or bilboa, subs. (old: B. E. and GROSE).—1. A sword. Bilbao in Spain was once renowned for well-tempered blades: cf. TOLEDO, FOX, etc. Hence (2) a sword personified, especially that of a bully. BILBO’S THE WORD = Beware, a blow will follow the word. BILBO-LORD = a bully.
1592. GREENE, Disputation, etc., in Wks., x., 236. Let them doe what they dare with their BILBOWE blades, I feare them not.
1596. SHAKESPEARE, Merry Wives of Windsor, iii. 5. Next, to be compass’d like a good BILBO in the circumference of a peck, hilt to point.
1627. DRAYTON, Agincourt [Works, 1379].
| When down their bows they threw, | |
| And forth their BILBOWS drew. |
1693. CONGREVE, The Old Batchelor, iii., 7. Tell him, I say, he must refund—or BILBO’S the word, and slaughter will ensue.
1713. The Guardian, No. 145, 27 Aug. ‘He that shall rashly attempt to regulate our hilts, or reduce our blades, had need to have a heart of oak…. BILBO is the word, remember that and tremble.’
1816. SCOTT, Old Mortality, iv. ‘It was all fair play; your comrade sought a fall, and he has got it.’ ‘That is true enough,’ said Bothwell, as he slowly rose; ‘put up your BILBO, Tom.’
3. (old).—A kind of stocks: it consisted of a long iron bar with sliding shackles for the ankles, and a lock by which to fasten the bar at one end to the ground.
1557. HAKLUYT, Voyages, I., 295. I was also conveyed to their lodgings … where I saw a pair of BILBOWES.
1594. NASHE, The Terrors of the Night, in Wks. (GROSART), III., 255. He that is spyced with the gowte or the dropsie, frequently dreameth of fetters and manacles, and being put on the BILBOWES.
1596. SHAKESPEARE, Hamlet, v. 2. Ham. … Methought I lay worse than the mutines in the BILBOES.
1695. CONGREVE, Love for Love, iii., 6. Now a Man that is marry’d, has as it were, d’ye see, his feet in the BILBOES, and may-hap mayn’t get ’em out again when he wou’d.
1714. Memoirs of John Hall (4 ed.), 19. And are those shear’d, or put into BILBOES, and handcufft.
1748. T. DYCHE, A New General English Dictionary (5 ed.). BILBOES, the punishing a person at sea, by laying or putting the offender in irons, or a sort of stocks, but more severe than the common stocks.
1815. SCOTT, Guy Mannering, xxxiv. ‘And now let us talk about our business.’ ‘Your business, if you please,’ said Hatterick; ‘hagel and donner!—mine was done when I got out of the BILBOES.’
