subs. (old literary: now low).—1. A man or woman: an epithet of extreme contempt: applied to a man it has became obsolete (see BITCH-SON), indeed in any sense it has long since passed out of decent usage, and in modern parlance (see quot. 1546) bitch = whore, as verb. = to whore; MOBROW (q.v.): hence BITCHERY = whoredom, harlotry; also see separate entry.
1400. The Chester Plays (1843), 181. Whom calleste thou queine skabde BICHE?
c. 1500. Early English Miscellanies (1855), 54.
| Be God, he ys a schrewd BYCHE, | |
| In fayth, y trow, he be a wyche. |
1532. MORE, Confutation of Tindale, wks., 648, col. 1. Such marriage is very vnlawfull leckery and plain abhominable BYCHERY.
1546. HEYWOOD, Proverbs, 158. [T. L. KINGTON-OLIPHANT, The New English, i. 500. A wife complains that her goods are wasted on “a sort of dogs and sawte BITCHES”; the last word here takes the sense of meretrix.]
1551. STILL, Gammer Gurton’s Needle, ii. 2. Come out, thou hungry nedy BYTCHE.
1577. STANYHURST, Description of Ireland, p. 14. The quip sat as unseemly in his mouth as for a whore to reprehend BITCHERY, or for an usurer to condemn simony.
1598. MARSTON, Scourge of Villanie, I., iv., 188. He will vnline himselfe from BITCHERY.
1663–1704. THOMAS BROWN, Works, Serious and Comical, III., p. 94. Thither run Sots purely to be drunk that they may … forget … the roguery of their lawyers, the BITCHERY of their paramours, or the ingratitude of the world.
1675. HOBBES, Odyssey, xviii., 310. Ulysses looking sourly answered, YOU BITCH.
1705. WARD, Hudibras Redivivus, I. iv. 11.
| One Sempstress in her Hut a stitching, | |
| Another just strol’d out a BITCHING. |
1707. WARD, Hudibras Redivivus, II. ii. 17.
| Will … give him a lascivious Itching | |
| To ramble o’er the Town a BITCHING. |
1712. ARBUTHNOT, The History of John Bull (1755), 9. An extravagant BITCH of a wife.
1750. FIELDING, Tom Jones, bk. XVII., iii. There was my lady cousin Bellaston, and my lady Betty, and my lady Catharine, and my lady I don’t know who; damn me if ever you catch me among such a kennel of hoop-petticoated BITCHES.
1750. FIELDING, Tom Jones, bk. XVII., iii. It is an old acquaintance of above twenty years standing. I can tell you landlord is a vast comical BITCH, you will like un hugely.
1772. BRIDGES, A Burlesque Translation of Homer, 181.
| Some damn’d old BITCH, | |
| A Lancashire or Lapland witch. |
Verb. (low).—1. See supra.
2. To yield; to give up an attempt through fear. (GROSE).
3. (common).—To spoil; to bungle.
TO STAND BITCH.—To make tea; to do the honours of the tea table; generally to perform a female part.
AS DRUNK AS A FIDDLER’S BITCH, phr. (old).—Very drunk indeed (Piers Plowman, 98).
