begot VERB created or caused Begot in thee (On His Mistress by John Donne)

behoof NOUN behoof means benefit “Yes, young man,” said he, releasing the handle of the article in question, retiring a step or two from my table, and speaking for the behoof of the landlord and waiter at the door (Great Expectations by Charles Dickens)

berth NOUN a berth is a bed on a boat this is the berth for me (Treasure Island by Robert Louis Stevenson)

bevers NOUN a bever was a snack, or small portion of food, eaten between main meals that buys me thirty meals a day and ten bevers (Doctor Faustus 2.1 by Christopher Marlowe)

bilge water NOUN the bilge is the widest part of a ship’s bottom, and the bilge water is the dirty water that collects there no gush of bilge-water had turned it to fetid puddle (Jane Eyre by Charlotte Brontë)

bills NOUN bills is an old term meaning prescription. A prescription is the piece of paper on which your doctor writes an order for medicine and which you give to a chemist to get the medicine Are not thy bills hung up as monuments (Doctor Faustus 1.1 by Christopher Marlowe)

black cap NOUN a judge wore a black cap when he was about to sentence a prisoner to death The judge assumed the black cap, and the prisoner still stood with the same air and gesture. (Oliver Twist by Charles Dickens)

boot-jack NOUN a wooden device to help take boots off The speaker appeared to throw a boot-jack, or some such article, at the person he addressed (Oliver Twist by Charles Dickens)

booty NOUN booty means treasure or prizes would be inclined to give up their booty in payment of the dead man’s debts (Treasure Island by Robert Louis Stevenson)

Bow Street runner PHRASE Bow Street runners were the first British police force, set up by the author Henry Fielding in the eighteenth century as would have convinced a judge or a Bow Street runner (Treasure Island by Robert Louis Stevenson)

brawn NOUN brawn is a dish of meat which is set in jelly Heaped up upon the floor, to form a kind of throne, were turkeys, geese, game, poultry, brawn, great joints of meat, suckling-pigs (A Christmas Carol by Charles Dickens)

bray VERB when a donkey brays, it makes a loud, harsh sound and she doesn’t bray like a jackass (The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn by Mark Twain)

break VERB in order to train a horse you first have to break it “If a high-mettled creature like this,” said he, “can’t be broken by fair means, she will never be good for anything” (Black Beauty by Anna Sewell)

bullyragging VERB bullyragging is an old word which means bullying. To bullyrag someone is to threaten or force someone to do something they don’t want to do and a lot of loafers bullyragging him for sport (The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn by Mark Twain)