Bine
A cigarette. Belfast and wider Ulster informal slang, shortened from the brand name 'Woodbine'. Also heard as 'feg' (the more common alternative). 'Bum a bine off you?' = can I have a cigarette?
Etymology
From 'Woodbine', the popular brand of unfiltered cigarettes that dominated the Irish working-class smoking market through most of the twentieth century. The brand name (= a climbing plant) is older; the cigarette took the name in the 1880s. Ulster informal speech shortened the brand to the generic 'bine' for any cigarette, much as 'biro' became the generic for any ball-point pen.
In a sentence
"Have you a bine to spare? - left mine in the other coat."
Historical notes
Bine is a piece of brand-as-generic vocabulary preserved in Ulster informal speech. As Woodbines declined commercially (the brand was discontinued in much of the world through the late twentieth century), the word survived its source product. Modern Ulster speakers may use 'bine' for any cigarette without ever having seen a Woodbine packet. The parallel 'feg' (also Ulster for cigarette) is the more widely heard term.
Sources
- Macafee, Caroline. A Concise Ulster Dictionary. Oxford University Press, 1996. · dictionary