Chapter Beauty of Buttermere to Bee of B by Brewer's Phrase & Fable

Beauty of Buttermere to Bee

Beauty of Buttermere Mary Robinson, married to John Hatfield, a heartless impostor, executed for forgery at Carlisle in 1803.

Beauty Sleep Sleep taken before midnight. Those who habitually go to bed, especially during youth, after midnight, are usually pale and more or less haggard.

“Would I please to remember that I had roused him up at night ... [in] his beauty sleep.” - Blackmore: Lorna Doone, chap. 64.

Beaux Esprits (French). Men of wit or genius (singular number, Un bel esprit, a wit, a genius).

Beaux Yeux (French). Beautiful eyes or attractive looks. “I will do it for your beaux yeux” (because you are so pretty, or because your eyes are so attractive).

Beaver A hat; so called from its being made of beaver-skins.

Beaver That part of the helmet which lifted up to enable the wearer to drink. Similarly bever, the afternoon draught in the harvest-field, called fours's. (Italian, bevere, to drink; Spanish, beber; Latin, bibo; French, buveur, a drinker; Armoric, beuvrauh, beverage, etc.)
   “Hamlet: Then you saw not his face?    “Horatio: O,yes, my lord; he wore his beaver up.”    Shakespeare: Hamlet, i. 2.

Becarre, Bemol Sauter de bécarre en bémol (French), to jump from one subject to another without regard to pertinence; “Sauter du coq à l'ane,” from Genesis to Revelation. Literally, to jump from sharps to flats. Becarre is the Latin B quadratum or B quarré. In old musical notation B sharp was expressed by a square B, and B flat by a round B.
    Bémol is B mollis, soft (flat).

Bécasse You goose; you simpleton; you booby. Bécasse is a woodcock. “C'est une bécasse,” he or she is a fool.

Becket's Assassins William de Tracy, Hugh de Morville, Richard Brito (or le Bret), and Fitz-Urse.

Bed The great bed of Ware. A bed twelve feet square, and capable of holding twelve persons; assigned by tradition to the Earl of Warwick, the king-maker. It is now in Rye House.

“Although the sheet were big enough for the bed of Ware in England.”-Shakespeare: Twelfth Night, iii. 2.

   To make the bed. To arrange it and make it fit for use. In America this sense of “make” is much more common than it is with us. “Your room is made,” arranged in-due order. To make it all right.
   As you make your bed you must lie on it. Everyone must bear the consequences of his own acts. “As you sow, so must you reap.” “As you brew, so must you bake.”
   To bed out. To plant what are called “bedding- out plants” in a flower-bed.
    Bedding-out plants are reared in pots, generally in a hot-house, and are transferred into garden-beds early in the summer. Such plants as geraniums, marguerites, fuchsias, penstemons, petunias, verbenas, lobelias, calceolarias, etc., are meant.
   You got out of bed the wrong way, or with the left leg foremost. Said of a person who is patchy and ill-tempered. It was an ancient superstition that it was unlucky to set the left foot on the ground first on getting out of bed. The same superstition applies to putting on the left shoe first, a “fancy” not yet wholly exploded.
    Augustus Caesar was very superstitious in this respect.

Bed of Justice (See Lit .)

Bed of Roses (A ). A situation of ease and pleasure.

Bed of Thorns (A ). A situation of great anxiety and apprehension.

Bed-post In the twinkling of a bed-post. As quickly as possible. In the ancient bed-frames movable staves were laid as we now lay iron laths; there were also staves in the two sides of the bedstead for keeping the bed-clothes from rolling off; and in some cases a staff was used to beat the bed and clean