subs. (old).—1.  A well-fed menial: in contempt.

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  1610.  Histrio-mastix, iii. 99.

                    Awake yee drowsie drones
That long have suckt the honney from my hives:
Begone yee greedy BEEFE-EATERS.

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  1628.  F. GREVILLE, Life of Sidney (1652), 109. We conquered France, more by such factious and ambitious assistances, than by any odds of our Bows, or BEEF-EATERS as the French were then scornfully pleas’d to terme us.

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  1854.  D. BADHAM, Prose Halieutics, 516. Amongst immortal gluttons, Hercules (βουφάγος) the BEEF-EATER was chief.

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  2.  (old).—The Yeoman of the guard, household wardens of the Sovereign of Great-Britain: instit. by Henry VII (1485), were subsequently appointed Warders of the Tower of London by Ed. VI: the present uniform is the same as that of the orig. BEEFEATERS of the guard.

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  1671.  CROWNE, Juliana, IV. 44. The BEEF-EATERS O’ THE GUARD. Ibid. You BEEF-EATER, you saucy cur.

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  1736.  FIELDING, Pasquin, ii. 1. If your lordship please to make me a BEEF-EATER.

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  1779.  SHERIDAN, The Critic, iii, 1. (1883), 175. Enter BEEF-EATER, with his halbert.

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  1848.  MACAULAY, The History of England, I, 293. Without some better protection than that of the trainbands and BEEF-EATERS.

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  1864.  SPENCER, Illustrations of Universal Progress, 63. The BEEFEATERS at the Tower wear the costume of Henry VIIth’s body guard.

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