eConsultant - Meaning of Liff

BABWORTH (n.) : Something which justifies having a really good cry.
BALDOCK (n.) : The sharp prong on the top of a tree stump where the tree has snapped off before being completely sawn through.
BALLYCUMBER (n.) : One of the six half-read books lying somewhere in your bed.
BANFF (adj.) : Pertaining to, or descriptive of, that kind of facial expression which is impossible to achieve except when having a passport photograph taken.
BANTEER (n. archaic) : A lusty and raucous old ballad sung after a particularly spectacular araglin (q.v.) has been pulled off.
BARSTIBLEY (n.) : A humorous device such as a china horse or small naked porcelain infant which jocular hosts use to piss water into your Scotch with.
BAUGHURST (n.) : That kind of large fierce ugly woman who owns a small fierce ugly dog.
BAUMBER (n.) : A fitted eleasticated bottom sheet which turns your mattress bananashaped.
BEALINGS (pl. n. archaic) : The unsavoury parts of a moat which a knight has to pour out of his armour after being the victim of an araglin (q.v.). In medieval Flanders, soup made from bealings was a very slightly sought-after delicacy.
BEAULIEU HILL (n.) : The optimum vantage point from which one to view people undressing in the bedroom across the street.
BECCLES (pl. n.) : The small bone buttons placed in bacon sandwiches by unemployed guerrilla dentist.
BEDFONT (n.) : A lurching sensation in the pit of the stomach experienced at breakfast in a hotel, occasioned by the realisation that it is about now that the chamber- maid will have discovered the embarrassing stain on your bottom sheet.
BELPER (n.) : A knob of someone else's chewing gum which you unexpectedly find your hand resting on under a desk top, under the passenger seat of your car or on somebody's thigh under their skirt.
BENBURB (n.) : The sort of man who becomes a returning officer.
BEREPPER (n.) : The irrevocable and sturdy fart released in the presence of royalty, which sounds quite like a small motorbike passing by (but not enough to be confused with one).
BERKHAMSTED (n.) : The massive three-course midmorning blow-out enjoyed by a dieter who has already done his or her slimming duty by having a teaspoonful of cottage cheese for breakfast.
BERY POMEROY (n.) : 1. The shape of a gourmet's lips. 2. The droplet of saliva which hangs from them.
BILBSTER (n.) : A pimple so hideous and enormous that you have to cover it with sticking plaster and pretend you've cut yourself shaving.
BISHOP'S CAUNDLE (n.) : An opening gambit before a game of chess whereby the missing pieces are replaced by small ornaments from the mantelpiece.
BLEAN (n.) : Scientific measure of luminosity : 1 glimmer = 100,000 bleans. Usherettes' torches are designed to produce between 2.5 and 4 bleans, enabling them to assist you in falling downstairs, treading on people or putting your hand into a Neapolitan tub when reaching for change.
BLITHBURY (n.) : A look someone gives you by which you become aware that they're much too drunk to have understood anything you've said to them in the last twenty minutes.
BLITTERLESS (pl. n.) : The little slivers of bamboo picked off a cane chair by a nervous guest which litter the carpet beneath and tell the chair's owner that the whole piece of furniture is about to uncoil terribly and slowly until it resembles a giant pencil sharpening.
BODMIN (n.) : The irrational and inevitable discrepancy between the amount pooled and the amount needed when a large group of people try to pay a bill together after a meal.
BOLSOVER (n.) : One of those brown plastic trays with bumps on, placed upside down in boxes of chocolates to make you think you're-getting two layers.
BONKLE (n.) : Of plumbing in old hotels, to make loud and unexplained noises in the night, particularly at about five o'clock in the morning.
BOOLTEENS (pl. n.) : The small scatterings of foreign coins and half-p's which inhabit dressing tables. Since they are never used and never thrown away boolteens account for a significant drain on the world's money supply.
