bulldog n.
1. from the dog’s aggression and strength.
(a) a sheriff’s officer.
![[UK]](/static/img/flags/uk.png "United Kingdom") | Love and a Bottle III ii: I sent for a couple of Bull-Dogs, and Arrested him. | |
| London Spy XIII 307: A parcel of Lazy Red-Coats were loitering about like so many City Bull-Dogs at the Poultry-Compter. | |
![[Ire]](/static/img/flags/ire.png "Ireland") | ‘De Kilmainham Minit’ in Luke Caffrey’s Gost 5: For he was de smart on de Gap, / He boozl’d de Bull dog and pinners. | |
| London Mag. Mar. 88/1: ‘The bulldogs know me so well that, by jingo! the scint of me near the office would cause a gineral purshute’. | |
| A Pink ’Un and a Pelican 132: The usher consolingly assured Swears that he would be turned out at four o’clock, till which hour the baffled bulldogs would wait patiently on the doorstep. |
(b) a thug, a bully.
| Thraliana i Jan. 424: [of an aggressive supporter] Mr Thrale is very unkind actually, sick or well: he has ordered some more of my Trees in Wales to be cut down, he knows I would lose both my Ears as willingly; but when I complained to Johnson about his doing so once before, he was so angry at my setting my Bull Dog at him as he called it, that I said in my Heat—Well you may cut 'em all down if you will, I'll complain to him no more. | |
| [ | ![[US]](/static/img/flags/us.png "United States") | Ticket-of-Leave Man 9: He was [...] known as the ‘Lambeth Bulldog’— an appelation bestowed upon him in honour of his having once, in a street encounter, bitten his opponent’s ear off]. |
| Canker at the Heart 44: Then, a bulldog, sturdy fellow, sullenly callous. | |
| Gangster Girl 40: A Yale graduate, a celebrity, a wholesome and handsome youngster with brains, body and bulldog in his make-up. | |
| ‘Trouble Down at Tudsleigh’ in Young Men in Spats 78: ‘Bulldog Whacker had to go to hospital for two months after one of our bouts’. | |
| ‘Catheads [...] and Cho-Cho Sticks’ in Abernethy Bounty of Texas (1990) 199: bull dog, n. – a bully; tough guy. | |
| mydogharriet.blogspot.com 2 Mar. 🌐 That motherfucking bulldog needs to get checked for doing you greasy. |
(c) (US) a watchman [note Oxbridge jargon bulldog, an assistant to the Proctors, those dons charged with maintaining university discipline].
| City Looking Glass IV ii: We’ll have the bull-dogs here in a twinkling, head ratcatchers and all. |
(d) (Aus./US) a police officer.
![[Aus]](/static/img/flags/aus.png "Australia") | Bulletin (Sydney) 16 May 22/1: As he read in his ledger this entry grim, / ‘For the hand of my daughter these – / Lord Golfo M’Guff, Sir Perryman Pym; / The Marquis of Manganese, / Sir Peblar de Bart, and Sir Jago Phipp, / All gone – and whither? But, lo,’ / He softly said as he curled his lip, / ‘How should the poor bull-dog know?’. | |
| Ulysses 543: bella: Do you want me to call the police? bloom: O, I know. Bulldog on the premises. But he’s a Trinity student. Patrons of your establishment. Gentlemen that pay the rent. | |
| Professor How Could You! 264: He is following my trail [...] and any moment he is liable to come with a couple of bulldogs and pinch me. | |
| Dict. Service Sl. n.p.: a bull dog . . . Military Police. | |
| Hero of Too 253: The tunic suited him. Maybe he would have done better to join the police. ‘The bulldogs,’ Lam hissed. |
2. (also bulldog pistol, bulldogged pistol) a pistol, which ‘barks’; also attrib.
| Constant Couple III ii: He whips out his stiletto, and I whips out my bull-dog. | |
| , , | | Classical Dict. of the Vulgar Tongue. |
| Lex. Balatronicum. | |
![[Scot]](/static/img/flags/sco.png "Scotland") | St Ronan’s Well (1833) 332: ‘I have always a brace of bull-dogs about me.’ [...] So saying, he exhibited a very handsome, highly-finished, and richly-mounted pair of pistols. | |
 | Eve. Chron. 7 June 4/7: They told him to go below and get his ‘bull dogs,’ meaning his pistols. | |
| ‘The Saucy Hell-Cat and the Indiaman’ in Lloyd’s Companion 19 Sept. 2/5: ‘Damme, d’ye think I’m the pirate cap’n, that yer claps that ’ere bull-dog [...] so close to my bows?’. | |
| Wkly Arkansas Gaz. (Little Rock, AR) 1 June 2/4: Mr Callaway [...] had cautioned prisoner that ‘Gillespie carried first-rate pistols’ [...] ‘always carried the bull-dogs about him’. | |
| New and Improved Flash Dict. | |
| Vocabulum. | |
| Sth Aus. Register (Adelaide, SA) 21 Feb.2/7: He also said there were ‘bulldogs’ (a slang term for pistols) at the other end of the ship. | |
| Destruction of Gotham 81: She held the little black ‘bulldog’ pistol in her small white hand. | |
| Nat. Police Gaz. (NY) 22 Feb. 6/2: [H]e pulled a self-acting, five-chambered. 38-calibre revolver of the bulldog pattern from his pocket . | |
| Truth (Sydney) 1 Apr. 1/8: The snub-nosed, square-jawed species [i.e. of villains] [...] scowling defiance behind ‘bulldogs’. | |
| Hooligan Nights 62: I whipped out me bull-dog wiv six teef. | |
| Bulletin (Sydney) 31 Aug. 17: Husband:– ‘But what’s the matter with that repeating bulldog I bought you only last week?’ / Wife:– ‘O John, it’s a fright of a thing.’. | |
| Back to the Woods 51: To-morrow I’m going to town to buy a bull dog revolver, maybe a bull dog and a revolver. | |
| Marvel III:55 10: The professional rogue had come with a ‘bulldog’ revolver in one of his overcoat pockets. | |
| ‘Afraid of a Gun’ in Nightmare Town (2001) 229: A dispute over a reading of the dice had left him facing a bull-dog pistol in the hands of a cockney sailor. | |
| ‘Outside Woman Blues’ 🎵 I’m gonna buy me a bulldog, watch my old lady whilst I sleep. | |
| Cowboy Lingo 168: The ‘derringer’ or ‘bulldogged’ pistol was known in the trade as a ‘stingy gun’. | |
| Criminal Sl. (rev. edn). | |
| ‘What's all the talk about’ 🎵 Any beef with the squad get the spinners out / 44 bulldog with 6 rounds. |
3. a sugar-loaf [? its squat, solid shape].
| Vocab. of the Flash Lang. |
4. (N.Z. prison) a member of the Mongrel Mob biker gang which feature a bulldog in their colours.
![[NZ]](/static/img/flags/nz.png "New Zealand") | Boobslang [U. Canterbury D.Phil. thesis] 32/2: bulldog n. a member of the Mongrel Mob. |