to signify the best quality of (black) cloth.

Broadside Printed matter spread over an entire sheet of paper. The whole must be in one type and one measure, i.e. must not be divided into columns. A folio is when the sheet is folded, in which case a page occupies only half the sheet.

“Pamphlets and broadsides were scattered right and left.”- Fiske: American History, chap. vii. p. 341.

   In naval language, a broadside means the whole side of a ship; and to “open a broadside on the enemy” is to discharge all the guns on one side at the same moment.

Brobdingnag The country of gigantic giants, to whom Gulliver was a pigmy “not half so big as a round little worm plucked from the lazy finger of a maid.”

“You high church steeple, you gawky stag,
Your husband must come from Brobdingnag.”
Kane O'Hara: Midas.

Brobdingnagian Colossal; tall as a church steeple. (See above. )

“Limbs of Brobdingnagian proportions.”- The Star.

Brocken The spectre of the Brocken. This is the shadow of men and other objects greatly magnified and reflected in the mist and cloud of the mountain opposite. The Brocken is the highest summit of the Harz range.

Brocklehurst (The Rev. Robert ). A Calvinistic clergyman, the son of Naomi Brocklehurst, of Brocklehurst Hall, part founder of Lowood Institution, where young ladies were boarded, clothed, and taught for 15 a year, subsidised by private subscriptions. The Rev. Robert Brocklehurst was treasurer, and half starved the inmates in order to augment his own income, and scared the children by talking to them of hell- fire, and making capital out of their young faults or supposed shortcomings. He and his family fared sumptuously every day, but made the inmates of his institution deny themselves and carry the cross of vexation and want. (C. Brontë: Jane Eyre.)

Brogue (1 syl.) properly means the Irish brog, or shoe of rough hide. The application of brog to the dialect or manner of speaking is similar to that of buskin to tragedy and sock to comedy.

“And put my clouted brogues from off my feet.”
Shakespeare: Cymbeline, iv. 2.

Brogues (1 syl.). Trousers. From the Irish brog, resembling those still worn by some of the French cavalry, in which trousers and boots are all one garment.