reformation the laity sat exclusively in the nave of the church. The balk here appears to be the rood beam, which separated the nave from the chancel. The expression would therefore seem to mean, to be helped into the choir, where the marriage ceremony was performed. V. Crav. Gloss.

BAUKS, the grass ridges dividing ploughed lands, properly those in common fields. Also a place above a cow-house, where the beams are covered with wattles and turf, and not boarded.-A hen-roost or hay-loft; supposed by Mr. Wilbraham from its being divided into different compartments by balks or beams; balk in the northern languages signifying a separation or division.

BAY, to bend. Sax. bygan.

BEAKER, a tumbler. Germ. becher, a cup. It also means any thing large.

BEAKMENT OF BEATMENT, a measure of about a quarter of a peck. Newc.

BEAL, to roar or cry. Teut. bellen, to bellow.

BEASTLINGS, the milk of the cow shortly after calving, and of a

peculiar nature fitted for the first food of the calf. Probably, therefore, the calf's, that is, the little beast's or beastling's.-Dut. biest.

BEASTLING-PUDDING, a pudding made of this milk, and a favourite dish with many people.

BECK, v. to nod the head; properly to curtzy by a female, as

contradistinguished from bowing in the other sex. Isl. beiga. Germ. beigen, to bow. A horse it said to beck, when its legs are weak.

BECK, s. a mountain stream or small rivulet. Common to all northern dialects. See BURN.

BEE-BIKE, a bee's nest or hive in a wild state. Teut. bie-bock,

bie-buyek, apiarium.

BEELD, shelter; hence BEELDING, a place of shelter for cattle, or any covered habitation. Isl. boele, domicilium.

BEET, to help or assist, to supply the gradual waste of any thing.

Isl. betra. Dut. boeten, to mend. To BEET THE FIRE, is to feed it with fuel. The word in this latter sense is most applicable to straw, heath, fern, furze, and especially to the husk of oats, when used for heating girdles on which oaten cakes are baked. Teut. boeten het vier, struere ignem. BEET-NEED, assistance in distress. Sax. betan, to restore. BEEZEN, blind. See Todd's John. bisson.

.

BELIVE, anon, by and by, quickly. An old word used by Chaucer, Spenser, and other early poets. Sax. belif-an. BELK, to belch. The old mode of writing it.

BELLY-GO-LAKE-THEE, take your fill, satisfy your appetite.-York. BELLY-WARK, the gripes or colick. Ache is pronounced WARK, as head-wark, tooth-wark.

BENSEL, to beat or bang. Teut. benghelen.

BENT, a long kind of grass which grows in Northumberland, near the sea, and is used for thatch. Dr. Willan has BENTS, high pastures or shelving commons, hence he says, BENTgrass, which from the soil is necessarily harsh and coarse. BERRY, to thrash corn. BERRIER, a thrasher.

BE-TWATTLED, confounded, stupified, infatuated.
BEVEL, a violent push or stroke.

BICKER, v. to clatter, to quarrel. A very old word for skirmish. BICKER, s. a small wooden dish, made of staves and hoops like a tub.

BIG, to build. Isl. byggi.

BIGG, a particular kind of barley, properly that variety which has four rows of grain on each ear, sometimes called bear. Isl. bygg, barley. Su.-Got. bug. Dan. byg.

BIGGEN, to recover after an accouchement. The gossips regu

larly wish the lady a good biggening.

BIGGIN, a building, properly a house larger than a cottage, but

now generally used for a hut covered with mud or turf. BILDER, a wooden mallet with a long handle, used in husbandry for breaking clods. Hence, observes the author of the Craven Glossary, balderdash, may with propriety be called dirt spread by the bilder, alias bilderdasher. This etymon is certainly as happy as that of Mr. Malone-the froth or foam made by the barbers in dashing their balls backwards and forwards in hot water. See, however, BLATHER. BINK, a seat in the front of a house made of stones or sods. Sax. benc. Dan, bænk.

BIRK, the birch tree.

Teut.berck.

