TO BET ONE’S EYES, verb. phr. (old).—To look on, but to take no part in, nor bet upon the game.
YOU BET, phr. (American).—Be assured! Certainly. [Originally a Californianism to give additional emphasis. It has been given as a name in the form of UBET to a town in the Canadian Northwest.] Oftentimes it is amplified into ‘you bet your boots,’ ‘life,’ ‘bottom dollar,’ and so on. The two former were used in New York and Boston as far back as 1840.
1870. BRET HARTE, Poems, etc., The Tale of a Pony.
| Ah! here comes Rosey’s new turn-out! | |
| Smart! YOU BET YOUR LIFE ’t was that! |
1872. S. L. CLEMENS (‘Mark Twain’), Roughing It, ii. ‘The mosquitoes are pretty bad about here, madam!’ ‘YOU BET!’ ‘What did I understand you to say, madam?’ ‘YOU BET!’
1885. STAVELY HILL, From Home to Home, v. We … reached … the settlement of Ubet…. The name … had been selected … from the slang phrase so laconically expressive of ‘you may be pretty sure I will.’
1888. Chicago Daily Inter Ocean, 7 March. Congressional Report. It is the right kind of bravery: you may BET YOUR BOTTOM DOLLAR on that.
TO BET ROUND, verb. phr. (racing).—To lay fairly and equally against nearly all the horses in a race, so that no great risk can be run: commonly called getting round (Hotten’).
