besom

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English

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Etymology

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From Middle English besme, beseme, from Old English besma, besema (“besom, broom, rod”), from Proto-West Germanic *besmō (“broom”).

A traditional besom.

Pronunciation

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Noun

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besom (plural besoms)

  1. A broom made from a bundle of twigs tied onto a shaft.
    • 1976 September, Saul Bellow, Humboldt’s Gift, New York, N.Y.: Avon Books, →ISBN, page 56:
      As a kid I went to the Russian Bath with my own father. … Down in the cellar men moaned on the steam-softened planks while they were massaged abrasively with oak-leaf besoms lathered in pickle buckets.
  2. (Scotland, Northern England, derogatory) A troublesome woman.
    • 1903, Samuel Rutherford Crockett, The Dark O' the Moon: A Novel, page 130:
      "Eh, but she was a besom, if a' tales be true !"
    • 1917, A.S. Neill., A Dominie Dismissed, page 10:
      Janet's eyes began to look dim, and I had to frown at her very hard; then I had to turn my frown on Jean ... and Janet, the besom, took advantage of my divided attention.
    • 1963, Margaret McLean MacPherson, The Shinty Boys, page 187:
      Uncle Angus went on about the behavior of the car. "She's a besom, a proper besom, her and her gears. She'll be the death of me yet one of these days."
    • 2013, Nora Kay, Best Friends:
      "She's a besom but no' bad at times, like now," Agnes said as she bit into a dough-ring.
  3. Any cleansing or purifying agent.
    • 1851, “A Few Words about War and the Peace Congress.”, in Littell’s Living Age, volume 28, page 364:
      "The march of an army through a conquered country supposing it to be a highly civilized one, is a besom of destruction, whose havoc, moral and material, it would take at least a century to recover."

Derived terms

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Translations

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See also

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Verb

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besom (third-person singular simple present besoms, present participle besoming, simple past and past participle besomed)

  1. (archaic, poetic) To sweep.
    • 1954, Dylan Thomas, Under Milk Wood […] ‎[1], New York: New Directions, page 13:
      Now, in her iceberg-white, holily laundered crinoline nightgown, under virtuous polar sheets, in her spruced and scoured dust-defying bedroom in trig and trim Bay View, a house for paying guests at the top of the town, Mrs Ogmore-Prichard widow, twice, of Mr Ogmore, linolium, retired, and Mr Prichard, failed bookmaker, who maddened by besoming, swabbing and scrubbing, the voice of the vacuum-cleaner and the fume of polish, ironically swallowed disinfectant...

Anagrams

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Middle English

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Noun

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besom

  1. (Late Middle English) Alternative form of besme

Serbo-Croatian

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Noun

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besom (Cyrillic spelling бесом)

  1. instrumental singular of bes

Noun

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besom (Cyrillic spelling бесом)

  1. instrumental singular of besa

Yola

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Etymology

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From Middle English bysom (“blind, purblind”), from Old English bisene (“blind”). Cognate with English bisson.

Pronunciation

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Adjective

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besom

  1. (figurative) stupid
    • 1927, “ZONG OF TWI MAARKEET MOANS”, in THE ANCIENT DIALECT OF THE BARONIES OF FORTH AND BARGY, COUNTY WEXFORD, page 129, line 5:
      Thick besom fighed a spagh wi kick an a blaake […]
      The stupid kid figged the spoke, with a kick and a bleat […]

References

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  • Kathleen A. Browne (1927) The Journal of the Royal Society of Antiquaries of Ireland Sixth Series, Vol.17 No.2, Royal Society of Antiquaries of Ireland, page 129
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