▪ I. bisque1
(bɪsk)
Also 7 biscaye, 8 bisk.
[a. F. bisque, of same meaning; of unknown origin. Littré compares It. bisca a gaming-place, a ‘hell.’]
1. Real Tennis. A term for the odds which one player gives the other in allowing him to score one point once during the ‘set’ at any time he may elect. Also in Croquet: An extra turn allowed to a weaker player.
| [1611 Cotgr., Biscaye, a vantage at Tennis. Bisque, a fault at Tennis.] 1656 Blount Glossogr., Bisque (Fr.), a fault at Tennis. [So in 1678 Phillips.] 1679 Shadwell True Widow I. Wks. 1720 III. 124 We'll play with you at a bisk, and a fault, for twenty pound. 1721 Bailey, Bisk, Bisque, odds at the play of Tennis; a stroke allowed to the weaker player. French. 1872 Prior Croquet 56 Mr. Hale made the happy suggestion of adopting the bisque as a means of equalizing a strong and a weak player. 1874 Heath Croquet Pl. 77 Example of how to take the Bisque. |
2. fig. † to have a bisque in one's sleeve: to have something to fall back upon, another resource, another string to one's bow. to give one fifteen, etc. and a bisque: to give him long odds, to ‘leave him nowhere’ in a contest or comparison.
| 1713 Flying-Post 24 Nov. 26 He (like a compleat Politician) reserves always a Bisk in his sleeve (a Phrase we Tennis-players use). 1717 Bullock Wom. a Riddle ii. 18 Before the game's up, I have a Bisk in my sleeve, an appeal to the House of Peers. 1881 Sat. Rev. 30 July 136/2 If alliteration be a mark of study and finish, the latest school of English poetry can give Byron thirty and a bisque. |
▪ II. bisque2
[f. biscuit.]
1. ? biscuit (bread).
2. In Pottery, = biscuit 2; also a variety of unglazed white porcelain used for statuettes, etc. Also attrib., as bisque oven.
| 1664 Evelyn Sylva (1776) 619 Be sure never to carry your Bottle and Bisque into the field without your Style and Tablet. 1853 Ure Dict. Arts (ed. 4) II. 454 The quantity of coals necessary for a ‘bisque’ oven is from 16 to 20 tons. 1864 Daily Tel. 28 Sept., He had..seen vast numbers of statuettes in plaster of Paris and in bisque. |
3. A light brown colour or tint. (Cf. biscuit 1 c.)
| 1922 Glasgow Herald 17 Aug. 6 A dress of pale bisque. 1923 Daily Mail 15 Jan. 1 In Navy, Bisque, Rust, Champagne, Orchid, Flesh, Silver, Nattier Blue, Black, Jade & Ivory. |
▪ III. bisque
variant of bisk, soup.