subs. (stock exchange).—1. Applied, in the first instance, to stock sold by jobbers for delivery at a certain date, on the chance of prices falling in the meantime, thus allowing the seller to re-purchase at a profit. At first the phrase was probably ‘to sell the bear-skin,’ the buyers of such bargains being called bear-skin jobbers in allusion to the proverb, ‘To sell the bear’s skin before one has caught the bear.’ So far, the origin of the phrase seems pretty clear; of the date of its introduction, however, nothing is known. It was a common term in Stock Exchange circles, at the time of the bursting of the South Sea Bubble in 1720, but it does not seem to have become colloquial until much later. In these transactions no stock was delivered, the ‘difference’ being settled according to the quotation of the day, as is the practice now in securities dealt with ‘for the account.’ At present the term for such an arrangement is time-bargain. 2. Hence a dealer who speculates for a fall. Fr. baissier: see BULL, STAG and LAME DUCK. Also as verb. = to act as a bear to speculate for a fall.
1709. STEELE, The Tatler, No. 38, 7 July. Being at the General Mart of stock-jobbers call’d Jonathan’s … he bought the BEAR of another officer.
1719. Anatomy of Change Alley (Notes and Queries, 5 S., vi., 118). Those who buy Exchange Alley bargains are styled ‘buyers of BEAR-SKINS.’
1721. CIBBER, The Refusal, i. Gran. And all this out of Change-Alley? Wit. Every Shilling, Sir; all out of Stocks, Puts, Bulls, Rams, BEARS, and Bubbles.
1742. The London Magazine, 86. These noisy devotees were false ones, and, in fact, were only bulls and BEARS.
1768. FOOTE, The Devil upon Two Sticks, i. A mere bull and BEAR booby; the patron of lame ducks, brokers, and fraudulent bankrupts.
1774. COLMAN, The Man of Business, iv., 1. [Works (1777) II., 179]. My young master is the bull, and Sir Charles is the BEAR. He agreed for stock expecting it to be up at three hundred by this time; but, lack-a-day, sir, it has been falling ever since.
1778. BAILEY, English Dictionary (24 ed.). To sell a BEAR, to sell what one hath not.
1817. SCOTT, Rob Roy, iv. The hum and bustle which his approach was wont to produce among the bull, BEARS, and brokers of Stock-alley.
17[?]. DR. WARTON, on Pope [quoted by JOHNSON, rev. TODD]. He who sells that, of which he is not possessed, is proverbially said to sell the skin before he has caught the BEAR. It was the practice of stock-jobbers, in the year 1720, to enter into a contract for transferring South Sea stock at a future time for a certain price; but he who contracted to sell, had frequently no stock to transfer; nor did he who bought, intend to receive any in consequence of his bargain; the seller was therefore called a BEAR, in allusion to the proverb; and the buyer a bull, perhaps only as a similar distinction. The contract was merely a wager, to be determined by the rise or fall of stock; if it rose, the seller paid the difference to the buyer, proportioned to the sum determined by the same computation to the seller.
1841. F. JACKSON, A Week in Wall Street, pp. 90–1. He [a broker who had met with heavy losses] muttered to himself ‘I’m in a BEAR-TRAP—this won’t do. The dogs will ‘come over’ me. I shall be mulct in a loss. But I’ve got time—I’ll turn the scale, I’ll help the bulls, operate for a rise, and draw in the flunkies.’
1860. PEACOCK, Gryll Grange, xviii. In Stock Exchange slang, bulls are speculators for a rise, BEARS for a fall.
1861. New York Tribune, 29 Nov. His Lordship is wholly guiltless of the charge which the Herald, in its anxiety to BEAR THE MARKET, has brought against him.
1876. D. C. REYNOLDS, A Romance of Smoke, 22.
| A few lucky hits, when the BEARS were all short, | |
| And a twist of my own, where the bulls were all caught. |
1889. Ally Sloper’s Half Holiday, 3 Aug., 242. 3. Mrs. Spingles says she doesn’t wonder that the Stock Exchange at times resembles a menagerie let loose, seeing what a lot of bulls, BEARS and stags they have at Capel Court.
