bagnio: (noun) a brothel. In the morning, unable to find
his socks, Howard came to the realization that all the fun he imagined he'd have at the bagnio was just another phlogiston.
bailiwick: (noun) one's sphere of operations or particular interest; the
jurisdiction of a bailiff. Young man, as long as your living in my bailiwick, you will abide by my penal code.
balderdash: (noun) senseless, stupid, or exaggerated talk or writing; nonsense. Why!
Indeed! That’s nothing but pure, unadulterated balderdash! You, sir, are nothing but a scoundrel!
baleful: (adj.)
threatening; menacing; malevolent; sinister. I realize that baleful campaign ads work, but don't you wish there were
a better way of getting somebody to vote for you?
ballyhoo: (noun) ruckus; hullabaloo; racket. That’s enough
of the ballyhoo! Now if I hear anymore ruckus coming from the two of you... why... you can just take your hullabaloo
to somebody else’s motel! Now go to sleep!
baluster: (noun) a series of decorative columns used to support
a railing. The biggest decision we had to make when building the porch was the type of baluster we would use.
bamboozle: (verb) to hornswoggle; to deceive. The salesman was such a good bamboozler that
we never realized that we had been hornswoggled. banal: (adj.) commonplace; trite; hackneyed. Not only
is your writing banal, trite, and hackneyed, but it's overly and excessively redundant.
bane: (noun) a cause of great distress or annoyance; a deadly poison. Even if I am the
bane of the Kingdom, it doesn't give the king the right to say so, and in front of everybody, even!
banged
to rights: (adj. phrase) to
be caught fair and square. Well, you've caught me with the hooker. I suppose you could say I'm banged to rights.
banger: (noun) a now non-British term for British breakfast sausages;
any sausage (named for their tendency to "explode" while being cooked because the fat and cheap fillers expanded
quickly). The fish and chips are delightful here, but I prefer their bangers and mash.
barderize: (verb) the creation of your own words, often based on underlying words with similar
meanings; from Shakespeare, who is known as the Bard. Shakespeare is credited with introducing at least 1,700 words into the English language, including “apostrophe.” If Shakespeare gets that many, certainly you rate
one or two. Imagine how dull our language would be if we weren’t allowed to barderize.
bardolatry: (noun) (a portmanteaux of "bard" – as
in Shakespeare – and idolatry) excessive admiration of Shakespeare. We all recognize that Shakespeare is
good, Mrs. Bimbaum, but having him deified a saint is, well, bardolatry, don't you think?
Barmecide: (proper noun) something that is illusionary or imaginary,
and ultimately disappointing. The president's promises of better times ahead are just more of his many Barmecides.
bar
sinister: (noun) On British
coat of arms, a vertical stripe is called a "bend" or a "bar," and when that bar is from the upper left
hand side from the viewer's point of view (the "dexter" corner) to the lower right hand side (the "sinister"
corner), it is called a "bar sinister," which originally truly meant nothing. Sir Walter Scott was the first
person to write that a "bar sinister" implicated that the family represented by that coat of arms originated from
an illegitimate birth, which is just, well, silly, because only "legitimate" births can be represented by a coat
of arms. The condition, implication, or stigma of being of illegitimate birth. Though a bar sinister, Sir
Basil made the most of it by opening a pub, where he and his mates would carouse until the early hours of the morning, boisterously
laughing about the ridiculousness of a child being "legitimate" or not.
bauble: (noun) a small, showy trinket; archaic, a jester’s
baton. Lady Miranda thought she looked quite sophisticated while wearing her jewels, though everyone else knew they
were just worthless baubles. beadle: (noun) a minor cop who deals with petty offenses; a church
officer assisting the minister. I'm warning you. Either stop this mischief, or I will be forced to call the beadle.
beaver: (noun) aside from the large aquatic rodent, a moveable
piece of medieval armour used to protect the lower face. Squire! What is this? When I asked for my beaver,
I was not requesting a large aquatic rodent!
