Word origins

• boistousCoarse, rude; noisy, violent; strong.
• boldheadBoldness; courage.
• boldshipThe characteristic of being bold; boldness.
• bolkTo belch.
• bolnSwollen; puffed out.
• bondwomanA woman who is bound in servitude; a female slave.
• bone fireA fire lit with bones instead of wood, so that when livestock were driven between two such fires the acrid smoke drove off parasites.
• bookfellA skin prepared for writing upon; a sheet of vellum or parchment; paper.
• bookloreFactual information concerning books, for example regarding such matters as authors and the history of publication and printing.
• booklyOf or pertaining to books; literary.
• Book of LifeThe book in which God is said to record the name of every person who is destined for heaven or the world to come.
• book readingThe act or practice of reading books or other printed matter.
• bookstaffA letter, a letter of the alphabet, a written character.
• boosiesA woman's breasts.
• bootlessWithout boots.
• boroughreeveThe governor of a town or city, especially for fiscal purposes.
• borrowageSynonym of suretyship
• boscageA place set with trees or mass of shrubbery, a grove or thicket.
• boskA bush.
• botcherA person who mends things, especially such a cobbler or tailor.
• bottlemakerA manufacturer of bottles.
• boukThe belly.
• bounteouslyIn a bounteous manner.
• bountifulnessThe characteristic of being bountiful.
• bourdA joke; jesting, banter.
• bourderA jester.
• bowableCapable of being bowed (bent)
• bowerlandA rural area; farmland; bowery.
• bowkTo belch, to burp.
• bowseTo drink excessively and socially; to carouse.
• brachetA female hunting hound that hunts by scent; a brach.
• braffinA horse collar, especially as used in girning.
• braggerA person who brags.
• braggetA liquor made of fermented ale and honey with spices.
• brainpanThe braincase; the skull.
• bramberrybrambleberry
• brambleberryThe blackberry (plant or fruit).
• brandironA type of kitchen utensil, especially a gridiron.
• brathHasty; violent; fierce; strong.
• brathlyHastily; violently; fiercely; with fury.
• bratticeA partition in a coal mine, made from wood or from canvas sheeting coated in tar.
• breadcornCorn or grain from which bread is made.
• breadlessWithout bread.
• break breadTo eat a meal, especially to eat a shared meal with friends, family, guests, etc.; to be in fellowship with others by eating with them.
• breakleApt to, capable of, or tending to break; fragile; brittle.
• break looseTo escape; to free oneself.
• break offTo remove a piece from a whole by breaking or snapping.
• break someone's heartTo cause a person to feel grief, disappointment, or sadness.
• breast-girdleA band or girdle worn around the breasts, serving as a form of brassiere in Mediaeval times.
• breastplatedWearing a breastplate.
• bremeOf the sea, wind, etc.: fierce; raging; stormy, tempestuous.
• brendingThe act of burning; burning.
• brethelingWretch; worthless person.
• breweressA female brewer.
• brickleTo fail spectacularly.
• brickmakerA maker of bricks.
• bride-aleA rustic wedding feast
• bridelockMarriage; marriage ceremony; nuptials.
• bridelyOf or pertaining to a bride; nuptial.
• briefnessThe characteristic of being brief.
• briganderSynonym of brigandine.
• brigandineA coat of armor for the body, consisting of scales or plates, sometimes overlapping each other, generally of metal, sewn or riveted under or onto canvas or linen or other material.
• bright-eyedeager and alert
• brimstonyContaining or resembling brimstone; sulphurous.
• brindedEspecially of the fur or skin of animals: having a patchy or streaky pattern, usually brown or grey in colour; brindled.
• bring to groundTo cast down, overthrow, overcome, subdue.
• bring upUsed other than figuratively or idiomatically: see bring, up: To bring from a lower to a higher position.
• brinieA coat of mail.
• broad arrowa metal arrowhead, comprising a tang and two barbs meeting at a point; used traditionally in heraldry, and later by the British government to mark government property and convict uniforms.
• broad arrowheadSynonym of broad arrow (“type of arrowhead”).
• brockleBroken pieces of a structure; rubble, ruins.
• broomyCovered in the shrub broom.
• broonThe colour brown.
• brother-germanA full brother: a brother born to the same mother and father, as distinguished from half brothers (uterine brothers), step-brothers, or 'brothers' established through relationships such as wardship.
• brother-in-lawThe brother of one's spouse.
• brotherlessWithout a brother.
• brotherredBrotherhood; fraternity.
• brother-slayerOne who kills or murders one's brother; a fratricide
• brotherwortPennyroyal (Mentha pulegium).
• brusleTo cause (something) to bristle or stand erect.
• brustleTo crackle; to rustle.
• bucksomeMarked by bucking or bucking up; (by extension) lively; brisk; jocund.
• bulchinA little bull; a bull calf.
• bullaceA small European plum (Prunus interstitia, syn. Prunus domestica subsp. insititia).
• bullimongA mixture of oats, barley, etc. sown to provide cattle feed.
• bunchinessThe quality or condition of being bunchy.
• bunchyHaving, or growing in bunches.
• burblyburbling, bubbling
• burelA coarse woolen cloth.
• burgageA medieval tenure in socage under which property in England and Scotland was held under the king or a lord of a town and was maintained for a yearly rent or for rendering an inferior service (not knight's service) such as watching and warding.
• burgessyCitizenship.
• burghboteA tax paid toward the building or repairing of castles or walls for the defense of a city or town.
• burierOne who buries
• burnt offeringA slaughtered animal offered and burnt on an altar as an atonement for sin.
• burstenBurst; broken; ruptured.
• BuscotA small village and civil parish in Vale of White Horse district, Oxfordshire, England, historically in Berkshire (OS grid ref SP2397).
• butlershipThe rank, office, or position of a butler.
• butleryA butler's pantry; a serving pantry.
• buxomlyIn a buxom way.
• buxomnessVoluptuousness, shapeliness.