dumbledore

WOTD – 6 March 2008    

English

Wikipedia

Wikipedia

Two views of a dumbledore

Alternative forms

• dumble-dor
• dumbledor

Etymology

Compound of dumble (“similar to bumble”) +‎ dor (“a buzzing flying insect”).

Pronunciation

• (RP) IPA: /ˈdʌm.bəl.dɔː/
• (US) IPA: /ˈdʌm.bəl.dɔːr/

• Audio (US)

  (file)

Noun

dumbledore (plural dumbledores)

1. (dialectal) A bumblebee.
   • 1875 Charlotte M Yonge, The Daisy Chain

     Those slopes of fresh turf, embroidered with every minute blossom of the moor — thyme, birdsfoot, eyebright, and dwarf purple thistle, buzzed and hummed over by busy, black-tailed, yellow-banded dumbledores.

   • 1899 Thomas Hardy, An August Midnight

     A shaded lamp and a waving blind, / And the beat of a clock from a distant floor: / On this scene enter – winged, horned, and spined – / A longlegs, a moth, and a dumbledore —

   • 1970 May 21, Evening Telegram, p3

     Now and then a dumbledore or ‘busy bee’ as they are called by some, propelled itself across our path, they being extremely large and heavy this year.

   • 1987 Seán Virgo, Selakhi, Exile Editions, Ltd., p20

     A dumbledore, lured from the plantation, lies on its back, leaping and churning upon Seth’s bright pages.

2. (dialectal) A beetle, typically a cockchafer or dung beetle
   • 1964 Transactions of the American Philological Association, American Philological Association, Ginn & Co., p267

     Others may need to be informed that a blastnashun straddlebob is a dumbledore, that is to say, a polyonymous lamellicorn coleopter, cald also a dorbeetle, a dorbug, a maybeetle, a maybug or a cockchafer, a Mflolontha rulgaris.

3. (dialectal) a dandelion
   • 1975 Peter J. Scott, Edible Fruits and Herbs of Newfoundland, St. John’s, Memorial University Oxen Pond Botanical Park, p39

     The Dandelion has a number of common names in Newfoundland. These include Dumbledore, Faceclock, and Piss-a-beds.

4. (slang) a blundering person
   • 1872 Thomas Hardy, Under the Greenwood Tree, chapter 4

     “Miserable dumbledores!” / “Right, William, and so they be—miserable dumbledores!” said the choir with unanimity.

Translations

bumblebee — see bumblebee

beetle — see beetle

dandelion — see dandelion

blundering person

• Finnish: tomppeli (fi)