verb. (Scotch).—To tipple: to drink hard. [JAMIESON: ‘a cant-term.’ MURRAY: from BEND, ‘to pull,’ ‘to strain,’ ‘to apply oneself’]. Hence as subs. = (1) a long draught, a pull of liquor, a GO (q.v.); (2) a drinking bout (American): whence ON THE BEND, on the spree, a round of dissipation. BENDER = a hard and persistent tippler.
1728. RAMSAY, Poems (1848), III., 162, ‘The Monk and Miller’s Wife.’
| Now lend your lugs, ye BENDERS fine, | |
| Wha ken the benefit o’ wine. | |
| Ibid. (1800), I., 215, ‘Elegy on Maggy Johnston.’ | |
| To braw tippony bid adieu, | |
| Which we wi’ greed | |
| BENDED as fast as she cou’d brew. | |
| Ibid., ii., 73, ‘The Petition to the Whinbush Club.’ | |
| TO BEND wi’ ye, and spend wi’ ye, | |
| An evening, and gaffaw. |
[1861. DEAN RAMSAY, Reminiscences of Scottish Life and Character, Ser. 1 (ed. 7), 47. BEND weel to the Madeira at dinner, for here ye’ll get little o’t after.]
1810. TANNAHILL, Poems (1846), 53. Or BENDERS, blest your wizzens weetin’.
1855. HALIBURTON (‘Sam Slick’), Nature and Human Nature. The friends of the new-married couple did nothing for a whole month but smoke and drink metheglin during the BENDER they called the honeymoon.
1854. Putnam’s Monthly, Aug. She whispered gently in my ear, ‘Say, Mose, ain’t this a BENDER?’
1857. Newspaper Cutting [BARTLETT]. A couple of students of Williams College went over to North Adams on a BENDER. This would have been a serious matter under the best of circumstances, but each returned with ‘a brick in his hat,’ etc.
1864. Richmond Dispatch, 3 Jan. Most … had been tempted by the festivities of the day to go on a regular BENDER, and had to pay the penalty for their New Years’s frolic by appearing this morning in the police-court.
1888. Detroit Free Press, 4 Aug. He was noted for going on frequent BENDERS until he came very near having the jimjams and then sobering up.
ABOVE ONE’S BEND, phr. (common).—Beyond one’s ability, power or capacity; out of one’s reach; ABOVE ONE’S HOOK (q.v.). [Probably a corruption of ‘above one’s bent.’ Shakespeare puts the expression in the mouth of Hamlet ‘to the top of my bent’ (iii. 2.)]. In the Southern States of America, ABOVE MY HUCKLEBERRY (q.v.).
1848. COOPER, The Oak-Openings. It would be ABOVE MY BEND to attempt telling you all we saw among the red-skins.
ON THE BEND, phr. (common).—In an underhand, oblique, or crooked way—not ‘on the square.’
1863. JEAFFRESON, Live It Down, II., 152. I never have paid anything yet on the square, and I never will. When I die, I’ll order my executor to buy my coffin off the square. He shall get it ON THE BEND somehow or other.
2. See BEND, subs.
GRECIAN BEND (popular).—A craze amongst some women which had a vogue from about 1872 to 1880: it consisted in walking with the body bent forward: cf. earlier quot. 1529.
[1529. LYNDESAY, Complaint, 181. With BENDIS and beckis For wantones.]
1876. Chambers’s Journal, No. 629. Your own advocacy for the GRECIAN BEND and the Alexandra limp—both positive and practical imitations of physical affliction.
TO BEND OVER, intj. (Winchester College).—A direction to put oneself into position to receive a ‘spanking’ by bending over so that the tips of the fingers extend towards the toes, presenting a surface as tight as a drum on the part to be castigated.
