† ˈbicched, ppl. a. Obs.
Also 5–6 byched, 6 bychyde, biched.
Origin (see below) and precise meaning unknown: in general the sense ‘Cursed, execrable, shrewed,’ suits the context.
| a 1400 Alexander (Stev.) 165 [The basiliske] A straȝtill and a stithe worme stinkande of elde, And es so bitter, and so breme, and bicchid in himselfe, That..quat he settes on his siȝt, he slaes in a stonde. a 1400 Cov. Myst. 395 Faste, harlotys, go youre gate, And brynge me that bychyd body, I red. 1522 Worlde & Chylde (Roxb.) C ij b, That bychyde Conscyence. 1533 More Apol. xxii. Wks. 884/2 Helpe me vp agayne with this bichede burdayne & lay it in my necke. ― Debell. Salem v. Wks. 941/1 Anye of the blessed byched newe broched bretherhead..playnelye proued heretikes. |
b. bicched bones: opprobriously applied to dice.
| c 1386 Chaucer Pard. T. 328 This fruyt cometh of the bicched bones two, fforsweryng, Ire, falsnesse, Homycide [So 2 MSS.; 2 read bicche, 1 becched, Wr. bicchid]. c 1460 Towneley Myst. 241, I was falsly begylyd withe thise byched bones, Ther cursyd thay be. Ibid., The byched bones that ye be, I byd you go bett. |
[Bicched appears rather early to be certainly referable to bitch in an opprobrious sense, from which moreover the formation is not easily explained (for shrewed there was a verb to shrew.) The conjecture has been offered that it was a contracted form of ME. biwicced ‘bewitched’; but for this no evidence or analogy has been found. In bicched bones applied to dice, some have suggested a corruption of Du. bikkel ‘knuckle-bone, astragalus, cockal, bone-plaything, dice, marbles,’ Ger. bickel ‘ankle, ankle-bone, astragalus, die, dice’; this is possible, but would suppose an Eng. series *bikkel, *bicchel, bicche, bicched bone, of which the most important links are neither represented nor accounted for, and it would only show assimilation of *bikkel to the opprobrious bicched, leaving the latter unexplained. That bicched bone could be for a Du. *bikked been ‘bone picked with holes or pips,’ is highly improbable: moreover, this would not connect the expression with Du. bikkel, since the latter (whether or not connected with bikkel a pickaxe, bikken to pick, or notch) certainly did not mean ‘bone picked with holes,’ but was a name of the ankle, and of the astragalus or knuckle-bone used in play, long before it passed over to dice. See Grimm s.v.]