Showing results for "bilboes"

• plural of bilbo.

bilboes

British  

/ ˈbɪlbəʊz /

plural noun

1. a long iron bar with two sliding shackles, formerly used to confine the ankles of a prisoner

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Etymology

Origin of bilboes

C16: perhaps changed from _Bilbao

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Example Sentences

See Examples For:

bilboes

Them apostles was fishermen, d’ye see, and the fishermen and longshore folk always was more peaceable and quieter-like than us deep-sea bilboes.

From Athelstane Ford by Allen Upward

The bilboes is a bar of iron with fetters annexed to it, by which mutinous or disorderly sailors were anciently linked together.

From Folk-lore of Shakespeare by Thomas Firminger Thiselton-Dyer

The next year another Newe-towne man, being penitent, Henry Bright, was set in the bilboes for “swearynge.”

From Curious Punishments of Bygone Days by Alice Morse Earle

Bill burst out, "I forgot he's in the bilboes, Miss. Now ain't that a dummed shame?"

From Gold Out of Celebes by Aylward Edward Dingle

Shakspeare mentions Hamlet thinking of a kind of fighting, "That would not let me sleep: methought, I lay Worse than the mutines in the bilboes."

From The Sailor's Word-Book An Alphabetical Digest of Nautical Terms, including Some More Especially Military and Scientific, but Useful to Seamen; as well as Archaisms of Early Voyagers, etc. by Sir Edward Belcher

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