subs. (old, and American thieves’).—Generic for a woman—girl, wife, or mistress: probably an attributive sense of ‘blossom’: cf. BLOWEN, and see quot. 1696.
1588. SHAKESPEARE, Titus Andronicus, iv. 2. 72. Sweet BLOWSE you are a beautious BLOSSOME sure.
c. 1696. B. E., A New Dictionary of the Canting Crew, s.v. BLOSS, c. a Thief or Shop-lift, also, a Bulhes pretended Wife, or Mistress, whom he guards, and who by her Trading supports him, also a Whore.
1785. GROSE, A Classical Dictionary of the Vulgar Tongue. BLOSS, (cant) the pretended wife of a bully, or shop lifter.
1881. New York Slang Dictionary, ‘Slang Stories,’ 42. ‘Why, Bell, is it yourself? Tip us your daddle, my bene mort. May I dance at my death, and grin in a glass-case, if I didn’t think you had been put to bed with a shovel….’ ‘No, Jim, I only piked into Grassville with a dimber-damber, who couldn’t pad the hoof for a single darkman’s without his BLOSS to keep him from getting pogy.’
[1847. TENNYSON, The Princess, v. 79. My babe, my BLOSSOM, ah, my child!]
