subs. and verb (once literary: now vulgar).—A word, formerly in general use, but uncertain in derivation: possibly a corrupted form of ‘balk’—it was first employed technically at cribbage to signify the spoiling of an adversary’s score in the crib. Among obsolete or depraved usages may be mentioned. 1. A statement or string of words without sense, truth, or meaning; nothing. 2. A hoax; an imposition; a humbug: see SELL and BITE. 3. A swindler; a cheat: current use of the word in its substantive form, and applied mainly to persons who cheat cabmen of their fares, or prostitutes of their earnings: also BILKER. 4. A person who habitually sponges upon another; one who never by any chance makes a return or even offers to return a courtesy, drink or the like. As adj. = fallacious; without truth or meaning. As verb = to cheat; to defraud; to evade one’s obligations; to disappoint; to escape from, etc. Hence TO BILK THE BLUES = to evade the police; TO BILK THE SCHOOLMASTER = to obtain knowledge or experience without paying for it.
1633. JONSON, A Tale of a Tub, I., i. Tub. He will have the last word, though he talk BILK for’t. Hugh. BILK! what’s that. Tub. Why nothing; a word signifying Nothing. [Note refers to Cole’s English Dictionary (n.d. given) and to HALLIWELL, A Dictionary of Archaic and Provincial Words, etc., s.v.]
1664. BUTLER, Hudibras, II., iii., 376.
| Spells, | |
| Which over ev’ry month’s blank-page | |
| In th’ Almanack, strange BILK’S presage. |
1677. WYCHERLEY, The Plain Dealer, v., 3. 1 Knight: Ay, a great lawyer that shall be nameless BILKED me too.
1681. BLOUNT, Glossographia, 85. BILK is said to be an Arabick word, and signifies nothing; cribbidge-players understand it best.
d. 1680. ROCHESTER, Works.
| And all the vile companions of a street | |
| Keep a perpetual bawling at the door: | |
| Who beat the bawd last night? who BILKT the whore? |
1694. CONGREVE, The Double Dealer, III., x. There he ’s secure from danger of a BILK.
c. 1696. B. E., A New Dictionary of the Canting Crew, s.v. BILK, c. to cheat. BILK THE RATLING-COVE, c. to sharp the Coach-man of his hire. Ibid., BILK’D, c. defeated, disappointed.
1729. GAY, Polly, ii., 9.
| Honour plays a bubble’s part, | |
| Ever BILK’D and cheated. |
c. 1733. R. NORTH, The Lives of the Norths, i., 260. After this BILK of a discovery was known.
1740. R. NORTH, Examen, 129. To that [Oates’s plot] and the author’s BILK account of it I am approaching.
1740. R. NORTH, Examen, 213. Bedloe was sworn, and being asked what he knew against the prisoner, answered, Nothing … Bedloe was questioned over and over, who still swore the same BILK.
1748. T. DYCHE, A New General English Dictionary (5 ed.). BILK (v.), to cheat, balk, disappoint, deceive, gull, or bubble; also to go out of a publick-house or tavern, without paying the reckoning.
1750. FIELDING, Tom Jones, XIV., iv. ‘I promise you,’ answered Nightingale, ‘I don’t intend to BILK my lodgings; but I have a private reason for not taking a formal leave.’
1772. BRIDGES, A Burlesque Translation of Homer, 208.
| He … not only BILK’D him of his due, | |
| But prov’d an ill-tongu’d rogue like you. |
1785. GROSE, A Classical Dictionary of the Vulgar Tongue. BILK. Let us BILK the rattling cove; let us cheat the hackney coachman of his fare. Cant.—Bilking a coachman, a box keeper, or a poor whore, was formerly among men of the town thought a gallant action.
1790. SHERIDAN, in Sheridaniana, 109.
| Johnny W[i]lks, Johnny W[i]lks, | |
| Thou greatest of bilks. |
1821. W. T. MONCRIEFF, Tom and Jerry, ii., 5. Log. Well, don’t grumble—every one must pay for his learning—and you wouldn’t BILK THE SCHOOLMASTER, would you? But, come, I’m getting merry; so if you wish for a bit of good truth, come with me, and let’s have a dive among the cadgers in the back slums, the Holy Land.
1836. MARRYAT, Japhet, ix. After a little delay, the waggoner drove off, cursing him for a BILK, and vowing that he’d never have any more to do with a ‘larned man.’
1869. A. K. MCCLURE, Three Thousand Miles through the Rocky Mountains, 211. The term was entirely novel to me, and I first asked its meaning of a landlord, who explained by saying that ‘a ‘BILK’ is a man who never misses a meal and never pays a cent.’
1847. BULWER-LYTTON, Lucretia, II., xix. ‘Are you playing me false? Have you set another man on the track with a view to BILK me of my promised fee?’
1877. W. H. THOMSON, Five Years’ Penal Servitude, iv. 257. He would chatter gaily and enter with great gusto into the details of some cleverly executed ‘bit of business,’ or ‘BILKING THE BLUES,’—evading the police.
1897. MARSHALL, Pomes, 47. It’s the easiest BILK that I ever have done.
