M.B. Waistcoat

A clerical cassock waistcoat was so called (about 1830) when first introduced by the High Church party. M. B. means “mark of the beast.”

“He smiled at the folly which stigmatised an M.B. ‘waistcoat.ʹ”—Mrs. Oliphant: Phœbe Juno, ii. 3.

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