1. Name of the prophet whose history is narrated in Numbers xxii–xxiv, used connotatively. Hence: Balaam v., to make a Balaam of. Balaamite, one who follows religion for the sake of gain; whence Balaamitical a.
1648. Milton, Observ. Art. Peace, Wks. (1851), 571. God … hath so dispos’d the mouth of these Balaams, that comming to Curse, they have stumbled into a kind of Blessing.
1598. T. Bastard, Chrestoleros (1880), 87. Bala-ming his patron which did him this wrong, Am not I thine asse which haue seru’d thee thus long.
1559. Hist. Est. Scot., in Wodr. Soc. Misc., 73. The Bishopp of St. Andrewes, with his Balamites, came to St. Giles Kirk.
1561. Daus, trans. Bullinger on Apoc. (1573), 36 b. Maintayning the Nicolaitan or Balaamiticall doctrine.
2. (In journalistic slang) Trumpery paragraphs reserved to fill up the columns of a newspaper or magazine. Balaam-box (or -basket), a receptacle for such matter; in U.S. printing offices, a place in which stereotype paragraphs are kept for similar use.
1826. Scott, Mal. Malagr., iii. 3. How much Balaam (speaking technically) I have edged out of your valuable paper.
1839. Lockhart, Scott, lxx. (1842), 622. Balaam is the cant name for asinine paragraphs about monstrous productions of nature and the like, kept standing in type to be used whenever the real news of the day leave an awkward space that must be filled up somehow.
1861. A. K. H. B., Recr. Country P., Ser. II. 59. Rubbishing articles which are at present consigned to the Balaam-box.
1873. F. Hall, Mod. Eng., 17. Consigned, by the editor, to his balaam-basket.
