or biling, subs. phr. (common).—A lot; a quantity; a number of persons or things: also GRIDIRON (q.v.) and SHOOT (q.v.).
1833. HALIBURTON (‘Sam Slick’), The Clockmaker, 3 S., xviii. The last mile, he said, tho’ the shortest one of the WHOLE BILIN’, took the longest [time] to do it by a jug-full.
1837. MARRYAT, Snarleyyow; or The Dog Fiend, xiii. Vanslyperken may run under the guns, and then whip the WHOLE BOILING of us off to the Ingies, and glad to get us, too.
1852. DICKENS, Bleak House, lix., 496. ‘And the WHOLE BILEING of people was mixed up in the same business, and no other.’
1874. E. L. LINTON, Patricia Kemball, xxii. ‘He have Dora? No, not if he licked my foot for her, and I broke the WHOLE BOILING of them—as I will!’
2. (old cant).—A discovery (DEKKER).
