The Prisoner of Zenda (27 page)

bills
NOUN
bills is an old term meaning prescription. A prescription is the piece of paper on which your doctor writes an order for medicine and which you give to a chemist to get the medicine
Are not thy bills hung up as monuments
(
Doctor Faustus 1.1
by Christopher Marlowe)

black cap
NOUN
a judge wore a black cap when he was about to sentence a prisoner to death
The judge assumed the black cap, and the
prisoner still stood with the same air and gesture.
(
Oliver Twist
by Charles Dickens)

black gentleman
NOUN
this was another word for the devil
for she is as impatient as the black gentleman
(
Emma
by Jane Austen)

boot-jack
NOUN
a wooden device to help take boots off
The speaker appeared to throw a boot-jack, or some such article, at the person he addressed
(
Oliver Twist
by Charles Dickens)

booty
NOUN
booty means treasure or prizes
would be inclined to give up their booty in payment of the dead man's debts
(
Treasure Island
by Robert Louis Stevenson)

Bow Street runner
PHRASE
Bow Street runners were the first British police force, set up by the author Henry Fielding in the eighteenth century
as would have convinced a judge or a Bow Street runner
(
Treasure Island
by Robert Louis Stevenson)

brawn
NOUN
brawn is a dish of meat which is set in jelly
Heaped up upon the floor, to form a kind of throne, were turkeys, geese, game, poultry, brawn, great joints of meat, sucking-pigs
(
A Christmas Carol
by Charles Dickens)

bray
VERB
when a donkey brays, it makes a loud, harsh sound
and she doesn't bray like a jackass
(
The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn
by Mark Twain)

break
VERB
in order to train a horse you first have to break it
“
If a high-mettled creature like this,” said he, “can't be broken by fair means, she will never be good for anything”
(
Black Beauty
by Anna Sewell)

bullyragging
VERB
bullyragging is an old word which means bullying. To bullyrag someone is to threaten or force someone to do something they don't want to do
and a lot of loafers bullyragging him for sport
(
The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn
by Mark Twain)

but
PREP
except for (this)
but this, all pleasures fancies be
(
The Good-Morrow
by John Donne)

by hand
PHRASE
by hand was a common expression of the time meaning that baby had been fed either using a spoon or a bottle rather than by breast-feeding
My sister, Mrs. Joe Gargery, was more than twenty years older than I, and had established a great
reputation with herself
.
.
.
because she had bought me up ‘by hand'
(
Great Expectations
by Charles Dickens)