subs. (old).—1. A prostitute’s man; a FANCY MAN (q.v.): also BULLY-BACK (or buck) and BULLY-BOSS (q.v.).
c. 1696. B. E., A New Dictionary of the Canting Crew, s.v. BULLY, c. a supposed Husband to a Bawd, or Whore; also a huffing Fellow. Ibid., s.v. BULLY BUFF, c. a poor sorry Rogue that haunts Bawdy-houses, and pretends to get Money out of Gentlemen and others, Ratling and Swearing the Whore is his Wife, calling to his assistance a parcel of Hectors.
1706. DEFOE, Jure Divino, i., 8.
| Mars the celestial BULLY they adore, | |
| And Venus for an everlasting whore. |
1720. GAY, Polly, ii., 7. Jimmy: Sure never was such insolence! how could you leave me with this bawdy-house BULLY?
1721. AMHURST, Terræ-filius, xxxiii., 179. They have spiritual bravoes on their side, and old lecherous BULLY-BACKS to revenge their cause on every audacious contemner of Venus and her altars.
1753. The Adventurer, No. 100. I learned to pack cards and to cog a die; became a BULLY to whores.
1766. GOLDSMITH, The Vicar of Wakefield, xx. The lady was only a woman of the town, and the fellow her BULLY and a sharper.
1772. BRIDGES, A Burlesque Translation of Homer, 216.
| As to that copper-nos’d rabscallion, | |
| Venus’s BULLY-BACK and stallion. |
1785. GROSE, A Classical Dictionary of the Vulgar Tongue, s.v. BULLY BACK, a bully to a bawdy house, one who is kept in pay, to oblige the frequenters of the house to submit to the impositions of the mother abbess, or bawd, and who also sometimes pretends to be the husband of one of the ladies, and under that pretence extorts money from greenhorns, or ignorant young men, whom he finds with her.
1809. MALKIN, Gil Blas [ROUTLEDGE], 147. Women of light character … play the comedy of love in many masks,… as they fall in with the quiz, the coxcomb, or the BULLY.
1821. W. T. MONCRIEFF, Tom and Jerry, ii., 4. When I civilly axed her, how she could think of getting drunk, and acting so, she called her BULLIES here.
1883. A. DOBSON, Fielding, 129. Probably a professed sabreur, if not a salaried BULLY like Captain Stab in the Rake’s Progress.
1887. Daily News, 15 July, 6, 5. It was not an uncommon thing for a prostitute to solicit a man, and if he refused her importunities, to call upon a BULLY, and complain that she had been assaulted.
2. (Eton College).—A mellay at football; the Rugby scrimmage (q.v.); the Winchester HOT (q.v.).
1864. B. HEMYNG, Eton School Days, 23, 223. He possessed good wind, and was a very good ‘kick-off,’ and he could BULLY a ball as well as any one. He was a little too heavy for ‘flying-man,’ but he made a decent ‘sidepost,’ and now and then he officiated as ‘corner.’
3. (nautical).—An endearment: originally of either sex (= sweetheart, darling); now of men only = a pal (q.v.); a MATE (q.v.). Hence (HALLIWELL) a familiar term of address, as BULLY Jack, BULLY Bob, etc., formerly in very common use, and not quite obsolete in the provinces, where BUTTY is perhaps now more generally heard.
1590. Play of Sir Thomas More [SHAKESPEARE SOCIETY], 19. [We have BULLIE used as an endearing phrase].
1592. SHAKESPEARE, Midsummer Night’s Dream, iii. 1. What sayst thou BULLY Bottom? Ibid., iv. 2. O sweet BULLY Bottom.
c. 1600. The Merry Devil of Edmonton, iv., 1. Mine host, my BULLY, my precious consul.
4. (American thieves’).—A weapon formed by tying a stone or a piece of lead in a handkerchief, and used knuckleduster fashion.
5. (common).—A bravo; a HECTOR (q.v.); a SWASHBUCKLER (q.v.); spec. a tyrannical coward: see sense 1.
1684. DRYDEN, The Disappointment. ‘Prologue.’
| The doughty BULLIES enter bloody drunk, | |
| Invade and grubble one another’s punk. |
1688. SHADWELL, The Squire of Alsatia, in Wks. (1720), iv. 27. He came out of White-Friers: He’s some Alsatian BULLY.
c. 1696. B. E., A New Dictionary of the Canting Crew, s.v. BULLY, … also a huffing Fellow.
d. 1734. DENNIS, Letters, ii., 407. Shadwell is of opinion, that your BULLY, with his box and his false dice, is an honester fellow than the rhetorical author, who makes use of his tropes and figures, which are his high and his low runners, to cheat us at once of our money and of our intellectuals.
