- skip - Brewer’s

Birchin Lane

.

I must send you to Birchin Lane, i.e. whip you. The play is on birch (a rod).

A suit in Birchin Lane. Birchin Lane was once famous for all sorts of apparel; references to second-hand clothes in Birchin Lane are common enough in Elizabethan books.

“Passing through Birchin Lane amidst a camproyal of hose and doublets, I took … occasion to slip into a captain’s suit—a valiant buff doublet stuffed with points and a pair of velvet slops scored thick with lace.”—Middleton: Black Book (1604).

 

previous entry · index · next entry

A B C D E F G H I J K L M N O P Q R S T U V W X Y Z

Entry taken from Dictionary of Phrase and Fable, edited by the Rev. E. Cobham Brewer, LL.D. and revised in 1895.

previous entry · index · next entry

Billingsgate (London)
Billingsgate Pheasant (A)
Billy
Billy Barlow
Billycock Hats
Bi-metallism
Binary Arithmetic
Binary Theory
Bingham’s Dandies
Binnacle
Birchin Lane
Bird
Bird in the hand
Bird in thy Bosom
Bird of Estë
Birds
Birds (protected by superstitions)
Bird’s-eye View
Birdcage Walk (St. James’s Park, London);
Birmingham Poet
Birthday Suit