darbies

darbies

1. plural of darby
2. (Britain, slang) handcuffs
   • 1851, Herman Melville, chapter 73, in Moby Dick‎:

     Who's afraid of him, except the old governor who daresn't catch him and put him in double-darbies, as he deserves, but lets him go about kidnapping people […]

   • 1885, Lewis Carroll, "A Tangled Tale" in The Complete Works of Lewis Carroll, New York: Vintage, 1976, p. 1058,

     And he says, 'I'll go along quiet, Bobby,' he says, 'without the darbies,' he says.

   • 1922, James Joyce, Ulysses, Penguin, 1992, p. 592,

     Second watch: (Produces handcuffs) Here are the darbies.

   • 1924, Herman Melville, Billy Budd, London: Constable & Co., Chapter 26,

     Sentry, are you there? / Just ease this darbies at the wrist, and roll me over fair, / I am sleepy, and the oozy weeds about me twist.

• Beairds, abiders, air beds, airbeds, bardies, barside, braised, sea bird, seabird, sidebar