Box or Hand-box. The lower handle of a sawyer's long pit-saw, the upper handle being the Tiller.—N.W. (Clyffe Pypard.)
Boy's-love. Artemisia Abrotanum, L., Southernwood (A.B.).—N. & S.W.
Boys. The long-pistilled or 'pin-eyed' flowers of the Primrose, Primula vulgaris, Huds. See Girls.—N.W. (Clyffe Pypard.)
Bozzell. See Bossell.
*Bozzy. See *Bawsy.
Brack. n. A fracture, break, crack (S.). 'There's narra brack nor crack in 'un.'—N. & S.W.
Brain-stone. A kind of large round stone (Aubrey's Nat. Hist. Wilts, p. 9, ed. Brit., H.Wr.). Perhaps a lump of water-worn fossil coral, such as occasionally now bears this name among N. Wilts cottagers.
*Bramstickle. See Bannis (S.).
Brandy-bottles. Nuphar lutea, Sm., Yellow Water-lily.—S.W. (Mere, &c.)
Brave. adj. Hearty, in good health (A.B.).—N.W.
Bread-and-Cheese. (1) Linaria vulgaris, Mill., Yellow Toadflax.—N. & S.W. (2) Fruit of Malva sylvestris, L., Common Mallow (S.).—S.W. (3) Young leaves and shoots of Crataegus Oxyacantha, L., Hawthorn, eaten by children in spring (English Plant Names).—S.W. (Salisbury.)
Bread-board. The earth-board of a plough (D.). Broad-board in N. Wilts.
Break. To tear. 'She'll break her gownd agen thuc tharn.' You still break a bit of muslin, but to tear a trace or a plate now grows obsolete.—N.W. Similarly used in Hants, as
'I have a-torn my best decanter … have a-broke my fine cambrick aporn.'—Cope's Hants Glossary.
Brevet, Brivet. (1) To meddle, interfere, pry into.—N.W.
'Who be you to interfere wi' a man an' he's vam'ly? Get awver groundsell, or I'll stop thy brevettin' for a while.'—Dark, ch. xix.
(2) To brevet about, to beat about, as a dog for game (A.).—N.W. Also Privet.—N.W. (Clyffe Pypard; Castle Eaton, &c.)
'Brivet, a word often applied to children when they wander about aimlessly and turn over things.'—Leisure Hour, Aug. 1893.
*(3) To pilfer. 'If she'll brevet one thing, she'll brevet another.'—N.W. (Mildenhall.)
Bribe. To taunt, to bring things up against any one, to scold. 'What d'ye want to kip a-bribing I o' that vur?'—N.W.
Brit, Brittle out. (1) To rub grain out in the hand.—N.W. (2) To drop out of the husk, as over-ripe grain (D.).—N.W.
Brivet. See Brevet.
Brize. To press heavily on, or against, to crush down (S.). A loaded waggon 'brizes down' the road.—N. & S.W.
Broad-board. See Bread-board.
Broke-bellied. Ruptured.—N.W.
Brook-Sparrow. Salicaria phragmitis, the Sedge Warbler; from one of its commonest notes resembling that of a sparrow (Great Estate, ch. vii; Wild Life, ch. iii).—N.W.
'At intervals [in his song] he intersperses a chirp, exactly the same as that of the sparrow, a chirp with a tang in it. Strike a piece of metal, and besides the noise of the blow, there is a second note, or tang. The sparrow's chirp has such a note sometimes, and the sedge-bird brings it in—tang, tang, tang. This sound has given him his country name of brook-sparrow.'—Jefferies, A London Trout.
Brow. (1) adj. Brittle (A.B.C.H.Wr.); easily broken. Vrow at Clyffe Pypard. Also Frow.—N.W. *(2) n. A fragment (Wilts Arch. Mag. vol. xxii. p. 109).—N.W. (Cherhill.)
Brown. 'A brown day,' a gloomy day (H.Wr.).—N.W.
Bruckle. (Generally with off or away.) v. To crumble away, as some kinds of stone when exposed to the weather (Wilts Arch. Mag. vol. xxii. p. 109); to break off easily, as the dead leaves on a dry branch of fir. Compare brickle=brittle (Wisdom, xv. 13), A.S. brucol=apt to break.—N.W.
Bruckley. adj. Brittle, crumbly, friable, not coherent (S.).—N. & S.W.
Brush. 'The brush of a tree,' its branches or head.—N.W.
Brushes. Dipsacus sylvestris, L., Wild Teasel. See Clothes-brush.—N. & S.W.
Bubby-head. Cottus gobio, the Bullhead.—N. & S.W.
Buck. A 'buck,' or 'book,' of clothes, a large wash—N.W.
Bucking. A quantity of clothes to be washed (A.).—N.W.
*Buddle. To suffocate in mud. 'There! if he haven't a bin an' amwoast buddled hisel' in thuck there ditch!' Also used in Som.—N.W. (Malmesbury.)
Budgy. Out of temper, sulky. A softened form of buggy, self-important, churlish, from the Old English and provincial budge, grave, solemn, &c. See Folk-Etymology, p. 42 (Smythe-Palmer).—N.W. Cp. Milton,
'Those budge doctors of the stoic fur.'—Comus.
Bullpoll, Bullpull. Aira caespitosa, L., the rough tufts of tussocky grass which grow in damp places in the fields, and have to be cut up with a heavy hoe (Great Estate, ch. ii; Gamekeeper at Home, ch. viii).—N.W.
Bull Stag. A bull which, having been superannuated as regards breeding purposes, is castrated and put to work, being stronger than an ordinary bullock. Cf. Boar Stag.—N.W., now almost obsolete.
Bulrushes. Caltha palustris, L., Marsh Marigold; from some nursery legend that Moses was hidden among its large leaves.—S.W., rarely.
Bumble-berry. Fruit of Rosa canina, L., Dog-rose.—N.W.
Bunce. (1) n. A blow. 'Gie un a good bunce in the ribs.'—N.W. (2) v. To punch or strike.—N.W.
Bunch. Of beans, to plant in bunches instead of rows (D.).—N. & S.W.
Bunny. A brick arch, or wooden bridge, covered with earth, across a 'drawn' or 'carriage' in a water-meadow, just wide enough to allow a hay-waggon to pass over.—N.W.
Bunt. (1) v. To push with the head as a calf does its dam's udder (A.); to butt; to push or shove up.—(Bevis, ch. x.) N.W. (2) n. A push or shove.—N.W. (3) n. A short thick needle, as a 'tailor's bunt.' (4) n. Hence sometimes applied to a short thickset person, as a nickname.—S.W.
Bunty. adj. Short and stout.—N.W.
Bur. The sweetbread of a calf or lamb (A.).—N.W.
Bur', Burrow, or Burry. (1) A rabbit-burrow (A.B.).—N. & S.W. (2) Any place of shelter, as the leeward side of a hedge (A.C.). 'Why doesn't thee coom and zet doon here in the burrow?'—N. & S.W.
Burl. (1) 'To burl potatoes,' to rub off the grown-out shoots in spring.—N.W. (2) The original meaning was to finish off cloth or felt by removing knots, rough places, loose threads, and other irregularities of surface, and it is still so used in S. Wilts (S.).
Burn. 'To burn a pig,' to singe the hair off the dead carcase.—N. & S.W.
*Burn-bake