subs. phr. (old).—1. A chief; a leader ‘chief or leader of the Flock, master of misrule, also a clamorous noisy man’ (B. E.): cf. BELL-MARE: in contempt.
1430. LYDGATE, Bochas (1554), 224. a. I was cleped in my countrey The BEL-WEATHER.
1577. HOLINSHED, Chronicles, II, 40. 2. Thomas being the ringleader of the one sect, and Scotus the BELWEADDER of the other.
1687. T. BROWN, The Saints in an Uproar [Wks. (1730), i. 73]. The principal BELL-WEATHERS of the mutiny.
1794. SOUTHEY, Wat Tyler, iii. 1. You BELL-WETHER of the mob.
1848. J. R. LOWELL, The Biglow Papers, i.
| ’Tain’t afollerin’ your bell-wethers | |
| will excuse ye in His sight. |
2. (old colloquial).—A clamourist; a mouther. Hence BELL-WETHERING and BELL-WETHERISHNESS.
c. 1460. Towneley Mysteries, 80. Go now, BELLEWEDER.
1598. SHAKESPEARE, Merry Wives of Windsor, iii. 5. 111. To be detected with a jealous rotten BELL-WETHER.
1620. SHELTON, trans. Don Quixote, IV, xiii. 109. She made me weep, that am no BEL-WETHER.
1882. Spectator, 25 March, 381. But for the BELL-WETHERING there could have been no crinoline at all. Ibid., 387. The gregariousness and BELL-WETHERISHNESS of the English people who must all do the same thing at once.
