+bobachee: 'As a barkentine is to a country boat, a Kaptan to a Nacoda, a vinthaleux to a dumbpoke, so in the kitchen is a bobachee to a consummer. Each a potentate in his own way, they rule over a vast lashkar, consisting of spice-grinding masalchies, cabob-grilling caleefas, and others whose titles have mercifully lapsed from use. The bobachee, however, is the only culinary mystery to lend his name to the kitchen.'
bobachee-connah/bawarchee-khana (*The Glossary): 'On this latter term I am at odds with every authority who has given the matter any thought: whereas they derive it from Hind. khana, "place" or "room", it is my intuition that it comes from the Bengali element kona/cona, meaning corner. This seems self-evident to me, for if the meaning of bobachee-connah were indeed "cook-room", then surely the proper locution would be "bobbachy-camra". That this variant does sometimes occur, is to me the exception that proves the rule. Similarly goozle-coonuh/goozul-khana appears to me to be often wrongly rendered as "bathing-room": when applied to a place where a bathtub is kept, it must surely mean "bathing-corner". But so far as other connah/khana compounds are concerned, I will concede that it is often used in the sense of room: e.g. karkhana, jel-khana, babkhana and the like.'
+bobbery/bobbery-bob: 'This word for "commotion", so much used in southern China, was nothing but an adaptation of our common baap-rébaap.' The Oracle's translation of this as 'oh my father!' is surely a rendition rather of the equally common baap-ré, for the full expression would be rather: 'father oh father!' An alternative derivation, from the Cantonese pa-pi – a noise – is, as the Barney-Book rightly observes, extremely doubtful.
bolia/bauleah/baulia (*The Glossary): 'One of Bengal 's lighter river-craft, usually equipped with a small cabin.'
bora (*The Glossary): 'A large many-oared boat, commonly used in Bengal for the transportation of cargo.'
bowla (*The Glossary): 'These were, as I recall, portmanteaux or trunks, which were made to order by a few of our most skilled moochies.'
bowry/bowly (*The Barney-Book): 'In Hind. this generally referred to step-wells known as baolis. But after its passage into English it often came to be applied to pavilions that stood upon the banks of waterways large and small. Every nullah and nuddee could boast of a few. It was sometimes used interchangeably with chabutra/chabutter.'
boya (*Roebuck): 'Laskari for "buoy".'
+buck: 'A good example of the subtle shifts of meaning that occur when words leap between languages. For in Hind. this expression conveys more a sense of idle chatter than of the boastfulness that attaches to it in English (no doubt because of the purported demeanour of that animal for the name of which it is a homonym). The extended form buckwash (from Hind. bakwás – "prattle", "idle talk" or "nonsense") has a sense similar to the cant expression "hogwash".'
budgrook (*The Glossary): 'A Portuguese coin of low denomination, the circulation of which is said to be restricted to Goa.'
+budmash/badmash: 'Like budzat and hurremzad a term which causes more grief to lexicographers than to anyone to whom it was ever addressed as a term of abuse. What purpose is served by breaking it into its constituent Arabic and Persian elements when the whole forms a neat equivalent of the English "rascal"?' Neel was undoubtedly right to choose budmash over the now defunct budzat as fortune's favourite.
budzat/badzat (*The Glossary): See budmash.
+buggalow/bagala: 'A species of Arab dhow that was once a common sight on the Hooghly.'
bulkat (*The Glossary): 'As I recall, the name for a certain kind of large boat from the Telegu country.'
bullumteer (*The Glossary): 'An adaptation of the English "volunteer", used generally for sepoys who served overseas.'
buncus (*The Glossary): 'Malay che-roots that were greatly prized by some.'
+bunder/bandar: See +bandar.
+bunder-boat: See +bandar.
+bundook/bunduk: This common Arabic-derived word was much dictionarized even in Neel's day, usually being glossed as 'musket' or 'rifle', and it is in this form that it takes its place in the Oracle. This belies Neel's predictions, for this was another instance in which he accepted a questionable derivation from Barrère & Leland, who trace the Arabic original back to the the German name for Venice, 'Venedig'. The implication is that bundook was introduced into Arabic by German mercenaries of the Venetian Republic, and was first used in the sense of 'crossbow'. Neel was mistaken in his belief that the word would revert to its original sense, except that it would come to be applied to the fine chandeliers and other articles of Venetian manufacture that were then much in vogue among wealthy Bengalis.
bungal (*Roebuck): 'This word refers to the nautical "speaking-trumpet" – the instrument of amplification which permits ships at sea to communicate. Curiously, the usual Laskari pronunciation of it is byugal – which would seem to suggest that they discern in this object some mysterious kinship with the bugle'.
bunow/bunnow/banao (*The Glossary): 'This is, as Sir Henry rightly observes, one of the rare Hind. verbs to be adapted into English. But even after it had made the crossing it retained something of its original sense, which was more "to build" than "to make" – for one could certainly never say, as above, " bunow the crossing".'
+burkmundauze/barkandaz: 'A term that was useful mainly for its imprecision, for it could, when necessary, be applied to any of that great paltan of paiks, piyadas, latheeals, kassidars, silahdars and other armed guards, retainers and sentries who once thronged our streets. The gatekeepers and watch men whose duties kept them stationary formed a slightly different kind of paltan, composed of chowkidars, durwauns and the like.'
+burra/bara: 'I am convinced that this is another word that has entered English through a nautical route, burra/bara being the common Laskari term for the tallest of a ship's masts – the main.' See also dol.
Burrampooter (*The Glossary): 'This is merely the anglice, blessedly short-lived, of "Brahmaputra".'
+bustee/basti: 'In my childhood we used this word only to mean "neigh-bourhood" or "settlement", with no pejorative implication attached. The English derivative, on the other hand, was used to mean "Black Town" or "native area", being applied only to the areas where Bengalis lived. Strange to think that it was in this derogatory guise that it was passed back to Hind. and Bengali, and is now commonly used in the sense of "slum".'