1772. BRIDGES, A Burlesque Translation of Homer, 2. Some men were knaves, and some were BULLIES.
1822. SCOTT, The Fortunes of Nigel, xvii. You shall sink a nobleman in the Temple Gardens, and rise an Alsatian at Whitefriars…. An extravagantly long rapier and poinard marked the true Alsatian BULLY.
1885. Chambers’s Journal, 28 Feb., 136. He is a ramper and BULLY to a couple of outside betting-men.
Adj. (orig. American: now common).—Fine; capital; CRACK (q.v.); SPIFF (q.v.): see G. Hence THAT’S BULLY FOR YOU, phr. (American).—That’s O.K.; it’s just as it should be: during the Civil War the phrase had a remarkably popular run.
1681. CHETHAM, Anglers’ Vade Mecum (1689), Pref. From such BULLY fishers this book expects no other reception.
17[?]. SWIFT, The City Shower.
| Those BULLY [heroic] Greeks, who, as the moderns do, | |
| Instead of paying chairmen, ran them through. |
1855. Cairo City Times. The BULLY steamboat ‘Crystal Palace’ passed up to St. Louis on Monday. We have no doubt she left papers.
18[?]. Poem on American Affairs [BARTLETT].
| So he sent not a vessel across the broad sea, | |
| Vich vas hawful ’ard times for poor Jefferson D., | |
| And wrote unto Doodle, ‘Hold on, and be true!’ | |
| And Jonathan answered Bull, ‘BULLY for you.’ |
1872. S. L. CLEMENS (‘Mark Twain’), Roughing It, 333. I don’t want no better friend than Buck Fanshaw…. Take him all round, pard, there never was a BULLIER man in the mines…. No man ever know’d Buck to go back on a friend.
18[?]. Boatman’s Song [BARTLETT].
| Now is the time for a BULLY trip, | |
| So shake her up and let her rip. |
18[?]. SHANLEY, The Brier-wood Pipe.
| Ha! BULLY FOR ME again, when my turn for picket is over; | |
| And now for a smoke, as I lie, with the moonlight in the clover. |
1870. H. MEADE, A Ride through the Disturbed Districts of New Zealand, 331. The roof fell in, there was a ‘BULLY’ blaze.
1873. CARLETON, Farm Ballads, 86.
| You’re doin’ the politics BULLY, as all our family agree; | |
| Just keep your old goose-quill a-floppin’, and give ’em a good one for me. |
1873. JUSTIN MCCARTHY, A Fair Saxon, xix. ‘Darling boy! I had thought of this already.’ ‘BULLY FOR YOU, mamma! Of course you did.’
1875. North American Review, CXX., 128. ‘That,’ replied Earney, ‘is Mercury, the god of merchants and thieves.’ ‘Good! that’s BULLY!’ exclaimed Tweed.
1880. BRET HARTE, A Lonely Ride. ‘I thought you changed horses on the road?’ ‘So we did. Two hours ago.’ ‘That’s odd. I did n’t notice it.’ ‘Must have been asleep, sir. Hope you had a pleasant nap. BULLY place for a nice quiet snooze,—empty stage, sir!’
1896. LILLARD, Poker Stories, 178. They go around with a sign hanging out, ‘I’m out of sorts this morning,’ or ‘I’m just feeling BULLY—got my deal through.’
BULLY BOY (or BULLY BOY WITH THE GLASS EYE), subs. phr. (American).—A good fellow.
1815. SCOTT, Guy Mannering, xxxiv. ‘Well said, my hearty captain!’ cried Glossin, endeavouring to catch the tone of revelry…. ‘That’s it, my BULLY BOY! Why, you’re alive again now!—’
1817. SCOTT, Rob Roy, viii. And you, Mr. Frank Osbaldistone, are not the first BULLY-BOY that has said stand to a true man.
1869. S. L. CLEMENS (‘Mark Twain’), The Innocents at Home, 20. You ought to seen him get started once. He was a BULLY BOY WITH A GLASS EYE.
TO BULLY UP, verb. phr. (Uppingham School).—To hurry up: mostly in the imperative.