beck: (noun) a beckoning gesture; a summons; a call;
also, a mountain stream (British); also a musician (American). We were beckoned to see Beck, but we did not understand
their beck and jumped in a beck instead.
bedevil: (verb) to cause great and continual trouble; to harass;
to torment. I just want phone service; I don't want to be bedeviled for all eternity to make constant upgrades.
bedight: (adj.) adorned. Her dress was bedight with sequins.
bedizened: (adj.) (pronounced: bee-die-zened) gaudily
dressed up; decorated. Matilda, bedizened in her mating plumage, sat in her front room waiting for a knock on the door
that never came. beetle: (verb) to hurry along, usually with short, quick steps.
The beadle beetled when he saw the beetles listening to the Beatles.
beetling: (adj.) prominent or overhanging. His beetling eyebrows
were the central focus of his face. befuddle: (verb) stupefy; confuse; muddle. The instructions
for assembling the flamethrower were befuddling, filling me with befuddlement. begore: (verb) to smear something with gore. It's the Zombie
Apocalypse. Getting begored is a foregone conclusion.
beguile: (verb) to charm in a deceptive way; to trick.
His beguiling nature got him plenty of dates, and plenty of physical assaults.
bejeezus: (noun) an intensive; (interjection) an exclamation of surprise. When that pissant
came in here all whopperjawed, it scared the bejeezus out of me. beldame: (noun) an old woman, especially an ugly one; a witch.
Oh! I thought you said "Beldame." Madame, please forgive me.
bellbird: (noun) any number of Australian birds with loud (very loud) distinctive calls. If you wanted a pet bird, why a bellbird? If you'd gotten a canary, I'd still have my hearing.
bell
jar: (noun) a bell-shaped jar used to cover delicate things, such
as laboratory samples; a protected environment. It is a tragedy not to have experienced the bell jar of youth.
It is perhaps a bigger tragedy if that bell jar never never goes away.
bellwether: (noun) the leading sheep in a flock, the one with a bell
on its neck; a predictor of something; a harbinger. We trusted in the bellwether on whether the bell would weather the
storm.
belvedere: (noun) a room with a fine view, often on the top floor
of a house. From the belvedere you can see the swamp, the landfill, and the slaughterhouse. It's hard to choose
which to look at first.
benighted: (adj.) unenlightened; ignorant; disadvantaged.
The benighted knight was doomed to be eaten by the dragon.
benignity: (noun) (pronounced: bah-nig-nah-tee) kindliness;
gentleness; benevolence. It is not necessary to show benignity to the benighted fool.
benison: (noun) blessing. Wait a minute, Eugene, you can't begin eating until
Aunt Dorelthee says the benison.
bereft: (adj.) void; lacking. After we were burgled,
we were bereft of our most prized possessions. besmirch: (verb) to sully; to defame; to taint; to slander.
How dare you besmirch the good name of my dog! He may sniff butts, but he does it honourably!
besotted: (adj.) intoxicated; drunk; infatuated; obsessed.
The old geezer stumbled besottedly from the pub.
bestiary: (noun) (pronounced: bess-tee-air-ree) a medieval
moralizing work about real or imaginary creatures. See. Here in the bestiary. It says the parakeet is far
superiour to the leviathan, so I guess the cat's right. We should let her out of her cage.
bêtê
noire: (noun) (from the French for "black beast")
anything, be it a person or a thing, that one thoroughly dislikes. To be a squirrel whose bêtê noire is
nuts... 'tis a sad thing.
betide: (verb) to happen; to occur; to transpire. The jury
will betide your fate.
betimes: (adv.) before the expected time; early; sometimes; on
occasion. Their betimes arrival caught us off-guard.
bevy: (noun) a whole lot; tons; bunches. We had a bevy of complaints from our neighbors
because we partied late into the night with the stereo turned up to eleven. bewray: (verb) to reveal; to expose; to betray. Her dishevelment
bewrayed her assignation.
bezoars: (noun) A counter-poison or an antidote, based on
a substance found in the stomach or intestines of certain animals that was believed to be an effective remedy for poison.
