The Thirty-Nine Steps (21 page)

berth
NOUN
a berth is a bed on a boat
this is the berth for me
(
Treasure Island
by Robert Louis Stevenson)

bevers
NOUN
a bever was a snack, or small portion of food, eaten between main meals
that buys me thirty meals a day and ten bevers
(
Doctor Faustus 2.1
by Christopher Marlowe)

bilge water
NOUN
the bilge is the widest part of a ship’s bottom, and the bilge water is the dirty
water that collects there
no gush of bilge-water had turned it to fetid puddle
(
Jane Eyre
by Charlotte Brontë)

bills
NOUN
bills is an old term meaning prescription. A prescription is the piece of paper on
which your doctor writes an order for medicine and which you give to a chemist to
get the medicine
Are not thy bills hung up as monuments
(
Doctor Faustus 1.1
by Christopher Marlowe)

black cap
NOUN
a judge wore a black cap when he was about to sentence a prisoner to death
The judge assumed the black cap, and the
prisoner still stood with the same air and gesture
. (
Oliver Twist
by Charles Dickens)

black gentleman
NOUN
this was another word for the devil
for she is as impatient as the black gentleman
(
Emma
by Jane Austen)

boot-jack
NOUN
a wooden device to help take boots off
The speaker appeared to throw a boot-jack, or some such article, at the person he
addressed
(
Oliver Twist
by Charles Dickens)

booty
NOUN
booty means treasure or prizes
would be inclined to give up their booty in payment of the dead man’s debts
(
Treasure Island
by Robert Louis Stevenson)

Bow Street runner
PHRASE
Bow Street runners were the first British police force, set up by the author Henry
Fielding in the eighteenth century
as would have convinced a judge or a Bow Street runner
(
Treasure Island
by Robert Louis Stevenson)

brawn
NOUN
brawn is a dish of meat which is set in jelly
Heaped up upon the floor, to form a kind of throne, were turkeys, geese, game, poultry,
brawn, great joints of meat, sucking-pigs
(
A Christmas Carol
by Charles Dickens)

bray
VERB
when a donkey brays, it makes a loud, harsh sound
and she doesn’t bray like a jackass
(
The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn
by Mark Twain)

break
VERB
in order to train a horse you first have to break it
“
If a high-mettled creature like this,” said he, “can’t be broken by fair means, she
will never be good for anything”
(
Black Beauty
by Anna Sewell)