subs. (common).—A bug: cf. F SHARP, and see NORFOLK HOWARD.
1836. Tait’s Edinburgh Magazine, Nov. 694. The author’s greatest suffering arose from Carlist fleas, and those insects known in polite life by the delicate name of B FLATS.
1866. DICKENS, Household Words, xx., 326. Mrs. B. beheld one night a stout negro of the flat-back tribe known among comic writers as B FLATS—stealing up towards the head of the bed.
1868. BREWER, Dictionary of Phrase and Fable, s.v. B FLATS.—Bugs. The pun is ‘B’ (the initial letter), and ‘FLAT,’ from the flatness of the obnoxious insect.
