Chapter Bouders to Bower of Bliss of B by Brewer's Phrase & Fable

Boustrap'a Napoleon III. The word is compounded of the first syllables Bou -logne, Stra -sbourg, Pa - ris, and alludes to his escapades in 1836 and 1840.

Boustrophedon A method of writing or printing, alternately from right to left and left to right, like the path of oxen in ploughing. (Greek, bous-strepho, ox-turning.)

Bouts-rimes [rhymed-endings ]. A person writes a line and gives the last word to another person, who writes a second to rhyme with it, and so on. Dean Swift employs the term for a poem, each stanza of which terminates with the same word. He has given a poem of nine verses, each of which ends with Domitilla, to which, of course, he finds nine rhymes. (French.)

Bovey Coal A lignite found at Bovey Tracy, in Devonshire.

Bow (to rhyme with flow ). (Anglo-Saxon, boga; verb, bogan or bugan, to arch.)
   Draw not your bow till your arrow is fixed. Have everything ready before you begin.
   He has a famous bow up at the castle. Said of a braggart or pretender.
   He has two strings to his bow. Two means of accomplishing his object; if one fails, he can try the other. The allusion is to the custom of the British bowmen carrying a reserve string in case of accident.
   To draw a bow at a venture. To attack with a random remark; to make a random remark which may hit the truth.

“A certain man drew a bow at a venture and smote the King of Israel.”- 1 Kings xxii. 34.

   To draw the long bow. To exaggerate. The long-bow was the famous English weapon till gunpowder was introduced, and it is said that a good archer could hit between the fingers of a man's hand at a considerable distance, and could propel his arrow a mile. The tales told about long-bow adventures are so wonderful that they fully justify the phrase given above.
   To unstring the bow will not heal the wound (Italian). René of Anjou, king of Sicily, on the death of his wife, Isabeau of Lorraine, adopted the emblem of a bow with the string broken, and with the words given above for the motto, by which he meant, “Lamentation for the loss of his wife was but poor satisfaction.”

Bow (to rhyme with now ). The fore-end of a boat or ship. (Danish and Norwegian, boug or bov, a shoulder; Icelandic, bogr.)
   On the bow. Within a range of 45 on one side or the other of the prow.

Bow Bells Born within sound of Bow bells. A true cockney. St. Mary-le-Bow has long had one of the most celebrated bell-peals in London. John Dun, mercer, gave in 1472 two tenements to maintain the ringing of Bow bell every night at nine o'clock, to direct travellers on the road to town; and in 1520 William Copland gave a bigger bell for the purpose of “sounding a retreat from work.” Bow church is nearly the centre of the City. (This bow rhymes with flow.)

Bow-catcher (A ). A corruption of “Beau Catcher,” a love-curl, termed by the French an accroche coeur. A love-curl worn by a man is a Bell-rope, i.e. a rope to pull the belles with.

Bow-hand The left hand; the hand which holds the bow. (This bow rhymes with flow.)
   To be too much of the bow-hand. To fail in a design; not be sufficiently dexterous.

Bow-street Runners Detectives who scoured the country to find criminals, before the introduction of the police force. Bow Street, near Covent Garden, London, is where the principal police-court stands. (This bow rhymes with flow.)

Bow-window in Front (A ) A big corporation.

“He was a very large man, ... with what is termed a considerable bow-window in front.”- Capt. Marryat: Poor Jack, i.

Bow-wow Word A word in imitation of the sound made, as hiss, cackle, murmur, cuckoo, whip-poor-will, etc. (Max Müller.)