or balmy, adj. (common).—Excited; flighty; empty-headed (i.e., full of nothing but froth); BARMY-BRAINED = crazy; BARMY-FROTH = a simpleton; muddlehead; TO PUT ON THE BALMY STICK (prison) = to feign madness.
ENGLISH SYNONYMS, to be dotty; off one’s chump; sappy; spoony; touched; wrong in the upper story; half-baked; have a screw loose; a bee in one’s bonnet; no milk in the cocoanut; rats in the upper storey (or cockloft); a tile (screw or slate) loose.
FRENCH SYNONYMS, AVOIR une écrevisse dans la tourte (or dans le vol-au-vent); la boule (or le trognon détraquée; le coco félé; un asticot dans la noisette; un bœuf gras dans le char; un cancrelat dans la boule; un hanneton dans le reservoir (or plafond); un moustique dans la boîte au sel; un voyageur dans l’omnibus; une araignée dans le plafond; une grenouille dans l’aquarium; une hirondelle dans le soliveau; une Marsellaise dans le Kiosque; une punaise dans le soufflet; une sardine dans l’armoire à glace; une trichinne dans le jambonneau; sauterelle dans la guitare; une pomme de canne felée; une fissure; un grain; and ÊTRE un peu toc.
1599. MARSTON, Scourge of Villanie, 166.
| Shall each odde puisne of the Lawyers Inne, | |
| Each BARMY-FROTH, that last day did beginne | |
| To read his little. |
1602. The Returne from Parnassas, I. ii [ARBER] 9. Such BARMY HEADS wil alwaies be working.
c. 1605. MONTGOMERIE, Poems.
| Hope puts that hast into ȝour heid, | |
| Quhilk boyls ȝour BARMY BRAIN. |
1785. BURNS, Works, in, 85.
| Just now I’ve ta’en the fit o’ rhyme, | |
| My BARMIE NODDLE’S working prime. |
1824. SCOTT, St. Ronan’s Well, xxxii. Corkheaded BARMY-BRAINED gowks!
1851. H. MAYHEW, London Labour and the London Poor, I. 231. List of patterers’ words. BALMY—Insane.
1887. J. W. HORSLEY, Jottings from Jail. I had hardly got outside when he came out like a man BALMY.
c. 1888. Music Hall Song ‘Salvation Sally.’
| The people in our alley call me Salvation Sally, | |
| They say I must be BALMY to go and join the Army. |
1897. MARSHALL, Pomes, 69. You’re BALMY, mater, off your nut. Ibid., 73. Called the beak “a BALMY Kipper,” dubbed him “soft about the shell.”
1901. Free Lance, 2 Nov. 123. 2 They say, “The folk who made that toque Were ‘BALMY on the crumpet.’”
