Bob

A shilling. A “bender” is a sixpence. (Compare Bawbee.)

Bob. A set of changes rung on [church] bells: as a “bob major,” a “bobminor,” a “triple bob.”

To give the bob to any one. To deceive, to balk. This word is a corruption of pop. The bob of a pendulum or mason’s plumb-line is the weight that pops backwards and forwards. The bob of a fishing-line pops up and down when fish nibble at the bait. To bob for apples or cherries is to try and catch them while they swing backwards and forwards. As this is very deceptive, it is easy to see how the word signifies to balk, etc.

To bob means also to thump, and a bob is a blow.

“He that a fool doth very wisely hit,

Doth very foolishly, although he smart,

Not to seem senseless of the bob.”

Shakespeare: As You Like It, ii. 7.

Bear a bob. Be brisk. The allusion is to bobbing for apples, in which it requires great agility and quickness to catch the apple.

A bob wig. A wig in which the bottom locks are turned up into bobs or short curls.

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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.