Quarterly Update 4, Spring 2016
The fourth Quarterly Update features the usual wide variety of new and revised words and phrases, but there are a couple of major themes in this set. One is food items with intriguing—if not always appetizing!—names, like beaten biscuit, Belgian pie, belly-guts, and Biloxi bacon. The biggest group, though, is made up of terms for a slingshot. Research that began with bean-shooter soon led to other synonyms, and in the end nearly all the entries in the original text of DARE for this meaning had been greatly expanded, and many new ones added. Not surprisingly, old newspapers, always a rich source for anything that can cause injury or property damage, provide most of the evidence for the early history of these terms—and for the destructive habits of small boys.
On a more serious note, two of the terms display a casual racism that would now be universally—we hope—regarded as offensive. We remind you that our intention is not to offend, but, as always, to record objectively the facts of usage. Like any historical work, a historical dictionary occasionally confronts the reader with unpleasant facts, and would not be doing its job if it did not.
—George Goebel, Chief Editor
| Headword | Part of Speech | Update Type |
| balsam tree | n | Revised Entry |
| balsam | n | Revised Sense |
| beaner | n | Revised Sense, New Sense, Revised Sense |
| bean-flipper | n | New Entry |
| bean-shooter | n | Revised Entry |
| bean-snapper | n | New Entry |
| beany | n | Revised Entry |
| bear cat | n | Revised Entry |
| bear claw | n | Revised Entry |
| bear fighter | n | Revised Entry |
| beat the hound out of | v phr | Revised Entry |
| beaten biscuit | n | Revised Entry |
| beaucoup | adj, n, adv | Revised Entry |
| beazlestone | n | Revised Entry |
| bed | n | Revised Sense |
| bedfast | adj | Revised Entry |
| bedrid | adj | Revised Entry |
| beef from bull’s foot, not to know | v phr | Revised Entry |
| beggars’ night | n | Revised Entry |
| being | conj | Revised Sense, New Senses |
| Belgian pie | n | New Entry |
| bell a buzzard | v phr | Revised Entry |
| bell-tail | n | Revised Entry |
| belly flower | n | New Entry |
| belly-guts | n | Revised Entry |
| belly-wax | n | Revised Entry |
| Berlinerkrans | n | Revised Entry |
| betsy bug | n | Revised Entry |
| beyond | prep, adv | Revised Sense, New Senses |
| bid whist | n | Revised Entry |
| big hominy | n | Revised Entry |
| biggity | adj | Revised Entry |
| biggity | adv | Revised Entry |
| Biloxi bacon | n | New Entry |
| bilsted | n | New Entry |
| bog owl | n | New Entry |
| briggity | adj | Revised Entry |
| carry guts to a bear | v phr | Revised Entry |
| cutter | n | New Sense |
| dinger | n1 | Revised Sense |
| flip | n1 | Revised Sense |
| flipper crotch | n | New Entry |
| flipper | n1 | Revised Sense |
| gravel-flipper | n | Revised Entry |
| gravel-shooter | n | New Entry |
| gum shooter | n | New Entry |
| nigger-flipper | n | New Entry |
| nigger-shooter | n | Revised Entry |
| rubber flipper | n | New Entry |
| rubber shooter | n | New Entry |
| rubber snapper | n | New Entry |