A neckerchief with blue ground, and large white spots having a dark blue spot or eye in the center, named after a celebrated pugilist called Jim Belcher; sometimes applied to any particolored handkerchief worn round the neck.
1812. Examiner, 21 Sept., 607/1. The traverser … tied a Belcher handkerchief round his neck.
1825. T. H. Lister, Granby, xxxix. (1836), 261. Instead of the Belcher he has a loose black handkerchief round his neck.
1846. Lytton, Lucretia (1853), 154. The lower part of which [a face] was enveloped in an immense ‘belcher.’
1862. Burton, Bk. Hunter, I. 31. The fragments of a parti-coloured belcher handkerchief.
