[Proper name.] The name of the jovial innkeeper in Farquhar’s Beaux’ Stratagem 1707; whence taken as the generic proper name of innkeepers; ‘mine host,’ or ‘the landlord’ of the inn.
[Not in Bailey, Johnson or Todd.]
1803. Bristed, Pedest. Tour, I. 120. To give the characteristic features and to stamp the peculiar traits of honest Boniface.
1829. Scott, Wav., Note 5. The devolution of the whole actual business … of the Inn upon the poor gude wife was very common among the Scottish Bonifaces.
1861. Emerson, Cond. Life, ii. 42. I knew a burly Boniface who for many years kept a public-house in one of our rural capitals.
Hence (humorously) Bonifacial a.
1859. Sala, Gaslight & D., viii. 99. There is the landlord, in … his bonifacial apron.
