balden

t. & i. [Eng. bald (2); -en.] A. Trans. To make or render bald. B. In trans. To become bald, to lose one's hair. bâl-der-dăsh, s. [According to Malone, balder is from Eng. ball , and dash is also the ordinary English word, the reference being to the practice of barbers dashing their balls backwards and forwards in hot water. The example from Nashe given below is in favour of this etymology. But Joseph Hunter, writing in Boucher, suggests that balderdash may be from Wel. baldardd , baldordd = to babble, to prate, to talk idly; baldarddus = prating, babbling, talking idly. With this view Wedgwood agrees, and adds Teutonic and other affinities. In Gael. ball art a ich , ballardaich is = a loud noise, shouting; Sw. buller = noise, clamour, bustle; Dan. bulder = noise, rumbling noise, bustle, brawl; Dut. buldering = blustering. All these, however, are at best only conjectures. There is no evidence as to its origin ] I. Lit .: Mixed, trashy, and worthle liquor. 1. That used by barbers for washing the head. [See etymology.] "They would no more live under the yoke of the sea, or have their heads washed with his bubbly spume or barber's balderdash ."-Nashe: Lenten Stuffe (1599), p. 8 2. Poor, thin liquor. "It is against my freehold, my inheritance, To drink such balderdash, or bonny clabber!" B. Jonson: New Inn, 1. 2. "Mine is such a drench of balderdash." Beaum. & Flet.: Woman's Prize. II. Fig .: Confused speech or writing; a jargon of words without meaning, or if they po e any, then it is something offensive or indecent. "To defile the ears of young boys with this wicked balderdash."- Thackeray : The New comes , ch. 1. 1. To mix. kin, s. [In Dan. baldakin ; Ger. baldachin ; bâl-der-dăsh, v.t. [From the substantive.] Fr. baldaquin ; Sp. baldaqui ; Ital. baldachino = canopy; Low Lat. baldachin us , bald echinus =(1) rich silk, (2) baldachin; from Ital. Baldacco , Baldach = Bagdad, the well-known city near the eastern limit of Turkey in Asia, whence the rich silk used for covering bald a- chins came.] 1. Properly: A rich silk cloth erected as a canopy over a king. a saint, or other person of distinction, to increase his dignity. "No baldachino , no cloth of state, was there; the king being absent."- Sir T. Herbert: Trav., p. 185. 2. Eccles . Arch . A canopy, generally supported by pillars, but sometimes suspended from above, placed over an altar in a Roman BALDACHINO (FROM ST. PETER'S, ROME). Catholic Church, not so much to protect it as to impart to it additional grace and dignity. "When monarchy began to bleed, And treason had a fine new name; When Thames was balderdash'd with Tweed, And pulpits did like beacons flame." The Geneva Ballad (1674). 2. To adulterate with inferior liquor. "Can wine or brandy receive any sanction by being balder dashed with two or three sorts of simple waters?"-Mandeville: Hypochondr . Dis . (1730), 279.