Forms: 3, 5 bukeram, (4 bougeren), 4, 6 bukram, 5 bokram, 5–6 bokeram, -ham, 6 bocram(e, -keram, bucram, -um, buckeram(e, -mme, 6–7 buckrom, -erom, -orome, 8 buchram, 6– buckram. [Found in most of the European langs. between 12th and 15th c.; cf. OF. boquerant (12th c.), bouqueran, bouquerrant, bouguerant, mod.F. bougran, Pr. bocaran, Cat. bocaram (Diez), Sp. bucaran, It. bucherame (in Boccaccio 14th c.), med.L. (in France) boquerannus, bucaranus, (in Italy) buchiranus; also MHG. buggeram, buggeran, buckeram, MDu. bocraen, bocrael, bollecraen, boucraen. In early continental and apparently in early Eng. use it denoted a costly and delicate fabric, sometimes of cotton and sometimes of linen; but it afterwards acquired the sense of coarse gummed linen used for linings, thus becoming synonymous with Sp. bocací, F. boucassin, BOCCASIN; and this meaning it retains in modern Eng., Fr. and It. (The MHG. lexicographers state that in that lang. the word meant ‘a fabric of goat’s hair,’ but this explanation may perhaps be a conjecture founded on a supposed derivation from Ger. bock BUCK sb.1) As the Eng. forms generally have m, while all the Fr. forms have n, it is possible that the word may have been adopted into Eng. not from Fr. but from Italian. For the history of the word in Europe, and its probable changes of meaning, see Col. Yule’s Marco Polo, I. 46–8 and 59.
Of the ultimate etymology nothing is really known. Some refer to It. bucherare ‘to pierce full of holes,’ supposing that the name was first given to a kind of muslin or net (cf. quot. 1548 in 1). Reiske (in Constantin. Porphyrog ed. Niebuhr II. 530) proposes Arab. adū qirām ‘pannus cum intextis figuris,’ but he does not say where he found this compound; the simple qirām is of doubtful meaning, the native lexicographers quoted in the Qāmūs giving the various renderings ‘red veil,’ ‘striped and figured woollen cloth,’ ‘thin veil’ (Freytag, s.v.). Others suggest derivation from Bokhara, or from Bulgaria, but this does not agree with the early Fr. forms.]
† 1. A kind of fine linen or cotton fabric. Obs.
1222. Ornamenta Eccl. Sarum, in Register S. Osmund (1884), II. 132. Alba una de bukeram, cum parura, brodata.
1340. Ayenb., 258. Þe queade riche þet zuo ofte ham ssredeþ ase of to zofte bougeren and of to moche of pris pourpre.
1411. Licence to Bp. Waterford, 26 April, in Close Roll, (To export from England to Ireland, duty free), 18. pec. de Bokerham.
1463. Marg. Paston, in Lett., 472, II. 132. I kan gettyn non gode bokeram in this town.
1475. Hist. MSS. Commiss., Inv. Goods, I. 555. A crosse of blue bokeram for the roode.
1548. Thomas, Rules Italian Grammar, in Promp. Parv., 42. Bucherame, buckeramme, & some there is white, made of bombase, so thinne that a man mai see through it.
1552–3. Inv. Ch. Goods Stafford., iij olde vestements, one of grene satten, the other of blewe buckeram.
[1849–53. Rock, Ch. of Fathers, II. vi. 104. The mitre was made of … plain, fine linen … which, during the Middle Ages, was known here in England under the name of ‘buckram.’]
2. A kind of coarse linen or cloth stiffened with gum or paste. Men in buckram: sometimes proverbially for non-existent persons, in allusion to Falstaff’s ‘four rogues in buckram’ (quot. 1596).
1436. Pol. Poems (1859), II. 171. Fustiane, and canvase, Carde, bokeram, of olde tyme thus it wase.
1549. Cheke, in Ellis, Orig. Lett. Lit. Men (1843), 8. I lack painted bucrum to lai betweyne bokes and bordes in mi studi.
1596. Shaks., 1 Hen. IV., II. iv. 217. Foure Rogues in Buckrom let driue at me.
1665. Boyle, Occas. Refl. (1675), Pref. 21. The fashion, that now-a-days allows our Gallants to wear fine Laces upon Canvass and Buckram.
1732. Berkeley, Alciphr., III. § 9. One of our ladies … stiffened … with hoops and whalebone and buckram.
1820. Scott, Abbot, xv. My stomach … is … too well bumbasted out with straw and buckram.
† b. A lawyer’s bag; = buckram-bag. Obs.
1608. Tourneur, Rev. Trag., IV. ii. 107. Yes, to looke long upon inck & black buckrom [in allusion to Attorneys’ bags].
1622. Fletcher, Sp. Curate, IV. vii. To be … A Lawyer’s Asse, to carry Bookes, and Buckrams.
3. fig. Stiffness; a stiff and starched manner; that which gives a man a stiff exterior.
1682. H. More, Annot. Glanvill’s Lux O., 55. His Style, the texture whereof is not onely Fustian, but over-often hard and stiff Buckram.
1785. Cornwallis, Lett., 24 May, in Corr. (1859), I. vii. 191. A fine, good-humoured, unaffected lad, no pride or buckram.
1793. Roberts, Looker-on (1794), II. 181. To endure the confinement and buckram of any formal course of habit.
1822. Hazlitt, Men & Mann., Ser. II. x. (1869), 196. Laying aside the buckram of pedantry and pretence.
4. attrib. or quasi-adj. a. Of buckram, like buckram.
1537. Bury Wills (1850), 129. I beqwethe to Robart Payne a bocram shert, and to yonge Mr. Robt a bocram shert.
1563–87. Foxe, A. & M., III. 623. She … took with her a Buckeram Apron.
1571. Ascham, Scholem. (Arb.), 100. To clothe him selfe with nothing els, but a demie bukram cassok.
1645. Milton, Colast., Wks. (1851), 365. A meer petti-fogger … so hardy, as to lay aside his buckram wallet, and make himself a fool in Print.
1820. Byron, Lett. to Murray, 12 Nov. Pointing to his buckram shirt collar and inflexible cravat.
1837. Carlyle, Fr. Rev., I. VI. i. 263. Well may the buckram masks start together, terror-struck.
b. fig. Stiff, ‘starched,’ ‘stuck up’; that has a false appearance of strength.
a. 1589. Fulke, Agst. Allen, 301 (L.). A few buckram bishops of Italy.
1603. H. Crosse, Vertues Commw. (1878), 122. Prostitute their ingenious labours to inrich such buckorome gentlemen.
1635. Pagitt, Christianogr., II. vi. 60. 300 Buckram Bishops of the selfe same making.
1840. Carlyle, Heroes, v. 287. A wondrous buckram style,—the best he [Johnson] could get.
1856. Miss Bird, Englishwoman in America, 374. In America no play was ever more successful than the ‘Buckram Englishman.’
5. Comb., as buckram-maker; also, buckram-bag, a lawyer’s bag (sometimes = the lawyer himself); buckram-men, men in buckram (cf. 2).
1611. L. Barry, Ram Alley, I. in Dodsley (1780), V. 424. The buckram-bag must trudge all weathers.
a. 1680. Butler, Rem. (1759), II. 313. His Face is like a Lawyer’s Buckram Bag, that has always Business in it.
c. 1644. Cleveland, Rupertismus (1687), 53. The terror of whose Name can out of seven Like Falstaf’s Buckram-men, make fly eleven.