BISHOP'S FOOT. When any thing has been burnt to the pan in boiling, or is spoiled in cooking, it is common to say, “the Bishop has set his foot in it." The author of the Crav. Gloss. under bishopped, says, "pottage burnt at the bottom of the pan. Bishop's i' th' pot,' may it not be derived from Bishop Burnet?" That is impossible, the saying having been in use long before the Bishop was born! It occurs in Tusser's "Points of Husbandry," a well known book; and also in Tyndale's " Obedyence of a Chrysten Man," printed in 1528. The last writer, p. 109, says, "when a thynge speadeth not well we borowe speach and say the byshope hath blessed it, because that nothynge speadeth well that they medyll withall. If the podech be burned to, or the meate over rosted, we say the byshope has put his fote in the potte, or the byshope hath played the coke, because the byshopes BURN who they lust and whosoever displeaseth them." I am well aware of what Dr. Jamieson, Grose, and other writers have stated on the subject, but I think this allusion to the episcopal disposition to burn here

tics, in a certain reign, presents the most satisfactory explanation that can be offered as to the origin of the phrase. BITTLE, a mallet to beat grain out of gleanings. From beetle. BIZON, shame or scandal; a shew or spectacle of disgrace. In unguarded moments when the good women in certain districts of Newcastle, give way to acts of termagancy more congenial to Wapping or Billingsgate, it is common to fulminate the object of their resentment with a " Holy Bizon," obviously in allusion to the penitential act of standing in a white sheet, which scandalous delinquents are sometimes enjoined to perform in the church before the whole congregation.

Wiv a' the stravaigin aw wanted a munch,
An' maw thropple was ready to gizen ;
So aw went tiv a yell-house, and there teuk a lunch,
But the reck'ning, me saul! was a bizon.

Song, Canny Newcassel. BLACK-A-VIZ'D, dark in complexion. A black-a-viz'd man or

woman.

BLACK-PUDDINGS. Puddings made of blood, suet, &c. stuffed into the intestines of pigs or sheep, and a favourite dish among the common people. A nice het pudden, hinnie !” A nice fat pudden, ma hinnie !"-Newcastle cries.

Through they were lin❜d with many a piece

Of ammunition bread and cheese,

And fat black-puddings, proper food

For warriors that delight in blood.--But. Hudib.

BLAKE, yellowish, or of a golden colour, spoken of butter, cheese, &c. The yellow bunting (emberiza citrinella) is also, in some places, called a blakeling. Isl. blar. Dut. bleek, pale.

Blake autumn.-Chatterton.

D

BLARING, crying vehemently, roaring loud, applied to peevish children and vulgar drunken noise. Dut. blaren.

BLASH, to throw dirt; also to scatter, as the "water blashed all over." Germ. platzen.

BLASHMENT, weak and diluting liquor.

BLASHY, thin, poor, as blashy beer, &c. It also means wet and dirty. Dr. Jam. has blash, a heavy fall of rain.

But aw fand maw sel blonk'd when to Lunnun aw gat,
The folks they a' luck'd wishy washy;

For gowld ye may howk 'till ye're blind as a bat,
For their streets are like wors-brave and blashy!

Song, Canny Newcassel.

BLAST, v. to blow up with gun-powder. BLAST, s. an explo

sion of foul air in a coal mine.

And oft a chilling damp or unctuous mist,

Loos'd from the crumbling caverns, issues forth,
Stopping the springs of life.-Jago's Edgehill.

BLATE, v. to bleat or bellow.
BLATE, a. shy, bashful, timid.

Dryden uses blatant. Su.-Got. blode. A toom (empty) purse makes a blate merchant."-Scot. Prov. BLATHER, to talk a great deal of nonsense. "He blathers and talks," is a common phrase where much is said to little purpose. A person of this kind is, by way of pre-eminence, styled a blathering hash. One of my correspondents derives the word from blatant, used by Spenser and others; another ingeniously suggests that it may be "from the noise of an empty bladder," but it appears to me to be either from Teut. blæteren, to talk foolishly, or Su.-Got. bladdra, garrire. Hence BLATHERDASH, Balderdash, the discourse itself. See BILDER.

BLAZE, to take salmon by striking them with a three pronged