berm an

[A.S. bærman = a man who bears, a porter, bærbare, pret. of beran = to bear.] A porter. "Bermen, bermen , hider swithe." Havelok the Dane, 885. (S. in Boucher.) * berme (2), s. [BARM.] ( Prompt . Parv.) ⚫ běr-měn, s . [From BERME (2).] To foam. "Bermen or spurgyn as ale or other lyke: Spumo ."- Prompt . Part ber-mil-li-anş, s. pl. (Etym. doubtful.] In Commerce: The name of linen and fustian materials. IMG:content-1250.png:[blocks in formation] If Ben Jonson may be trusted, when the Bermudas were first discovered, a practice seems to have prevailed for fraudulent debtors to elude their creditors by embarking for these beautiful coral islands. "There's an old debt of forty, I ga' my word For one is run away to the Bermudas ." Ben Jonson : Devil an A , iii. 8. Hence arose the second meaning of the word. [2.] ( Nares .) 2. Topography ( plur .): A place in London, called also the Straights = straits. The term is supposed to have referred to the narrow pa ages north of the Strand, near Covent Garden, which were admirably adapted to the nece ities of fraudulent debtors [1], and yet more to those of educated literary men and others who had to keep up a good appearance on slender resources. "Turn pyrates here at land, Ha' their Bermudas and their Streights i' th' th' Strand." B. Jonson: Epist . to Sir Edo . Dorset , vol. vi., 36L. 3. A kind of tobacco probably brought from Bermuda, where the tobacco-plant flourishes. "Where being furnished with tinder, match, and a portion of decayed Bar mood as , they smoake it most terribly."-Clitus: Whimz, p. 136. B. As adjective : Pertaining to the Bermudas. Bermudas cedar, Bermudian cedar: Juniper us Bermudiana , a species of cedar which covers the Bermuda islands. The timber is made into ships, boats, and pencils. The wood of Juniper us Barb a dens is , the Barb a does Cedar, is sometimes imported with it under the same name.