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The main mass or body; the largest or principal portion; the majority; as, the bulk of a debt. The bulk of the people must labor, Burke told them, "to obtain what by labor can be obtained." J. Morley.

ctice of baiting bulls, or rendering them furious, as by setting dogs to attack them. -- John Bull, a humorous name for the English, collectively; also, an Englishman. "Good-looking young John Bull." W. D.Howells. -- To take the bull by the horns, to grapple with a difficulty instead of avoiding it.…

A stupid fellow; a lubber. [Colloq.] Jonson.

Jovial and blustering; dashing. [Slang] "Bless thee, bully doctor." Shak.

tion of a small membranous sac (one of the bursæ muscosæ), usually occurring on the first joint of the great toe.

A sort of grape. Jonson.

A freeman of a burgh or borough, entitled to enjoy the privileges of the place; any inhabitant of a borough.

t and the manner of treating it, as when a trifling subject is treated with mock gravity; jocular; ironical. It is a dispute among the critics, whether burlesque poetry runs best in heroic verse, like that of the Dispensary, or in doggerel, like that of Hudibras. Addison.

ma, as distinguished from comedy. Great Fletcher never treads in buskins here, No greater Jonson dares in socks appear. Dryden.

A buttress of an arch; the supporter, or that part which joins it to the upright pier.

To join at the butt, end, or outward extremity; to terminate; to be bounded; to abut. [Written also but.] And Barnsdale there doth butt on Don's well-watered ground. Drayton.

A limit; a bound; a goal; the extreme bound; the end. Here is my journey's end, here my butt And very sea mark of my utmost sail. Shak.

To increase, as stakes, at every throw or every game. [Cant] Johnson.

The European bittern. Johnson.

and other countries, to be manufactured into butter, which is sold as butterine or suine. Johnson's Cyc.

leges where liquors, fruit, and refreshments are kept for sale to the students. And the major Oxford kept the buttery bar. E. Hall.

into a button by covering it with cloth. [Written also buttonmould.] Fossil buttonmolds, joints of encrinites. See Encrinite.

; meek; humble. [Obs.] So wild a beast, so tame ytaught to be, And buxom to his bands, is joy to see. Spenser. I submit myself unto this holy church of Christ, to be ever buxom and obedient to the ordinance of it. Foxe.

A secret. [Obs.] "The measuring of the temple, a cabal found out but lately." B. Jonson.

To form a head like that the cabbage; as, to make lettuce cabbage. Johnson.