[Dhik dhae ur klee'v-zu vèol u vuuz moarz, aay shl ac ́un u-bait,] that cleeve is so full of furze roots, I shall have it beaten. In other districts this process is called Denshiring; i. e. Devonshire-ing. There is some land adjoining a moor in the parish of Culmstock called "Old beat" [oal bai t].

In the Ex. Scold. this is treated as a substantive, 1. 197, and there is some doubt whether the word originates in a noun or a verb, because the same word is used for the operation and for the thing operated on. "Pare and burn the beat" is a very common expression, equivalent to simply beat. We hear constantly of burnbeating, which does not help us, because it might mean either burning the beat, or burning and beating. On the whole I incline. to the verbal meaning, and the passage in the Ex. Scolding, 1. 197. Shooling o' beat, hand-beating, &c., seems to support this view. At the same time, the past tense and past part. are very seldom used; but I believe I have heard both beated [baitud,] and beaten [bai tn]. The latter, however, is a made-up word by somewhat educated people, and cannot be taken as throwing any light on the question. Beated would be said by the common labourer; but then it may be only a verbalised noun like leaded, or salted.

BEAT-AXE [bee'ut-eks, bairt-eks, bút eks], sb. A kind of broad mattock almost like an adze, used for beating, as above.

BEATER [bee'utur, or baitur], sb. The drum in a thrashingmachine which actually beats out the corn from the ear.

BEAT OUT [bee'ut, or bait aewt], z. To thrash. Birds are said to beat out the corn when they attack it while still uncut.

BEAUTIFUL [bùe tipèol, bùe tifèol], adj. Delicious to the

taste.

[Dhai brau'th yùe gid mee, wauz bùe tipèol,] they broth you gave me were delicious.

BECALL [beekyaal], v To nickname, to abuse; to call by opprobrious epithets.

[Tu yuur eens ee beckyaa lud ur, t wauz shee'umfèol,] to hear how he villified and abused her, it was shameful. [Uur beekyaa·ld-n aul dhut úv ́ur uur kud laa'y ur tuung tùe,] she called him all the names she could lay her tongue to.

BECAUSE-WHY. See CAUSE WHY.

BED [baid]. 1. sb. Called also [bai'd pees,] bed-piece. The piece of wood bearing on the springs or axle of a waggon upon which rests the body.

2. The under side of the stratum in a rock. It is a condition in most contracts for walling that the stones shall be "well bedded

in good mortar and laid upon their own proper beds"-i. e. that the stones shall be placed in the wall in the line of their stratification. A good mason can tell which is the bed or under side of a stone, from that which was uppermost while yet in the rock.

3. Of a sull. The part which slides along the bottom and side of the furrow, and has to endure the grind and wear more than any part except the share. It forms a kind of runner or wearing part, and is bolted to the breast. In old wooden ploughs or Nanny-sulls it was an iron plate nailed on to the breast. Called also, and very commonly, the landside.

BED [bai'd], v. t. 1. In building to lay a stone evenly and horizontally in its proper position. See BED 2, supra.

2. To lodge.

[Uur tèok-n een tu baid-n boa'urd,] she took him in to lodge and board.

Nobody can't never 'vord to bed-n and board-n vor dree shillins a week, a gurt hard bwoy like he.

He sholen hire c'open, washen, and wringen,

And to hondes water bringen;

He sholen bedden hire and pe,

For leuedi wile we pat she be.

1280.

Havelok the Dane, 1. 1233.

BED-ALE [baid ae'ul], sb. A feast in celebration of a birth. Halliwell is quite wrong; the liquor usually prepared for these occasions is never bed-ale, but Groaning-drink. The mistake arose

from the last century glossarist of the Ex. Scold., who glosses it (p. 120), "Bed-ale, Groaning ale, that which is brewed for a Gossiping or Christening feast." The very passage (below) in which the word occurs shows by the context that he did not understand it, and that festival, not liquor, is meant.

