bizen

From Middle English bysen, partly from Old English bȳsen (“example, pattern, model, similitude, parable, parallel, rule, command, precept”), and partly from Old Norse býsn (“a wonder, a portentous thing”), both from Proto-Germanic *būsniz (“command, precept”), from Proto-Germanic *beudaną (“to ask, beg”), from Proto-Indo-European *bʰewdʰ- (“to be awake, perceive fully”). Cognate with Gothic 𐌱𐌿𐍃𐌽𐍃 (busns, “command, order”).

bizen (plural bizens)

1. (Britain dialectal, Northern England, Scotland, rare, obsolete) Something monstrous or portentous; a shocking sight; sorry spectacle; disgraceful thing.
   • 1823, Robert Anderson, Ballads in the Cumberland Dialect, page 155:

     She's a shem and a bizen to all the heale town.

   • 1866, Eliza Lynn Linton, Lizzie Lorton of Greyrigg‎, page 97:

     […] and a bizen like this.

   • c. 1874, E. Waugh, Jannock ii. 13, as quoted in The English Dialect Dictionary and in the quotation, in A New English Dictionary on Historical Principles (1887), of J. H. Nodal and G. Milnar's Gloss[ary of the] Lancashire Dial[ect] (1875):

     It'll be a sham an' a bizen, if we cannot find him a menseful of a dinner.

2. (Britain dialectal, Northern England, Scotland) Something serving as an warning or an example to be avoided.

• For quotations of use of this term, see Citations:bizen.

• zineb