Forms: 5 bowȝette, -gett, 6 bo-, booget, bow-, bou-, boud-, budgette, (bowdshett), 6–7 bou-, bow-, boudget, 7 bugget, bu(d)git, 6– budget. [ad. F. bougette, dim. of bouge leather bag; see BOUGE sb.1, BUDGE sb.3 Cf. BOUGET.]
† 1. A pouch, bag, wallet, usually of leather. Obs. exc. dial.
1432–50. trans. Higden, Rolls Ser. VII. 385. His bowȝettes [manticis] and caskettes.
c. 1530. Ld. Berners, Arth. Lyt. Bryt. (1814), 62. A boget wyth leteers hangyng at his sadel bow.
1542. Udall, Erasm. Apoph., 110 b. For a pourse or a bougette.
1611. Coryat, Crudities, 66. A certaine Pedler, hauing a budget of small wares.
1638. Heywood, Wise Wom., IV. i. You whose wealth lyes in your braines; not in your budgets.
1677. Moxon, Mech. Exerc. (1703), 250. A Budget or Pocket to hang by their sides, to put their Nails in.
1783. Johnson, in Boswell (1831), V. 116. When I landed at Billingsgate I carried my budget myself to Cornhill.
1808. Scott, Marm., I. xxvii. Staff, budget, bottle, scrip, he wore.
1879. Miss Jackson, Shropsh. Wd.-bk., Budget, a satchel of bass-matting in which workmen carry their tools.
† b. fig. Phrase, To open one’s budget: to speak one’s mind. Obs. (Cf. 3.)
1548. Hall, Chron. (1809), 100. Put it in your boget among lyes and fayned fables.
1642. Rogers, Naaman, 139. Infinite are the subtilties which are in the bugit of this traitor.
1681. Nevile, Plato Rediv., 261. Most of the Wise … Men … are very silent, and will not open their Budget.
† c. The hangman’s budget. Obs.
1589. Pappe w. Hatchet (1844), 37. With an Habeas Corpus to remooue them from the Shepheards tarre-boxe to the hangmans budget.
1607. Dekker, Wh. Babylon, Wks. 1873, II. 270. A Broker and his wife that dropt out of the Hangmans budget but last day, are now eating into the Camp.
2. In various spec. uses:
† a. A leather or skin bottle. Obs.
1580. North, Plutarch (1676), 574. Great Leather budgets filled full of fresh Water.
1653. Urquhart, Rabelais, II. viii. The measure of twelve oyle budgets or butts of olives.
1786. trans. Beckford’s Vathek, 12. A water budget.
b. A kind of boot in a carriage, adapted for carrying luggage. ? Obs. Cf. BASKET 5.
1794. W. Felton, Carriages (1801), I. 115. Boots and budgets are mostly understood as one article … that wherein the principal difference lies, is made with a loose cover, and is properly the budget, being made convenient for trunks.
c. A leathern socket for retaining the butt of a cavalry carbine on a journey. Cf. BUCKET sb.1 4 b.
1816. Scott, Old Mort., ix. The two dragoons … have their carabines out of their budgets.
3. transf. The contents of a bag or wallet; a bundle, a collection or stock. Chiefly fig.
1597. T. Morley, Introd. Musicke, 157. You shall haue the hardest in all my budget.
1692. R. L’Estrange, Fables, ccclxxiv. (J.). It was Nature in fine, that brought off the Cat, when the Foxes whole Budget of Inventions fail’d him.
1729. Swift, Wks., 1841, II. 110. I read … the whole budget of papers you sent.
1784. Cowper, Task, IV. 23. But th’ important budget!… who can say What are its tidings?
1822. Hazlitt, Men & Mann., Ser. II. iii. (1869), 54. His budget of general knowledge.
1854. Thoreau, Walden, iv. Bed and bedstead making one budget.
1867. De Morgan (title), A Budget of Paradoxes.
b. A frequent title for a journal (i.e., a budget of news, etc.): e.g. Pall Mall Budget, Young Folk’s Weekly Budget.