Chawr a told that ye simmered upon wone tether, up to Grace Vrogwell's bed-ale.-Ex. Scold. 1. 564.

Feyneden hem for heore foode fouzten atte ale. Piers Plowman, A. Prol. 1. 42. Bride-ales, Church-ales, Clerk-ales, Give-ales, Lamb-ales, Leet-ales, Midsummer-ales, Scot-ales, Whitsun-ales; and several more.

Brand's Pop. Antiq. (4to ed.) V. i. p. 229.

Lancelot. Because thou hast not so much charity in thee as go to the ale with a Christian. Two Gent. of Verona, II. 5.

BEDANGD [beedang d]. An expletive; quasi oath.

[Beedang d eef aay dùe !], bedangd if I do!

BEDFLY [bai'd vluy], sb. Common flea.

BEDLIER [baidluy'ur], sb. A bedridden person. (Very com.) An old woman in the almshouse at Wellington said to me of an

old man who had broken his thigh: He on't never walk no more; he'll be a bedlier so long's he do live.-May 31, 1885. In Devonshire they say bedlayer.

Promp. Parv.-Bedlawyr. Bedered man or woman-Decumbens.

Way in Promp. Parv. p. 28, quotes a will of 1419, in which bedlawermen are left fourpence each.

BED-MATE [bai'd mae'ut], sb. Bed-fellow.

BED-PAY [bai'd paay], sb. The allowance paid by a sick club to a member confined to his bed; this is reduced to walking-pay so soon as he can get up.

BED-TIE [bai'd tuy]. 1. sb. The ticking or case enclosing the feathers or materials of the bed.

[Dhai vaew'n dhu wauch u-puut een suyd dhu bai'd tuy,] they found the watch put inside the ticking of the bed.

Taye: f. Any film, or thin skin. Une taye d'oreiller, a pillow-beer.

Mod. Fr.-Taie d'oreiller, a pillow-case.

2. The bed, including both feathers and case.

Cotgrave.

BEE-BIRD [bee buurd], sb. The flycatcher or white-throat.

BEE-BREAD [bee-buurd], sb. the larvæ, neither honey nor wax. sect. 23.)

A kind of food gathered for
A.S. bio-bread. (See Boethius,

BEE-BUTT [bee'buut], sb. Bee-hive-i. e. the common straw hive. See BUTT.

The belief is almost universal, that should a death occur in the house to which the bees belong, each butt ought "to be told of it," otherwise they will all die. The coincidence of a death in my own family and the immediate and unaccountable death of several hives (all I had) of previously healthy bees, has occurred to myself twice within the last few years, and I have been asked by several people, to whom I have mentioned the fact, if I had "told the bees about it"? See WV. S. Gram. pp. 99, 100.

It is considered very unlucky if in swarming the bees alight on a dead tree; it portends that there will be a death in the family

very soon.

BEECHEN [búch'n], adj. Made of becch. [Lau't u búch'n plangk,] lot of beech plank.

BEEN TO, phr. In speaking of meals, the usual mode of inquiry, if the repast has been taken, is, [V-ee bùn tu dùn'ur?]—i. e. have you had your dinner? I've been to breakfast, simply means I have eaten it, and implies no movement whatever, from or to

any place in the process. So, "we went to supper avore we started," merely means that we had supper.

Es went to dinner jest avore.—Ex. Court. 1. 486.

BEER [bee'ur], sb. first mashing of the malt.

Strong malt liquor; that brewed with the
See ALE.

Tech.

BEER [bee'ur]. In weaving, the width of a piece of cloth is determined not only by the fineness of the reeds or sleigh, but by the number of beer of 40 threads each in the warp. Hence warps are known as 20, 30, 40 beer-chains, and thus the latter would be a warp containing 40 × 40 = 1600 threads. Used throughout the Western counties, but I believe unknown elsewhere.

BEGAGED [beegae'ujd], adj. part. Bewitched, hag-ridden, overlooked.