There was said to be no bezoars to her love potion. bibulous: (adj.) excessively fond of drinking alcohol. I'm not a drunk. I'm bibulous.
There's a difference.
bicameral: (adj.) a legislative body that has two chambers
or houses. Because the United States has both a House of Representatives and a Senate, our government is considered
bicameral.
biddable: (adj.) submissive, obedient, well-behaved. When Rex starting biting the various
appendages that belonged to the person who fed him, we had to call into question just how biddable he might be. bildungsroman: (noun) a coming-of-age novel. Why, yes. It's a bildungsroman
about turning seventy. When I said it was a coming-of-age novel, I never said what age.
bilious: (adj.) affected by nausea; spiteful; bad-tempered.
We realized that Morgan’s biliousness wasn’t just because she was spiteful when she vomited on our shoes.
billet: (noun) a temporary, non-military place to house the military,
usually in civilians' homes; (verb) to temporarily house the military in places they are generally not wanted,
such as your house. OK, corporal, we'll billet the men here for the night, but no raping and plundering, at least, not
until after we get fed.
bindle: (noun) picture the iconic hobo with a bundle of clothes, bedding, and other possessions
tied on a stick – that's a bindle. Ya know, Bill, if I get anymore stuff I'm going to have to trade in my bindle
for an old shopping cart.
bizarrerie: (noun) something seen as extremely strange, but usually
in an amusing way. Cliff turning into a zombie was definitely a bizarrerie, and the look on Sheila's face when she realized
he was really going to eat her was priceless!
blandishment: (noun) an action, usually speech, that tends to flatter
in an attempt to coax somebody to do something. Not to be confused with graphic blandishment, which was the
term used in the Charles Schultz 1965 animated special “It’s a Charley Brown Christmas” (and since elsewhere)
as a more flowery term for “cartoonist.” Her blandishment to get us to watch the Christmas special still
didn’t make the special worth watching, no matter how well the illustrators and done on it with their graphic blandishment.
blasé: (adj.) laidback; carefree; just hangin’. It’s
not that I’m lazy; it’s just that I’m a blasé kind of guy.
blat: (verb) to make a bleating sound. If all you're
going to do is blat, there's no point in calling on you. Heck, there's no point in educating you at all.
blather: (verb) to chatter, prattle, drivel. She blathered on well into the evening, long
after we had all left to find a quieter bar. blatherskite: (noun) a person who talks at great length without making a lick of sense. As the
presidential election cycle once again comes around, we are left with a field full of blatherskites.
blench: (verb) to make a sudden flinching movement out of
fear or pain; to turn pale. Blanche blenched when the blatherskite began to blether. blether: (verb) to talk in a long-winded way without making any sense. Of course I'm blethering.
I'm a politician. It's in my job description.
blithe: (adj.) carefree; unconcerned. The young man
blithely ignored the signs that recommended that life forms wishing to remain viable should refrain from entering the panther’s
cage. blithering: (adj.) complete; utterly; used in contempt. You, sir, are nothing more than a
blithering nincompoop!
blooey: (adj. & int.) something that has gone complete haywire;
totally out of whack. Ah, blooey! Everything is all messed up. Why... it’s all blooey.
blotto: (adj.) extremely drunk. Larry assured us that he
was not blotto, but only on a toot.
blough: (noun) a portmanteau of "blech" and "cough."
It's really hard not to spew your adult beverage when you blough while drinking.
bloviation: (noun) "the art of speaking for as long
as the occasion warrants, and saying nothing." (a quote from Warren G. Harding, who is credited with first coining
the term); empty, pompous, political speech. My colleague, the Honourable Senator Bullfinch, has accused me of bloviation,
but need I remind the good senator that here in these hallowed chambers we are all bloviators? blowzy: (adj.) (typically said of a woman) course; red-faced;
untidy. That blouse makes you look blowzy.
bluster: (verb) to talk in a loud, aggressive, or indignant matter
with little or no effect. After listening to the Senator bluster for most of the morning, we were all ready to get blotto
at lunch.
board
feet: (noun) a square foot
of board, 12 inches wide, 12 inches long, and one inch thick. When I said I wanted four board feet, I meant lumber,
not two people who wanted to dance.