BOOTHBY GRAFFOE (n.) : 1. The man in the pub who slaps people on the back as if they were old friends, when in fact he has no friends, largely on account of this habit. 2. Any story told by Robert Morley on chat shows.
BOSCASTLE (n.) : A huge pyramid of tin cans placed just inside the entrance to a supermarket.
BOSEMAN (n.) : One who spends all day loafing about near pedestrian crossing looking as if he's about to cross.
BOTCHERBY (n.) : The principle by which British roads are signposted.
BOTLEY (n.) : The prominent stain on a man's trouser crotch seen on his return from the lavatory. A botley proper is caused by an accident with the push taps, and should not be confused with any stain caused by insufficient waggling of the willy.
BOTOLPHS (n.) : Huge benign tumours which archdeacons and old chemistry teachers affect to wear on the sides of their noses.
BOTUSFLEMING (n.) : A small, long-handled steel trowel used by surgeons to remove the contents of a patient's nostrils prior to a sinus operation.
BRADFORD (n.) : A school teacher's old hairy jacket, now severely discoloured by chalk dust, ink, egg and the precipitations of unedifying chemical reactions.
BRADWORTHY (n.) : One who is skilled in the art of naming loaves.
BRECON (n. anatomical trem) : That part of the toenail which is designed to snag on nylon sheets.
BRISBANE (n.) : A perfectly reasonable explanation (Such as the one offered by a person with a gurgling cough which has nothing to do with the fact that they smoke fifty cigarettes a day.)
BROATS (pl. n.) : A pair of trousers with a career behind them. Broats are most commonly seen on elderly retired army officers. Originally the brats were part of their best suit back in the thirties; then in the fifties they were demonted and used for gardening. Recently pensions not being what they were, the broats have been called out of retirement and reinstated as part of the best suit again.
BROMPTON (n.) : A bromton is that which is said to have been committed when you are convinced you are about to blow off with a resounding trumpeting noise in a public place and all that actually slips out is a tiny 'pfpt'.
BROMSGROVE (n.) : Any urban environment containing a small amount of dogturd and about forty-five tons of bent steel pylon or a lump of concrete with holes claiming to be sculpture. 'Oh, come my dear, and come with me. And wander 'neath the bromsgrove tree' - Betjeman.
BROUGH SOWERBY (n.) : One who has been working at that same desk in the same office for fifteen years and has very much his own ideas about why he is continually passed over for promotion.
BRUMBY (n.) : The fake antique plastic seal on a pretentious whisky bottle.
BRYMBO (n.) : The single unappetising bun left in a baker's shop after four p.m.
BUDBY (n.) : A nipple clearly defined through flimsy or wet material.
BUDE (n.) : A polite joke reserved for use in the presence of vicars.
BULDOOO (n.) : a virulent red-coloured pus which generally accompanies clonmult (q.v.) and sandberge (q.v.)
BURBAGE (n.) : The sound made by a liftful of people all trying to breathe politely through their noses.
BURES (n. medical) : The scabs on knees and elbows formed by a compulsion to make love on cheap Habitat floor-matting.
BURLESTON (n., vb.) : That peculiarly tuneless humming and whistling adopted by people who are extremely angry.
BURLINGJOBB (n.archaic) : A seventeenth-century crime by which excrement is thrown into the street from a ground-floor window.
BURNT YATES (pl. n.) : Condition to which yates (q.v.) will suddenly pass without any apparent interviewing period, after the spirit of the throckmorton (q.v.) has finally been summoned by incessant throcking (q.v.) BURSLEDON (n.) : The bluebottle one is too tired to get up and start, but not tired enough to sleep through.
BURTON COGGLES (pl. n.) : A bunch of keys found in a drawer whose purpose has long been forgotten, and which can therefore now be used only for dropping down people's backs as a cure for nose-bleeds.
BURWASH (n.) : The pleasurable cool sloosh of puddle water over the toes of your gumboots.