subs. phr. (old).—1.  A sheriff’s officer; a bailiff.

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  1698.  FARQUHAR, Love and a Bottle, iii., 2.

          Mock.  But pray what’s the matter, Mrs. Lyric?
  Lyric.  Nothing, sir, but a shirking bookseller that owed me about forty guineas for a few lines. He would have put me off, so I sent for a couple of BULL-DOGS, and arrested him.

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  2.  (old).—A pistol; in the naval service, a main-deck gun: cf. BARKER and BULL-DOG BLAZER.

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  1700.  FARQUHAR, The Constant Couple, iii., 2. He whips out his stiletto, and I whips out my BULL-DOG.

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  1824.  SCOTT, St. Ronan’s Well, ii., 191. ‘I have always a brace of BULL-DOGS about me.’… So saying, he exhibited a very handsome, highly-finished, and richly-mounted pair of pistols.

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  1867.  W. H. SMYTH, Sailor’s Word-Book. BULL-DOG or MUZZLED BULL-DOG, the great gun which stands housed in the officers’ ward-room cabin. General term for main-deck guns.

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  1881.  Daily News, Oct. 27, 6, 2. Revolver cartridges of the ordinary BULL-DOG pattern.

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  3.  (old).—See quot.

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  1819.  J. H. VAUX, A Vocabulary of the Flash Language. BULL-DOG, a sugar-loaf.

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  4.  (university).—A proctor’s assistant or marshall.

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  1823.  LOCKHART, Reginald Dalton, I., x. (1842), 59. Long forgotten stories about proctors bit and BULL-DOGS baffled.

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  1841.  BULWER-LYTTON, Night and Morning, III., iii. The proctor and his BULL-DOGS came up … and gave chase to the delinquents … the night was dark, and they reached the College in safety.

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  1847.  TENNYSON, The Princess, Prologue.

                        We, unworthier, told
Of college: he had climb’d across the spikes,
And he had squeezed himself betwixt the bars,
And he had breath’d the Proctor’s DOGS.

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  1880.  BREWER, The Reader’s Handbook, s.v. BULL-DOGS, the two servants of a university proctor, who follow him in his rounds, to assist him in apprehending students who are violating the university statutes, such as appearing in the streets after dinner without cap and gown, etc.

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  1882.  T. A. GUTHRIE (‘F. Anstey’), Vice Versâ, v. Who should we see coming straight down on us but a Proctor with his BULL-BOGS (not dogs, you know, but the strongest gyps in the college).

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  5.  (university: obsolete).—A member of Trinity College, Cambridge.

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