Bob's
your uncle: (noun phrase) a very British phrase for "and there
you have it," dating from 1887 when British Prime Minister Robert Gascone-Cecil was referred to as "Uncle Bob"
by his nephew, who had just been appointed a political position in Ireland. His wife was always a bit randy, you know,
and when her husband caught her in the throes of passion with another man… you know, a bit of rumpy pumpy, well, to
say he was aggrieved was putting it mildly, and Bob's your uncle.
bodacious: (adj.) audacious in a way that is considered admirable. That bodacious hat Clem
was wearin’ made him look down right dapper! boff: (verb) to have sex with someone. I just don't understand
it. Whenever I ask someone if they want to boff, they always turn me down.
bogart: (verb) to use or consume without sharing (and, yes, the
meaning originates with the actor Humphrey Bogart). The song "Don't Bogart that Joint," which appears on the
sound track for the movie Easy Rider, was originally performed by the band The Fraternity of Man.
boisterous: (adj.) rambunctious, but to a slightly lesser
degree, unless, of course, you want it to mean the same, then nobody’s going to really care. We thought the boys
were being rambunctious, but were relieved to find out that they were only boisterous.
boll: (noun) the rounded, seeded part of a plant, usually cotton. What did you think
I meant when I said we were going bolling? We're picking cotton.
bollocks: (noun) testicles; nonsense (interjection) golly; darn.
Oh, bollocks! You believed that wanker's bollocks, and now you really got your bollocks in a twist.
bombastic: (adj.) pompous, portentous, and verbose, often all at once. I do find it so bothersome
when the nouveau riche act so bombastic.
bonk: (verb) to have sexual intercourse; to hump; to screw.
Up by the radio tower – it's where everybody goes to bonk, or to wish they were.
bonny: (adj) lovely; attractive; good looking. She'd be a bonny lass if she didn't have
such a boney ass.
boodle: (noun) a large amount, usually of money, and especially
of money gained illegally or improperly. My boodle wouldn't fit in my bindle, so I left it behind. What's a hobo
to do?
boorish: (adj.) rude and clumsy in behaviour. We found Charles
to be quite boorish when he preferred his afternoon tea iced with sugar. boreal: (adj.) of the north; northern regions. Polar bears
are boreal; penguins are not.
bosh: (noun) nonsense; flapdoodle; (int.) annoyance.
Bosh! That flapdoodle is nothing but bosh.
botheration:
(noun) worry; effort; difficulty; bother (exclamation) a mild oath of annoyance; they favourite utterance
of Winnie the Pooh. These botherations! When are they ever going to to stop? bouffant: (adj.)
full; fluffy; voluminous; backcombed or teased (as with hair); styled so it has a rounded shape. I just adore your bouffant
hair style. It matches so well your overall boufffantedness.
bourgeoisie: (noun) (pronounced burrg-wha-zee) the ruling class.
Just because you got a raise does not make you a member of the bourgeoisie.
bourse: (noun) (rhymes with "horse") a stock
market in a non-English speaking country, especially France. The price of a horse has risen on the bourse.
bowdlerize: (verb) expurgate; edit; censor. In order to bowdlerize
the county library of anything offensive, it was decided the only solution was to burn it down.
braggadocio: (noun) it’s
one word for both “braggart” and “liar.” Bob’s braggadocio became apparent when they gave
him a parachute and shoved him out the door. bravura: (noun) brilliant; dazzling; outstanding. After
his dance routine, the crowd recognized his bravura with a standing ovation... until he stumbled and fell off the stage.
breakfront: (noun) cupboard; cabinet; dresser. I've cleared
a breakfront out just for the cat, so she'll have some place to put all of her dead birds.
brigandage: (noun) the mischief caused by a robber or a bandit, especially one belonging to a nefarious
group; brigandry. The brigands caused quite a bit of brigandage before they were apprehended.
brio: (adj.) vigor; vivacity. His portrayal of Hamlet showed much brio; however, it
still didn’t explain why he insisted on performing in the nude.
brogan: (noun) a course, stout leather shoe reaching the ankle.
