| 释义 |
† ˈbarnard Obs.
Also 7 bernard.
[app. a. variant of berner, one who waited with a relay of hounds to intercept a hunted animal.]
The member of a gang of swindlers who acts as a decoy; a lurking scoundrel, a sharper. Cf. barnacle n.2 3 b.
1532Dice Play (1850) 37 Another oily theft..is the barnards law: which, to be exactly practised asketh four persons at least, each of them to play a long several part by himself. 1562W. Bullein in Babees Bk. (1868) 242 With a Barnards blowe, lurkyng in some lane, wodde, or hill top. 1591Greene Disc. Cozenage (1859) 8 Foure persons were required..the Taker up, the Verser, the Barnard, and the Rutter. Ibid. Wks. 1885 X. 10 Comes in the Barnard stumbling into your companie, like some aged Farmer of the Countrey..and is so carelesse of his money, that out he throweth some fortie Angels on the boords end. 1608Dekker Belman Lond. Wks. 1885 III. 126 The Bernard..counterfets many parts in one, and is now a drunken man, anon in another humour..onely to blind the Cozen..the more easily to beguile him. [See the whole of the interesting descriptions in these works.] |