bear-bait

English

Noun

bear-bait (plural bear-baits)

1. Alternative form of bearbait
   • 1856, John Harland, The House and Farm Accounts of the Shuttleworths of Gawthorpe Hall:

     He describes another entertainment as often following the bear-bait, that of mercilessly whipping a blinded bear by five or six men standing circularly with whips; the bear unable to escape because of his chain, defended himself with all his force, throwing down all that came within his reach, tearing the whips out of their hands, and breaking them.

   • 1885, Samuel Maunder, Edmund William Hunt Holdsworth, The Treasury of Natural History, page 53:

     A bear-bait was one of the recreations offered to Elizabeth at Kenilworth, and in the Earl of Northumberland's Household Book we read of 20s. for his bear-ward.

   • 1892, Ernest Axon, Bygone Lancashire, page 180:

     This freedom of speech in a holy place is less to be wondered at when it is known that the good rector and a party from the rectory usually witnessed the bear-bait from the churchyard adjoining the village green.

Verb

bear-bait (third-person singular simple present bear-baits, present participle bear-baiting, simple past and past participle bear-baited)

1. Alternative form of bearbait
   • 1976, Kenneth Eastaugh, Havergal Brian: the making of a composer, page 238:

     He also had flu, complained that the mysterious marking of his manuscripts had begun again and concluded: 'My senses tell me that the same hand which made Birmingham impossible and bear-baited me wherever I went, is responsible for my present situation.'

   • 1985, Jeffrey Meyers, Hemingway, a biography, page 313:

     Welles later provided a lively but quite fanciful account of how he bear-baited Hemingway:

   • 2000, John Rothchild, The Bear Book: Survive and Profit in Ferocious Markets, page 19:

     Interest Rate Observer, and a debunker of U.S. stocks since the Dow was at 2,000, has appeared on Rukeyser's TV show, where he gets bear-baited: "World's going to hell again, eh, Jim?"