Chapter Bulletin to Burbon of B by Brewer's Phrase & Fable

Bumptious Arrogant, full of mighty airs and graces; apt to take offence at presumed slights. A corruption of presumptuous, first into “sumptious,” then to bumptious.

Bun A small cake. (Irish, boinneog, Scotch, bannock.)
    In regard to “hot cross buns” on Good Friday, it may be stated that the Greeks offered to Apollo, Diana, Hecate, and the Moon, cakes with “horns.” Such a cake was called a bous, and (it is said) never grew mouldy. The “cross” symbolised the four quarters of the moon.

“Good Friday comes this month: the old woman runs
With one a penny, two a penny `hot cross buns,'
Whose virtue is, if you believe what's said,
They'll not grow mouldy like the common bread.”
Poor Robin: Almanack, 1733.

Bunch of Fives A slang term for the hand or fist.

Buncle (John). “A prodigious hand at matrimony, divinity, a song, and a peck.” He marries seven wives, loses all in the flower of their age, is inconsolable for two or three days, then resigns himself to the decrees of Providence, and marries again. (The Life and Opinions of John Buncle, Esq., by Thomas Amory.)

“John is a kind of innocent Henry VIII. of private life.”- Leigh Hunt.

Bundle Bundle off. Get away. To bundle a person off, is to send him away unceremoniously. Similar to pack off. The allusion is obvious.

Bundle of Sticks AEsop, in one of his fables, shows that sticks one by one may be readily broken; not so when several are bound together in a bundle. The lesson taught is, that “Union gives strength.”

“They now lay to heart the lesson of the bundle of sticks.”- The Times.

Bundschuh [highlows ]. An insurrection of the peasants of Germany in the sixteenth century. So called from the highlows or clouted shoon of the insurgents.

Bung A cant term for a toper. “Away, ... you filthy bung,” says Doll to Pistol. (2 Henry IV., ii. 4.)
   Brother Bung. A cant term for a publican.
   Bung up. Close up, as a bung closes a cask.

Bungalow (Indian). The house of a European in India, generally a ground floor with a verandah all round it, and the roof thatched to keep off the hot rays of the sun. There are English bungalows at Birchington and on the Norfolk coast near Cromer. A dâkbungalow is a caravansary or house built by the Government for the use of travellers. (Hindustani, bangla.)

Bungay Go to Bungay with you! - i.e. get away and don't bother me, or don't talk such stuff. Bungay, in Suffolk, used to be famous for the manufacture of leather breeches, once very fashionable. Persons who required new ones, or to have their old ones newseated, went or sent to Bungay for that purpose. Hence rose the cant saying, “Go to Bungay, and get your breeches mended,” shortened into “Go to Bungay with you!”

Bungay My castle of Bungay. (See under Castle .)

Bunkum Claptrap. A representative at Washington being asked why he made such a flowery and angry speech, so wholly uncalled for, made answer, “I was not speaking to the House, but to Buncombe,” which he represented (North Carolina).

“America, too, will find that caucuses, stumporatory, and speeches to Buncombe will not carry men to the immortal gods.”- Carlyle: Latter-day Pamphlets (parliaments, p. 93).