1901. Free Lance, 9 Feb., 470. 2. There is now a stockbroker in every drawing-room, so to speak, and to-day a well-born lady will buy a thousand “Milks” for the rise, or run a “BEAR” of Lake Views with as much nonchalance as she would formerly have put a fiver on the favourite for the Derby.
1902. Daily Mail, 17 Nov., 2. 5. This decline is an engineered business by certain well-known and somewhat influential mining cliques, who have been selling through Germany in order to depress prices and cover their “BEAR” commitments.
3. (common).—A rough, unmannerly, or uncouth person; hence the pupil of a private tutor, the latter being called a BEAR-LEADER (q.v.); also called formerly BRINDLED-BEAR. TO PLAY THE BEAR = to behave roughly and uncouthly.
1579. TOMSON, Calvin’s Sermons, Timothy, 473. 1. When we haue so turned all order vpsidowne … there is nothing but … PLAYING THE BEARE amongst vs.
1751. CHESTERFIELD, Letters, s.v.
1828. R. THOMSON, Tales of an Antiquary, II., 247. When I was the youthful BEAR—as the disciple of a private tutor is called at Oxford.
TO BEAR UP, verb. phr. (thieves’).—To cheat; to swindle in any way; more particularly applied to ‘decoys’ and confederates: see BONNET. Hence BEARER-UP = a swindler.
1828. G. SMEETON, Doings in London, 40. The billiard-marker refused to make any division of the spoil, or even to return the £10 which had been lost to him in BEARING UP the cull.
2. (common).—TO LOGROLL (q.v.); TO SPOOF (q.v.).
1883. Referee, 2 Dec., 2, 4. This looks as if the BEARING UP and ‘bonneting’ which has been done by friendly writers in response to my remarks is all thrown away.
PHRASES:—ARE YOU THERE WITH YOUR BEARS? A greeting of surprise at the reappearance of anybody or anything: ‘Are you there again?’ ‘What again! so soon?’ The phrase is explained by Joe Millar, as the exclamation of a man who, not liking a sermon he had heard on Elisha and the bears, went next Sunday to another church, only to find the same preacher and the same discourse (1642). TO BEAR THE BELL (COALS, PALM, etc.), see the nouns; TO BEAR LOW SAIL, to demean oneself humbly (1300); TO BEAR A BLOW, to strike; TO BEAR UP, to cheat, swindle: see BONNET. BEAR A BOB, (1) lend a hand, look sharp! look alive! (2) To aid, to assist, to take part in anything. Also PROVERBIAL: ‘With as good will as a BEAR goeth to the stake’; ‘As handsomely as a BEAR picks mussels’; ‘To swarm like BEARS to a honey pot’; ‘To take a BEAR by the tooth’; ‘A man should divide honey with a BEAR’; ‘As savage as a BEAR with a sore head’; ‘Not fit to carry garbage to a BEAR’; ‘You must not sell the skin till you have sold the BEAR’; ‘If it had been a BEAR, it would have bit you’: ‘As many tricks as a dancing BEAR.’
1300. Cursor Mundi, 12353. Þa oþer leonis … wiþ þaire heued þai BARE logh saile.
1642. HOWELL, Forreine Travell, sec. 3. Another when at the racket court he had a ball struck into his hazard, he would ever and anon cry out, estes vous là avec vos ours? ARE YOU THERE WITH YOUR BEARS? which is ridiculous in any other language but English.
1740. R. NORTH, Examen, 220. O, quoth they, here is an accident may save the man; ARE YOU THERE WITH YOUR BEARS? we will quit the exercise of the House’s right rather than that should be.
1740. RICHARDSON, Pamela, III., 335. O no, nephew! ARE YOU THEREABOUTS WITH YOUR BEARS?
1772. BRIDGES, A Burlesque Translation of Homer, 213. With all my heart, I’ll BEAR A BOB.
1820. SCOTT, The Abbot, XV. ‘Marry come up—ARE YOU THERE WITH YOUR BEARS?’ muttered the dragon.
1901. Troddles, 90. About as amiable as a BEAR WITH A SORE HEAD stood Murray.
