beetle

Pluralbeetles

Formsbeetles, beetling, beetled

1. 1
   nouncountable

   An insect of the order Coleoptera, with a pair of hard front wings that cover and protect the rear wings when at rest.

   A beetle landed on her arm and slowly folded its hard wing cases.

   Many beetles feed on dead wood, fungi, and fallen leaves.

   Note

   The insect's name makes it a biter. Old English bitula goes back to a Germanic word meaning "that which tends to bite," formed like bite + -le. The wooden mallet called a beetle is a separate word that only looks the same, built from beat in the same way. The old spelling of betel is a third word, borrowed through Portuguese. The page holds three homographs, not one word with many meanings.

2. 2
   verbintransitive

   To move away quickly; to scurry off.

   She beetled across the road to get out of the rain.

   We'd better beetle off before the crowds arrive.

   Similarscurry, scuttle, dash, hurry, scoot

   Note

   This verb borrows the insect's quick, purposeful scuttle, and it nearly always takes a direction word. People beetle off, beetle across a room, or beetle their way home, as a lone car does in J. K. Rowling's Order of the Phoenix (2003). Dorothy L. Sayers's "beetled off somewhere as usual," in Gaudy Night, shows its light, everyday touch.

3. 3
   nouncountable

   Alternative letter-case form of Beetle.

   She drove a rusty old beetle to college every day.

   The collector parked his vintage beetle beside the showroom.

   Similarbug

   Note

   Lowercase is the casual way to write the car's name, which is normally capitalized as Beetle. Writing it small treats a model name as an ordinary noun. In careful writing the capital is the safer choice, because the lowercase form looks the same on the page as the insect.

4. 4
   noununcountable

   A game of chance in which players try to complete a drawing of a beetle, each dice roll letting them add a different body part.

   The children spent the rainy afternoon playing beetle at the kitchen table.

   He rolled a six and finished his beetle before anyone else could.

   Note

   Grammatically the game is a mass noun. People play beetle much as they play chess, while the drawing each player builds is their beetle. An organized session is a beetle drive. The Queen's Nurses' Magazine of 1944 reports one held after the guessing competitions and judges it popular with all by the sound of the laughter.

5. 5
   nouncountable

   A mallet with a large wooden head, used to drive wedges, pack down pavement, and perform similar heavy tasks.

   Workers used a heavy beetle to drive stakes deep into the ground.

   She lifted the beetle and brought it down hard on the wedge.

   Similarmallet, maul, sledge

   Note

   The tool is named for beating. Old English bȳtel meant "hammer" and comes from a Germanic word for a hammer or mallet, formed like beat + -le. It has a cousin in Low German Bötel, "mallet." The mill machine, the pounding verb and the cloth-finishing verb all descend from this tool, not from the insect.

6. 6
   adjective

   Protruding or overhanging; jutting out above.

   Thick, beetle brows gave his face a permanently stern look.

   A beetle ledge of rock overhung the narrow mountain trail.

   Similarprominent

   Note

   The adjective was pulled out of a compound. Middle English had bitel-brouwed, "beetle-browed," and the freestanding adjective grew from it. That history explains why brows are its natural partner: beetle brows are heavy and overhanging. Whether the insect stands behind the compound, perhaps through the bushy antennae some beetles have, is only a possibility.

7. 7
   verbtransitive or intransitive

   To stick out over something or hang above it, as an overhanging cliff does.

   Dark crags beetle over the valley, casting long afternoon shadows.

   The ruined tower beetles above the river bend like a watchful guard.

   Similaroverhang, loom, jut, tower, project

   Note

   In Hamlet a cliff "beetles o'er his base into the sea." Since then the verb has kept company with cliffs, ramparts and chimneys. Wordsworth's "beetling rampart" (1822) shows the participle doing an adjective's work. The verb works with or without an object: a chimney beetles over a roof. It shares its Middle English beginnings with the overhanging adjective.

8. 8
   verbtransitive

   To beat or pound something with a heavy mallet.

   The laborers beetle the clay to pack it down before laying bricks.

   She beetled the stubborn stake until it finally held firm.

   Similarpound, hammer, ram, tamp

9. 9
   nouncountable

   A machine that hammers fabric while it passes over rollers, used in cotton mills to finish cloth.

   The mill's beetle ran day and night, hammering the linen smooth.

   Engineers repaired the beetle before the next batch of cotton arrived.

   Note

   The name passed from the wooden mallet to the machinery that took over its hammering in the mills. The longer name, beetling machine, keeps the machine apart from the hand tool when both might come up.

10. 10
    verbtransitive

    To give cloth a finish by pounding it in a beetle or a beetling machine.

    Skilled workers beetle the linen by hand in the traditional mill.

    The fabric was beetled repeatedly to produce a lustrous surface.

    Note

    Textile finishers use the verb with the cloth as its object: mills beetle cotton goods and linen, and the finished cloth is beetled. The repeated hammering over rollers consolidates the threads and gives the surface a smooth, lustrous sheen, which is the whole point of the process.

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