Also 6 bric-, brik-, briccoll, 7 bricol, briccole, brickoll, 9 bricolle; see also corrupt form BRICKWALL. [a. F. bricole (It. briccola, Sp. brigola):—late L. briccola. Ulterior derivation uncertain: see Littré.]
1. An ancient military engine or catapult for throwing stones or bolts.
1525. Ld. Berners, Froiss., II. clxxi. [clxvii.] 500. In this towre was a bricoll or an engyn whiche … dyde cast great stones.
1614. Sylvester, Bethulia’s Rescue, III. 109. Th’ Enginer … Bends here his Bricol, there his boystrous bow.
1840. L. Ritchie, Windsor Castle, 214. Of the more powerful military engines then in use, were … the bricolle, which discharged large heavy darts with square heads.
2. In Tennis: The rebound of a ball from the wall of a tennis court, ‘a side-stroake at Tennis wherein the ball goes not right forward, but hits one of the walls of the court, and thence bounds towards the aduerse partie’ (Cotgr., 1611); also fig. an indirect, unexpected stroke or action. Similarly in Billiards (see quot.).
1598. Florio, Briccola, a brikoll or rebounding of a ball from one wall to another in a tenis court.
a. 1631. Donne, Lett. (1651), 65. That love, which … fell not directly, and immediately upon my self, but by way of reflection or Briccole.
1694. R. L’Estrange, Fables, cccciv. 435. Couzen’d with a Bricole at Tennis.
1798. H. Walpole, Lett. (1857), I. Introd. 111. Introducing two courtiers to acquaint one another, and by bricole the audience, with what had passed in the penetralia.
1863. Hoyle’s Games (ed. Pardon), 378. The ball … will jump on reaching the cushion, especially if played bricole, across the cushion.
1880. Boy’s Own Bk., 638. Bricole, a ball struck against a cushion in order to make a cannon or hazard on its recrossing the table.
3. Harness worn by men in drawing guns, where horses cannot be used or procured.
1864. in Webster.
