subs. (common).—1. A sixpence; a CRIPPLE (q.v.); also BENDY, BANDY: see RHINO. (GROSE). [Thought to be an allusion to the ease with which these coins were liable to be bent in use at one time, the currency not being of such good quality as now].
1789. G. PARKER, Life’s Painter, 178. Sixpence. A BENDER.
1819. T. MOORE, Tom Crib’s Memorial to Congress, 25, note. A BANDY or cripple, a sixpence.
1836. DICKENS, Pickwick Papers, xlii. ‘Will you take three bob?’ ‘And a BENDER,’ suggested the clerical gentleman … ‘What do you say, now? We’ll pay you out for three-and-sixpence a week. Come!’
1854–5. THACKERAY, The Newcomes, xi. How much a glass think you? By cock and pye it is not worth a BENDER.
1869. WHYTE-MELVILLE, M. or N. ‘Two bob an’ a BENDER, and a three of eye-water, in?’ ‘Done for another joey,’ replied Buster, with the premature acuteness of youth foraging for itself in the streets of London.
1885. Household Words, 20 June. 155. The sixpence is a coin more liable to bend than most others, so it is not surprising to find that several of its popular names have reference to this weakness. It is called a bandy, a ‘BENDER,’ a ‘cripple.’
2. See BEND, subs.
3. (public schools’).—A stroke of the cane administered while the culprit bends down his back: see BEND.
4. (common).—The arm.
5. (American).—A leg.
1849. LONGFELLOW, Kavanagh. Young ladies are not allowed to cross their BENDERS in school.
6. (schoolboys’).—The bow-shaped segment of a paper kite.
1873. BLACKLEY, Hay Fever, 145. The first kite was six feet in length by three feet in width, and was made of the usual form, namely, with a central shaft or ‘standard,’ and a semicircular top or BENDER.
OVER THE BENDER, phr. (common).—A variant of ‘over the left shoulder’: an exclamation of incredulity, but also used as a kind of saving clause to a promise which the speaker does not intend to carry into effect.
