Definify.com

Webster 1913 Edition

Beadle

Bea′dle

,
Noun.
[OE.
bedel
,
bidel
,
budel
, OF.
bedel
, F.
bedeau
, fr. OHG.
butil
,
putil
, G.
büttel
, fr. OHG.
biotan
, G.
bieten
, to bid, confused with AS.
bydel
, the same word as OHG.
butil
. See.
Bid
,
Verb.
]
1.
A messenger or crier of a court; a servitor; one who cites or bids persons to appear and answer; – called also an
apparitor
or
summoner
.
2.
An officer in a university, who precedes public processions of officers and students.
[Eng.]
☞ In this sense the archaic spellings bedel (Oxford) and bedell (Cambridge) are preserved.
3.
An inferior parish officer in England having a variety of duties, as the preservation of order in church service, the chastisement of petty offenders, etc.

Webster 1828 Edition

Beadle

BE'ADLE

,
Noun.
1.
A messenger or crier of a court; a servitor; one who cites persons to appear and answer; called also an apparitor or summoner.
2.
An officer in a university, whose chief business is to walk with a mace, before the masters, in a public procession; or as in America before the president, trustees, faculty and students of a college, in a procession, at public commencements.
3.
A parish officer, whose business is to punish petty offenders.

Definition 2024

Beadle

Beadle

See also: beadle

Translingual

Proper noun

Beadle

  1. A botanical plant name author abbreviation for botanist Chauncey Delos Beadle (1866-1950).

English

Proper noun

Beadle

  1. A surname​.

beadle

beadle

See also: Beadle

English

Alternative forms

Noun

beadle ‎(plural beadles)

  1. a parish constable, a uniformed minor (lay) official, who ushers and keeps order
  2. (Scotland, ecclesiastic) an attendant to the minister
  3. a warrant officer

Quotations

Twas on a holy Thursday, their innocent faces clean,
The children walking two and two in red and blue and green:
Grey-headed beadles walked before, with wands as white as snow,
Till into the high dome of Paul's they like Thames waters flow. - William Blake, "Holy Thursday" (1789)
  • 1929, Virginia Woolf, A Room of One's Own, Penguin Books, paperback edition, page 8
    His face expressed horror and indignation. Instinct rather than reason came to my help; he was a Beadle; I was a woman.

Derived terms

Translations

Etymology

From Middle English bedel, bidel, from Old English bydel ‎(“warrant officer, apparitor”), from Proto-Germanic *budilaz ‎(“herald”), from Proto-Germanic *beudaną ‎(“to present, offer”), from Proto-Indo-European *bʰewdʰ- ‎(“to comprehend, make aware”). Akin to Swedish bödel, Finnish pyöveli, and Old High German butil ‎(“beadle”), (whence German Büttel), Old English bēodan ‎(“to announce”). More at bid.

Pronunciation

  • (UK) IPA(key): [ˈbiːdəɫ]
  • Rhymes: -iːdəl

Similar Results