I'm sorry, but we don't carry any brogans with stiletto heels. Could I show you a different shoe... or the door?
brouhaha: (noun) great excitement or concern about something that
generally shouldn't be that exciting or concerning; ruckus; brawl; hullabaloo. The school board was involved in yet
another brouhaha, this time about whether trees on neighboring land should be allowed to drop their leaves on district property.
bruit: (verb) to widely spread a rumour. With one click
of the mouse, you can pretty much bruit anything.
brummagem: (adj.) cheap; showy; counterfeit; tawdry. You call it bling; I call it brummagem.
brusque: (adj.) abrupt; curt; off-hand; gruff. Her brusque comment concerning his hopeful
late evening plans told him that bowling was not a good idea. bugger: (noun) a contemptible person; a sod (as in one who sodomizes)
Just get out of here you old sot, and take your buggery with you!
bughouse: (noun) a mental hospital; an insane asylum; a nuthouse.
Alright, then. We're sending you to the bughouse. Call it what you want, but it doesn't change a thing.
You're nuts.
bumper: (noun) a glass filled to the brim, especially when drinking
a toast; the glass you fill to the brim for drinking that toast. For our afternoon tipple, we quaffed down bumpers of
bourbon.
bumpkin: (noun) an unsophisticated person from the country; a
hayseed. When she referred to streetlights as pole lights, we knew she was a bumpkin.
bumptious: (adj.) smug; self-important; conceited. I'm sorry,
sir, but nobody here cares who you are. So, if you don't mind, please take yourself and your bumptiousness to the back
of the line... with the rest of the bumptious people.
bunbury: (verb) In Oscar Wilde's play The Importance of Being
Earnest, the character Algernon created a fictious invalid friend, whom he named Bunbury, so Algernon could have an excuse
to visit him, and thus avoid other social engagements, and the name of that character has morphed into a verb: to avoid
one's social engagements by creating a fictious person. Larry, we know there is nobody who is really named "Bunbury,"
and that when you say you need to visit him, you're just bunburying because you don't want to hang with us.
bung: (noun) a cork; a cap. Aye! Avast ye scurvy dog!
Put a bung in that hole ‘fore our grog is all but gone!
bupkis: (noun) absolutely nothing of value or significance.
The bumpkin didn’t know bupkis.
burble: (verb) to make a continuous murmuring noise. I've
had it with Clarence! All he does, all day long, is burble! I don't care if he is a goldfish. It's time
he earned his own way around here!
burgeon: (verb) to proliferate; to grow; to multiply. The burgeoning population rate was
enough to make even the Pope recommend birth control.
burgher: (noun) a citizen of a city or a town; a member of the
bourgeoisie. You must be new to town. We're just peons. Only the burghers can have burgers there.
burgle: (verb) It’s what burglars do. Good
heavens, Martha, we’ve been burgled! busk: (verb) to improvise; to perform on the street for money. Come to find out, nobody
can busk in Las Vegas unless they have a union card.
buskin: (noun) a type of shoe worn on stage to give height. You
know, Lacy, even if we were on a stage, your platform shoes still wouldn't be called buskins.
buttinsky: (noun) someone who butts in. Don't be a buttinsky! Mind your own business.
buzzkill: (noun) someone or something that has a depressing or dispiriting effect.
Everybody in the Hundred Acre Wood avoided Eeyore every afternoon because he was such a buzzkill. byzantine: (adj.)
devious; underhanded; deceitful; scheming. The byzantine actions of the cat became obvious when the parakeet disappeared. Back
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