4. A statement of the probable revenue and expenditure for the ensuing year, with financial proposals founded thereon, annually submitted by the Chancellor of the Exchequer, on behalf of the Ministry, for the approval of the House of Commons. Sometimes put for the condition of the national finances as disclosed in the ministerial statement; also for the financial measures proposed. Hence applied to an analogous statement made by the finance minister of any foreign country; also to a prospective estimate of receipts and expenditure, or a financial scheme, of a public body, or (humorously) of an individual.
[The Chancellor of the Exchequer, in presenting his annual statement, was formerly said to open the budget. In a pamphlet entitled The Budget Opened, Sir R. Walpole was compared, apropos of his forthcoming Excise Bill, to a mountebank opening his wallet of quack medicines and conjuring tricks.]
1733. Budget Opened, 8. And how, I pray, is This to be done? Why by an Alteration only of the present Method of collecting the publick Revenues.… So then,——out it comes at last. The Budget is opened; and our State Emperick hath dispensed his Packets by his Zany Couriers through all Parts of the Kingdom…. I do not pretend to understand this Art of political Legerdemain.
1764. Gent. Mag., XXXIV. 207. The administration has condescended … to explain the Budget to the meanest capacity.
1771–97. H. Walpole, Mem. Geo. III., I. xvii. 250. The time was now come for opening the budget, when it was incumbent on him to state the finances, debts, and calls of Government.
1785. Hist. Europe, in Ann. Reg., 168/2. On the 30th of June Mr. Pitt opened the national accounts for the present year, or what is generally termed the Budget.
1800. Pitt, in G. Rose, Diaries (1860), I. 278. Our first business … must be to prepare our budget.
1814. Wellington, Lett., in Gurw., Disp., XII. 98. The budget has … passed the Chamber of Deputies of the departments with trifling amendments.
c. 1860. Wraxall, trans. R. Houdin, xi. 143. I resolved to effect an utter reform in my budget.
1870. Rogers, Pref. to Adam Smith, W. Nat., 20. England was crippled by foolish budgets.
Hence Budgetism.
1839. Blackw. Mag., XLVI. 105. The journalism, the budgetism, the parliamentaryism, of the 19th century.
1909. Retford & Worksop Her., 5 Oct., 7/6. They had heard a good deal nowadays of Socialism and Budgetism and all other ‘isms.’
† 5. Her. = BOUGET: cf. 2 a. Obs.
1766. Porny, Heraldry, Gloss., Budget, v. Water-Budget.
6. (See MUM-BUDGET, a phrase enjoining silence.)
1598. Shaks., Merry W., V. ii. 7. I come to her in white, and cry Mum; she cries Budget, and by that we know one another.
7. Comb. and Attrib., as budget-bearer, -full, -maker, -man. Also budget-bar (see quot.); budget-gut, the cæcum.
1794. W. Felton, Carriages (1801), I. 48. The *budget Bar … is a straight timber, on which rests the boot or budgets.
1684. trans. Agrippa’s Van. Arts, lxii. 184. Barefooted *Budget-Bearers.
1614. Engl. Way to Wealth, in Harl. Misc. (Malh.), III. 238. Heaps and *budget-fulls in the counting-house.
1594. T. B., La Primaud. Fr. Acad., II. 350. The blinde gut … is commonly called by some the sacke or *budget gut.
1553. Act 1 Mary, 3rd Sess. viii. § 2. The Currier … *Budget-maker, and all other Artificers occupying the Craft or Mystery of Leather-buying.
1647. Haward, Crown Rev., 26. Budget-maker: Fee,—6l. 1s. 8d.
c. 1550. Wyll of Deuyll (Collier), 6. To euery of these pety *Bouget men of laws … a Bouget to put inne their sub penas.
