Forms: 4 bus(s)chel, buisshel, buysshel, boussel, boyschel, 4–5 buyschel, 4–6 busshel(le, 5 bu-, byschelle, buscel, bysshell, 5–6 bowsshell(e, 6 buszshel, buszhell, bushylle, bousshell, beyschell, 5–7 bushell, 4– bushel. [ME. boyschel, buyschel, a. OF. boissiel, -el, buissiel (mod.F. boisseau, dial. boisteau), according to Diez dim. of boiste (Pr. bostea and boissa) box. This explanation is supported by the med.L. form bustellus, beside bussellus, bissellus. Du Cange took the word as a dim. of OF. boise = med.L. buza, buta BUTT.]
1. A measure of capacity used for corn, fruit, etc., containing four pecks or eight gallons.
The imperial bushel, legally established in Great Britain in 1826, contains 2218.192 cubic inches, or 80 pounds of distilled water weighed in air at 62° Fah. The Winchester bushel, much used from the time of Henry VIII., was somewhat smaller, containing 2150.42 cubic inches or 77.627413 pounds of distilled water; it is still generally used in United States and Canada. The bushel had a great variety of other values, now abolished by law, though often, in local use, varying not only from place to place, but in the same place according to the kind or quality of the commodity in question. Frequently it was no longer a measure, but a weight of so many (30, 40, 45, 50, 56, 60, 70, 75, 80, 90, 93, 220) pounds of flour, wheat, oats, potatoes, etc. A full account of these local values is given in Old Country & Farming Words (Eng. Dial. Soc.), 169.
c. 1300. Battle Abb. Custumals (1887), 67. Habebit iiij bussellos de bericorn.
c. 1330. Poem on Times Edw. II., 393, in Pol. Songs (1839), 341. A busshel of whete was at foure shillinges or more.
1382. Wyclif, Gen. xviii. 6. Mynge to gidre thre half buysshelis of clene floure.
1497. Act 12 Hen. VII., v. That the measure of a Bushell containe viii. gallons of Wheat.
1523. Fitzherb., Husb., § 12. An acre of grounde … may be metelye well sowen with two London busshelles of pease.
1596. Shaks., Merch. V., I. i. 116. His reasons are two graines of wheate hid in two bushels of chaffe.
1710. Swift, Lett. (1767), III. 55. I have my coals by half a bushel at a time, I’ll assure you.
1787. Winter, Syst. Husb., 146. This wheat weighed sixty-six pounds ten ounces per bushel, of nine gallons.
1872. E. Robertson, Hist. Ess., I. i. 1. An English Imperial bushel contains 60 lbs. of average wheat or 80 lbs. liquid measure.
† b. ? A liquid measure. Obs.
1483. Cath. Angl., 49. A Buschelle; batulus liquidorum est, bacus.
† c. Sometimes used without of. Obs.
c. 1374. Chaucer, Boeth., I. iv. 15. Who so bouȝt[e] a busshel corn. Ibid. (c. 1386), Reves T., 392. Hir cake Of half a busshel flour.
d. loosely. A large quantity or number.
c. 1374. Chaucer, Troylus, III. 976. And would a bushel of venim al excusen For that a grane of love is on it shove.
1680. Answ. Stillingfleet’s Serm., 33. Who have Benefices and Honours by Heaps, and by the Bushel.
1683. Tryon, Way to Health, 579. He … has got a Bushel of Money by his Practice.
1718. Lady M. W. Montague, Lett., liii. II. 78. An old beau … with a bushel of curled hair on his head.
1873. Miss Broughton, Nancy, III. 187. Bushels of girls … there always are bushels of girls somehow; here they come.
2. A vessel used as a bushel measure.
1382. Wyclif, Luke xi. 33. No man liȝtneth a lanterne, and puttith in hidlis, other vndir a boyschel [1388 buyschel], but on a candel sticke.
1489. Caxton, Faytes of A., I. viii. 20. Thre mues or busshellis all full of rynges of gold.
a. 1565. Heywood, Four P’s, in Dodsley (1780), I. 87. Rolynge his eyes as rounde as two bushels.
1607. Topsell, Four-f. Beasts, 154. Their feet … are as broad as a bushel.
1677. Hale, Prim. Orig. Man., I. i. 22. The Sense represents the Sun no bigger than a Bushel.
1724. Watts, Logic, 152. The apples will fill a bushel.
b. fig. (with ref. to Matt. v. 15). ‘To hide one’s light under a bushel.’
1557. Tottell’s Misc. (Arb.), 244. Trouth vnder bushell is faine to crepe.
1627. Sanderson, Serm., I. 267. The light of Gods word, hid from them under two bushels for sureness: under the bushel of a tyrannous clergy … and under the bushel of an unknown tongue.
1644. Z. Boyd, Gard. Zion, in Zion’s Flowers (1855), App. 7/2. From under the Bushell of ignorance.
1868. Freeman, Norm. Conq. (1876), II. App. 540. The light of those saintly ladies should in no case be hidden under a bushel.
c. Phrase. To measure other people’s corn by one’s own bushel: to apply one’s own standard to others, to judge others by oneself.
1636. Henshaw, Horæ subc., 279. Men usually measure others by their own bushels: they that are ill themselves, are commonly apt to think ill of others.
1801. W. Huntington, Bank of Faith, 35. We must not measure every body’s corn by our own bushel.
3. attrib. and comb.: a. of a bushel, as bushel-bag, -basket, -measure, † -poke; b. resembling or as wide as a bushel-measure, as oushel-breeches, -wig; also bushel-iron, ? (old) iron sold by the bushel.
1529. in Rogers, Agric. & Prices, III. 567/3. 1 *bushel basket.
1850. Jrnl. R. Agric. Soc., XI. I. 202. The food … carried in bushel-baskets.
1831. Carlyle, Sart. Res., I. vii. Bell-girdles, *bushel-breeches, cornuted shoes, or other the like phenomena.
1831. J. Holland, Manuf. Metals, I. 144. *Bushel-iron, or the fragments of old hoops, and all pieces of similar size.
1851. Ord. & Regul. Royal Engineers, xvi. 66. All Bushel or Scrap Iron, and Waste in conversion.
1530. Palsgr., 200/2. *Bousshell measure, boisseav.
1523. Fitzherb., Husb., § 141. Bagges, wallettes, or *busshell-pokes.
1794. Wolcott (P. Pindar), Rowl. for Oliver, Wks. II. 344. What gives them consequence, I trow, Is nothing but a *bushel wig.
