Chapter BORNEO to BOWLY of B by The Hobson Jobson Dictionary

BOTICKEER, s. Port. botiqueiro. A shop or stall-keeper. (See BOUTIQUE.)

1567.—“Item, pareceo que … os botiqueiros não tenhão as buticas apertas nos dias de festa, senão depois la messa da terça.”—Decree 31 of Council of Goa, in Archiv. Port. Orient., fasc. 4.

1727.—“… he past all over, and was forced to relieve the poor Botickeers or Shopkeepers, who before could pay him Taxes.”—A. Hamilton, i. 268.

BO TREE, s. The name given in Ceylon to the Pipal tree (see PEEPUL) as reverenced by the Buddhists; Singh. bo-gas. See in Emerson Tennent (Ceylon, ii. 632 seqq.), a chronological series of notices of the Bo- tree from B.C. 288 to A.D. 1739.

1675.—“Of their (the Veddas’) worship there is little to tell, except that like the Cingaleze, they set round the high trees Bogas, which our people call Pagod-trees, with a stone base and put lamps upon it.”—Ryklof Van Goens, in Valentijn (Ceylon), 209.

1681.—“I shall mention but one Tree more as famous and highly set by as any of the rest, if not more so, tho’ it bear no fruit, the benefit consisting chiefly in the Holiness of it. This tree they call Bogahah; we the God-tree.”—Knox, 18.

BOTTLE-TREE, s. Qu. Adansonia digitata, or ‘baobab’? Its aspect is somewhat suggestive of the name, but we have not been able to ascertain. [It has also been suggested that it refers to the Babool, on which the Baya, often builds its nest. “These are formed in a very ingenious manner, by long grass woven together in the shape of a bottle.” (Forbes, Or. Mem., 2nd ed., i. 33.]

1880.—“Look at this prisoner slumbering peacefully under the suggestive bottle-tree.” —Ali Baba, 153.

[BOUND-HEDGE, s. A corruption of boundary-hedge, and applied in old military writers to the thick plantation of bamboo or prickly-pear which used to surround native forts. 1792.—“A Bound Hedge, formed of a wide belt of thorny plants (at Seringapatam).” —Wilks, Historical Sketches, iii. 217.]

BOUTIQUE, s. A common word in Ceylon and the Madras Presidency (to which it is now peculiar) for a small native shop or booth: Port. butica or boteca. From Bluteau (Suppt.) it would seem that the use of butica was peculiar to Portuguese India.

[1548.—Buticas. See quotation under SIND.]

1554.—“… nas quaes buticas ninguem pode vender senão os que se concertam com o Rendeiro.”—Botelho, Tombo do Estado da India, 50.

c. 1561.—“The Malabars who sold in the botecas.”—Correa, i. 2, 267.

1739.—“That there are many battecas built close under the Town-wall.”—Remarks on Fortfns. of Fort St. George, in Wheeler, iii. 188.

1742.—In a grant of this date the word appears as Butteca.—Selections from Records of S. Arcot District, ii. 114.

1767.—“Mr. Russell, as Collector-General, begs leave to represent to the Board that of late years the Street by the river side… has been greatly encroached upon by a number of golahs, little straw huts, and boutiques…”—In Long, 501.

1772.—“… a Boutique merchant having died the 12th inst., his widow was desirous of being burnt with his body.”— Papers relating to E. I. Affairs, 1821, p. 268.

1780.—“You must know that Mrs. Henpeck…is a great buyer of Bargains, so that she will often go out to the Europe Shops and the Boutiques, and lay out 5 or 600 Rupees in articles that we have not the least occasion for.”—India Gazette, Dec. 9.

1782.—“For Sale at No. 18 of the range Botiques to the northward of Lyon’s Buildings, where musters (q.v.) may be seen…’ India Gazette, Oct. 12.

1834.—“The boutiques are ranged along both sides of the street.”—Chitty, Ceylon Gazetteer, 172.

BOWLA, s. A portmanteau. H. baola, from Port. baul, and bahu, ‘a trunk.’

BOWLY, BOWRY, s. H. baoli, and baori, Mahr. bavadi. C. P. Brown (Zillah Dict. s.v.) says it is the Telegu bavidi; bavi and bavidi, = ‘well.’ This is doubtless the same word, but in all its forms it is probably connected with Skt. vavra, ‘a hole, a well,’ or with vapi, ‘an oblong reservoir, a pool or lake.’ There is also in Singhalese vœva, ‘a lake or pond,’ and in inscriptions vaviya. There is again Maldivian weu, ‘a well,’ which comes near the Guzerati forms mentioned below. A great and deep rectangular well (or tank dug down to the springs), furnished with a descent to the water by means of long flights of steps, and