Dictionary of the Vulgar Tongue – Day Twenty-Three

The Dictionary of the Vulgar Tongue was first published at the end of the eighteenth century, and given that the Coronavirus crisis is giving too much time to read books, I thought I’d pick a daily word from it until I got bored…..

Bene Bowse

The definition of this is “good beer”, with ‘bene’ being slang for good and ‘bouse’ is an old word for alcohol. The word ‘bene’ is Latin, meaning good or the best, and it is where the words benign, benefit, benediction and beneficiary all come from.