Chapter BURREL to BUXEE of B by The Hobson Jobson Dictionary

BURREL to BUXEE

BURREL, s. H. bharal Ovis nahura, Hodgson. The blue wild sheep of the Himalaya. [Blanford, Mamm. 499, with illustration.]

BURSAUTEE, s. H. barsati, from barsat, ‘the Rains.’

a. The word properly is applied to a disease to which horses are liable in the rains, pustular eruptions breaking out on the head and fore parts of the body.

[1828.—“That very extraordinary disease, the bursattee.”—Or. Sport. Mag., reprint, 1873, i. 125.

[1832.—“Horses are subject to an infectious disease, which generally makes its appearance in the rainy season, and therefore called burrhsaatie.”—Mrs Meer Hassan Ali, ii. 27.]

b. But the word is also applied to a waterproof cloak, or the like. (See BRANDY COORTEE, -COATEE.)

1880.—“The scenery has now been arranged for the second part of the Simla season … and the appropriate costume for both sexes is the decorous bursatti.”— Pioneer Mail, July 8.

BUS, adv. P.-H. bas, ‘enough.’ Used commonly as a kind of interjection: ‘Enough! Stop! Ohe jam satis! Basta, basta!’ Few Hindustani words stick closer by the returned Anglo-Indian. The Italian expression, though of obscure etymology, can hardly have any connection with bas. But in use it always feels like a mere expansion of it! 1853.—“ ‘And if you pass,’ say my dear good-natured friends, ‘you may get an appointment. Bus! (you see my Hindostanee knowledge already carries me the length of that emphatic monosyllable). …’ ”—Oakfield, 2nd ed. i. 42.

BUSHIRE, n.p. The principal modern Persian seaport on the Persian Gulf; properly Abushr.

1727.—“Bowchier is also a Maritim Town.… It stands on an Island, and has a pretty good Trade.”—A. Hamilton, i. 90.

BUSTEE, s. An inhabited quarter, a village. H. basti, from Skt. vas= ‘dwell.’ Many years ago a native in Upper India said to a European assistant in the Canal Department: “You Feringis talk much of your country and its power, but we know that the whole of you come from five villages” (panch basti). The word is applied in Calcutta to the separate groups of, huts in the humbler native quarters, the sanitary state of which has often been held up to reprobation. [1889.—“There is a dreary bustee in the neighbourhood which is said to make the most of any cholera that may be going.”— R. Kipling, City of Dreadful Night, 54.]

BUTLER, s. In the Madras and Bombay Presidencies this is the title usually applied to the head-servant of any English or quasi-English household. He generally makes the daily market, has charge of domestic stores, and superintends the table. As his profession is one which affords a large scope for feathering a nest at the expense of a foreign master, it is often followed at Madras by men of comparatively good caste. (See CONSUMAH.)

1616.—“Yosky the butler, being sick, asked lycense to goe to his howse to take phisick.”—Cocks, i. 135.

1689.—“… the Butlers are enjoin’d to take an account of the Place each Night, before they depart home, that they (the Peons) might be examin’d before they stir, if ought be wanting.”—Ovington, 393.

1782.—“Wanted a Person to act as Steward or Butler in a Gentleman’s House, he must understand Hairdressing.”—India Gazette, March 2.

1789.—“No person considers himself as comfortably accommodated without entertaining a Dubash at 4 pagodas per month, a Butler at 3, a Peon at 2, a Cook at 3, a Compradore at 2, and kitchen boy at 1 pagoda.”—Munro’s Narrative of Operations, p. 27.

1873.—“Glancing round, my eye fell on the pantry department … and the butler trimming the reading lamps.”—Camp Life in India, Fraser’s Mag., June, 696.

1879.—“… the moment when it occurred to him (i.e. the Nyoung-young Prince of Burma) that he ought really to assume the guise of a Madras butler, and be off to the Residency, was the happiest inspiration of his life.”—Standard, July 11.

BUTLER-ENGLISH. The broken English spoken by native servants in the Madras Presidency; which is not very much better than the Pigeon-English of China. It is a singular dialect; the present participle