- barton
[barton 词源字典]
- "A farmyard", Old English bere-tūn, from bere 'barley' + tūn 'enclosed piece of land, homestead, village'.[barton etymology, barton origin, 英语词源]
- bullyrag
- "Treat (someone) in a scolding or intimidating way", Late 18th century: of unknown origin.
- bawheid
- "A person with a large round face", 1980s. From baw, representing a Scottish colloquial pronunciation of ball + heid, variant of head.
- barracouta
- "A long, slender fish of southern oceans, highly valued as food", Mid 19th century: alteration of barracuda.
- Bath bun
- "A round yeast bun containing currants and topped with icing or sugar", Named after the city of Bath, where it was originally made.
- bilberry
- "A small dark blue edible berry", Late 16th century: probably of Scandinavian origin; compare with Danish bøllebær. More blue from Middle English:The English blue and French bleu are ultimately the same word, which goes back to ancient Germanic and is related to the blae- in blaeberry (Middle English), a Scottish and northern English name for the bilberry (late 16th century). Blue occurs in a number of phrases, in particular those relating either to depression and melancholy or to the blue of the sky, as in out of the blue, ‘as a total surprise’. See also bolt. Something occurring once in a blue moon is something very rare. A blue moon sounds fanciful but it is a phenomenon that does occur occasionally, due to large amounts of dust or smoke in the atmosphere. A particularly Australian use of blue is as a humorous nickname for a red-haired person. This is first recorded in 1932, although bluey is earlier, from 1906.Depression or melancholy have always been around, but no one called these feelings the blues until the mid 18th century, although people have been feeling blue since as early as the 1580s. The blues was a contraction of blue devils, which were originally baleful demons punishing sinners. In the 18th century people fancifully imagined them to be behind depression, and later also to be the apparitions seen by alcoholics in delirium tremens. The first printed record of the name of the melancholic music style is in the ‘Memphis Blues’ of 1912, by the American musician W. C. Handy, who later set up his own music-publishing house and transcribed many traditional blues. Its later development, rhythm and blues, appeared in the 1930s.Obscene or smutty material has been known as blue since the mid 19th century. The link may be the blue gowns that prostitutes used to wear in prison, or the blue pencil traditionally used by censors.Blue-chip shares are considered to be a reliable investment, though less secure than gilt-edged stock (used since the later 19th century for government stock, and earlier to suggest excellent quality). Blue chips are high-value counters used in the game of poker. In America a blue-collar worker (mid 20th century) is someone who works in a manual trade, especially in industry, as opposed to a white-collar worker (early 20th century) in the cleaner environment of an office. A blueprint (late 19th century) gets its name from a process in which prints were composed of white lines on a blue ground or of blue lines on a white ground. See also murder
- biomanipulation
- "The deliberate manipulation of an ecosystem, especially by adding or removing species", 1970s.
- blowsy
- "(Of a woman) coarse, untidy, and red-faced", Early 17th century: from obsolete blowze 'beggar's female companion', of unknown origin.
- bonkbuster
- "A type of popular novel characterized by frequent explicit sexual encounters", 1980s: from bonk, on the pattern of blockbuster.
- Brahms and Liszt
- "Drunk", 1930s: rhyming slang for 'pissed'.
- Brummie
- "A native of the British city of Birmingham", Early 19th century: from Brum.
- Brum
- "A name for Birmingham (sense 1)", Mid 19th century: abbreviation of Brummagem.
- bathymetry
- "The measurement of depth of water in oceans, seas, or lakes", Mid 19th century: from Greek bathus 'deep' + -metry.
- bayadère
- "A Hindu dancing girl, especially one at a southern Indian temple", From French, from Portuguese bailadeira, from bailar 'to dance' (related to medieval Latin ballare 'to dance').
- banderole
- "A long, narrow flag with a cleft end, flown at a masthead", Mid 16th century: from French, from Italian banderuola, diminutive of bandiera 'banner'.
- banderole
- "A long, narrow flag with a cleft end, flown at a masthead", Mid 16th century: from French, from Italian banderuola, diminutive of bandiera 'banner'.
- blanc
- "(Of wine) white", French.
- boscage
- "A mass of trees or shrubs", Late Middle English: from Old French; ultimately of Germanic origin and related to bush1. Compare with bocage.
- bas
- "Stop; enough", From Hindi, from Persian.
- B
second letter of the Latin alphabet, corresponding to Greek beta, Phoenician beth, literally "house." It "has nothing of that variety of pronunciation shown by most English letters" [Century Dictionary]. The Germanic "b" is said to represent a "bh" sound in Proto-Indo-European, which continued as "bh" in Sanskrit, became "ph" in Greek (brother/Greek phrater; bear (v.)/Greek pherein) and "f" in Latin (frater, ferre).
Often indicating "second in order." B-movie is by 1939, usually said to be so called from being the second, or supporting, film in a double feature. Some film industry sources say it was so called for being the second of the two films major studios generally made in a year, and the one cast with less headline talent and released with less promotion. And early usage varies with grade-B movie, suggesting a perceived association with quality.
B-side of a gramophone single is by 1962 (flip-side is by 1949). B-girl, abbreviation of bar girl, U.S. slang for a woman paid to encourage customers at a bar to buy her drinks, is by 1936.