subs. (tailors’).—Stale news.

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  Intj. (cocking).—An exclamation frequently made use of in cockpits where persons, unable to pay their losings, are adjudged to be put into a basket suspended over the pit, there to remain till the sport is concluded (Grose). PHRASES—To go to the basket = to go to prison: poor prisoners in public gaols were mainly dependent on the almsbasket for sustenance; to pin the basket = to conclude a matter; to be left in the basket—to remain unchosen, to be rejected (or abandoned); left to the last; the pick of the basket = the best, choicest; to bring to the basket = (1) to reduce to poverty, (2) to imprison; to leave in the basket = to leave in the lurch; in the basket = pregnant, LUMPY (q.v.). See EGGS and BASKET-MAKING.

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  1632.  MASSINGER and FIELD, The Fatal Dowry, V. 1. Pontalier [to Liladam, who is in custody for debt].

        Arrested! this is one of them, whose base
And abject flattery help’d to dig his grave;
He is not worth your pity, nor my anger.
GO TO THE BASKET, and repent.

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  d. 1659.  F. OSBORN, Political Reflections upon the Government of the Turks. Imagined only by idle Dunces, to have PINNED THE BASKET.

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  1670.  RAY, Proverbs [BOHN], 149, s.v.

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  1700.  W. DARREL, The Gentlemen Instructed [1732], 6. God be prais’d, I am not BROUGHT TO THE BASKET, though I had rather live on charity than rapine.

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  1825.  HOOK, Gervase Skinner, iii., in Sayings and Doings. Skinner was quite enchanted with the brilliancy of his guests, although now and then a little puzzled at their allusions; their jokes were chiefly local or professional and very frequently my excellent friend Gervase was, to use a modern phrase of general acceptation, ‘BASKETTED.’

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  1818.  P. EGAN, Boxiana, I. 79. The fight was soon over after this circumstance, and the sweaters and trainers were completely in the BASKET!

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  1840.  R. H. BARHAM, The Ingoldsby Legends (The House-Warming).

        Whatever he wants, he has only to ask it,
And all other suitors are ‘LEFT IN THE BASKET.’

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  1866.  YATES, Land at Last, II. iv. … And find you in his den, lighting it up like—like—like—I’m regularly BASKETED by jove!

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  1874.  Bell’s Life, 26 Dec. The PICK OF THE BASKET, a compact young greyhound.

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