Corrupted forms in sense 2, 9 bilboketch, -catch, bilbaocatch, bilverketch, biblercatch. [a. Fr. bilboquet, in same senses and various intermediate ones; in OF. billeboquet, -bauquet, of doubtful origin: see Diez, Littré.]
† 1. ‘A cord or line, having at either end, and in the middle, a sticke fastened vnto it wherwith Gardeners measure out their beds.’ Cotgr.
1616. Surfl. & Markh., Countr. Farm, 256. For round workes, you must haue an instrument, commonly called the Gardners Bilboquet.
1688. R. Holme, Acad. Armory, II. 118. A Bilboquet, an Instrument made of Lines and sharp pointed Sticks or Iron Pins, to square out Beds.
2. The plaything called Cup-and-ball; the game played with it, which consists in catching the ball either on the cup or spike end of the stick.
[A typical example of popular etymology is afforded by the corruption of -quet = ket, to ketch, catch, so as to associate it with the action of the game; in Bilbao catch we have the more deliberate perversion of pseudo-scholarship.]
1743. Walpole, Lett. H. Mann (1834), I. lxix. 253. To set up the noble game of bilboquet.
1801. Mar. Edgeworth, Good Fr. Gov. (1832), 109. Bilboquets, battledores, and shuttlecocks.
1808. Jane Austen, Lett. (1884), II. 26. Bilbocatch, at which George is indefatigable.
1812. Month. Mag., XXXIII. 26. He made great use of a bilbao-catch (note, said to have come hither from Bilbao, in Spain, and thence to have its name) or ivory cup and spike.
1832. Hone, Year Bk., 1297. To the hautboy succeeded the bilbo-catch, or bilver-ketch.
1875. Parish, Sussex Gloss., Bibler-catch.
