Black Dog A fiend still dreaded in many country places. (See Dog. )
Black Dog. Base silver coin in the
reign of Anne. Made of pewter double washed.
Black Doll (A ). The sign of a marine store shop. The doll was a dummy dressed to indicate that cast- off garments were bought.
Black Douglas William Douglas, Lord of Nithsdale. Died 1390.
Black Flag (A ) denotes a pirate, and is called the “Jolly Roger.”
Black Flags Moslem soldiers. The banner of the Abbasides (3 syl.) is black; that of the Fatimites (3
syl.) green; and that of the Ommiades (3 syl.) white. Hence the banner of the Kalif of Bagdad is black,
but that of the Sultan of Damascus is green. (Gibbon, chap. iii.)
Black Flags. Pirates of the Chinese Sea
who opposed the French in Tonquin, etc.
Black-foot There is a powerful and numerous tribe of North American Indians called Black-feet. A black- foot is an intermediary in love affairs; but if perfidious to the wooer he was called a white-foot.
Blackfoot (The ). One of the many Irish factions which disturbed the peace in the first half of the nineteenth
century.
“And the Blackfoot, who courted each foeman's approach,
Faith! `tis hot-foot [speedily ] he'd fly from the stout Father Roach.”
Lover.