Sc. dial. Also bismer, -more, bysmer, bissimar. [a. Da. bismer, ON. bismari steelyard; in LG. of Holstein besemer, Sw. besmar; a Slavo-Lithuanic word; in Lettish besmens, besmers, Lith. bẽzmẽnas, Russ. bezmen’, Pol. bezmian.]
1. A kind of steelyard used in the north-east of Scotland, and in Orkney and Shetland.
1805. G. Barry, Hist. Orkney (1808), 220. The bysmer is made use of for ascertaining the weight of butter, oil, salt, wool.
1814. Statist. Acc. Scot., VII. 563 (Kirkwall). The instruments they have for the purpose of weighing, are two in number; and the one of them is called a pundlar and the other a bismar.
1880. Tylor, in Academy, 18 Sept., 204/1. A rude kind of steelyard or bismar, to weigh out pounds of cheese with.
2. The fifteen-spined stickle-back: (see quot.).
1805. Barry, Hist. Orkney, 289 (Jam.). The Fifteen-spined stickleback (gasterosteus spinachia) is here denominated the bismer, from the resemblance it is supposed to bear to the weighing instrument of that name.
1859. Yarrell, Brit. Fishes, I. 101. Bismore.