Poor soul, her never 'ant a got no luck like nobody else; I ont never bleive eens her idn a begaged by zomebody or nother.

What a Vengeance! wart betoatled, or wart tha baggaged?—Ex. Scold. 1. 4. BEGET [beegit], v. t. and i. To forget. beegaut; p. p. u-beegaut: I beget whe'er I have or no.

(Very com.) P. t.

Es don't know whot Queeson ye mean; es begit whot Quesson twos.
Ex. Scold. 1. 493.

BEGIN [beegee'n], v. i. 1. To scold.

Maister'll begin, hon a comth to vind eens you an't a-finish.

2. To interfere; to molest.

What d'ye begin way me vor then? I did'n tich o' you, 'vore you begin'd way me.

BEGOR [beegau'r, beegau'rz, beeguum, beeguum urz]. All quasi oaths; asseverations.

BEGURGE [beeguurj'], 7. t. To grudge.

He never didn begurge her nort; her'd on'y vor tax and to have, way he; nif on'y he'd a got it.

is bethink.

The still commoner word

BEHAP [bee-aap'], adv. Perhaps, peradventure.

Behap you mid-n be there, and then what be I to do? [Dhai oan leerust aewt bee-aap,] i. e. perhaps they will not last out.

By happe. Par aventure.-Cotgrave.

Of all the

BEHOLD [bee-oal], 7. To experience. [Nuv'ur daed-n bee oa'l noa jish stingk,] (I) never experienced such a stench. rows I ever [bee-oal] behold, that was the very wust.

BEHOLDING [bee-oaldeen]. Under obligation.

[Aal ae'u waun u mee oa un, un neet bee bee-oaldeen tu

noa bandee,] I'll have one of my own, and not be under obligation to anybody.

BEHOLDINGNESS [becoa'ldeenees], sb. Obligation. (Com.) [Dhur id-n noa bee-oaldeenees een ut, uuls wee èod-n ae u-n,] there is no obligation in it, or we would not have it—or him.

BEHOPE [bee-oa'p], v. To hope.

I do behope, that by the blessing o' th' Almighty, I shall be able to get about a bit, and sar a little, nif tis but ever so little, I do behope I shall.-Feb. 1882.

BEHOPES [bee'oaps], sb. pl. Hope; confidence.

An old "Cap'n" at Watchet speaking of the diminished trade of the place said: "I be in good behopes that we mid zee it a little better arter a bit."-Dec. 17, 1886.

BEKNOW [beenoa], 7. To understand, to acknowledge. [Twuz wuul beenoad t-aul dhu paa'reesh,] it was well understood by all the parish.

BELFRY [buul free], sb. The room or basement in the tower, from which the bells are rung. The name is not applied to the tower, nor to the room in which the bells are hung. I know several instances in which the ropes pass through the ceilings of the belfry and the clock-chamber above it, to the bells hung in the upper story of the tower. See BELL-CHAMBER.

Bellfray, Campanarium.-Promp. Parv.

BELIKE [beeluy k], ad. Probably, perhaps.

[Gèod nait-ee; beeluy k yùerul km daew'n dhan,] good night to you; probably you will come down then. Though found in Sir W. Scott, this word is rare in Lit. English, yet in the dialect it is the commonest form.

Jealous he was, and held her narrow in cage,
For she was wild and young, and he was old,
And deemed himself belike a cuckold.

Chaucer, Miller's Tale, 1. 38.

BELK [buulk, buul kee], z.

To belch.

v.

BELL [buul], sb. Of a stag. The bellow or roar of the stag at rutting time; said to be a very loud, unearthly kind of noise; different to that of any other animal.

Before the lapse of an hour I satisfied myself that what I had heard, was the bell of the stag, roaming in the distance.-Collyns, p. 6o.

BELL-CHAMBER [buul chúm'ur]. The upper story of the church tower in which the bells are hung. In this district spires and steeples are almost unknown; the [taawur] or [chuurch taawur,], tower is invariable, even though it be a spire.