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

Bunny A rabbit. So called from the provincial word bun, a tail. The Scotch say of the hare, “she cocks her bun.” Bunny, a diminutive of bun, applied to a rabbit, means the animal with the “little tail.”

“Bunny, lying in the grass,
Saw the shiny column pass.”
Bret Harte: Battle Bunny, stanza 1

Bunsby (Jack). Captain Cuttle's friend; a Sir Oracle of his neighbours; profoundly mysterious, and keeping his eye always fixed upon invisible dreamland somewhere beyond the limits of infinite space. (Dickens: Dombey and Son.).

Bunting In Somersetshire bunting means sifting flour. Sieves were at one time made of a strong gauzy woollen cloth, which being tough and capable of resisting wear, was found suitable for flags, and now has changed its reference from sieves to flags. A “bunt-mill” is a machine for sifting corn.

“Not unlike ... a baker's bunt, when he separates the flour from the bran.”- Stedman.

Buphagos Pausanias (viii. 24) tells us that the son of Japhet was called Buphagos (glutton), as Hercules was called Adephagus, because on one occasion he ate a whole ox (Athenæos x.). The French call the English “Beefeaters,” because they are eaters of large joints of meat, and not of delicate, well-dressed viands. Neither of these has any relation to our Yeomen of the Guards. (See Beefeaters , page 115.)

Burbon A knight assailed by a rabble rout, who batter his shield to pieces, and compel him to cast it aside. Talus renders him assistance, and is informed by the rescued knight that Fourdelis, his own true love, had been enticed away from him by Grantorto. When the rabble is dispersed, and Fourdelis recovered, Burbon places her on his steed, and rides off as fast as possible. Burbon is Henri IV. of France; Fourdelis, the kingdom of France; the rabble rout, the Roman Catholic party that tried to set him aside; the shield he is compelled to abandon is Protestantism; his carrying off Fourdelis is his obtaining the kingdom by a coup after his renunciation of the Protestant cause. (Spenser: Faërie Queene, v. 11.)