beadle

See also Beadle

English

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Etymology

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

Pronunciation

• Rhymes: -iːdəl

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

• 1789, William Blake, "Holy Thursday"

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

• beadledom
• beadleism
• beadlery
• beadleship

Translations

a parish constable

Czech: dráb (cs) m. Dutch: kerkbaljuw (nl) m.

French: bedeau (fr) m., suisse (fr) m.

an attendant to a Scottish minister

Scottish Gaelic: maor-eaglaise (gd) m.

a warrant officer

The translations below need to be checked and inserted above into the appropriate translation tables, removing any numbers. Numbers do not necessarily match those in definitions. See instructions at Help:How to check translations.

Translations to be checked

Esperanto: pedelo (eo) Italian: chierico m., sagrestano m.