beadle
Syllables: bead·le/ˈbiːdəl/
beadle noun: a parish constable, a uniformed minor (lay) official, who ushers and keeps order.
Noun
beadle (plural beadles)
- A parish constable, a uniformed minor (lay) official, who ushers and keeps order.
- 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.1789, William Blake, “Holy Thursday”, in Songs of Innocence - The beadle […] generally understood in the neighbourhood to be a ridiculous institution […] The policeman considers him an imbecile civilian, a remnant of the barbarous watchmen times, but gives him admission as something that must be borne with until government shall abolish him.1852 March – 1853 September, Charles Dickens, chapter 11, in Bleak House, London: Bradbury and Evans, […], published 1853, →OCLC, page 101
- Twas on a holy Thursday, their innocent faces clean,
- An attendant to the minister.
- A warrant officer.
Proper noun capitalized: Beadle
Beadle
- A surname originating as an occupation for a court official.
beadle meaning in Bengali and Arabic
beadle in Bengali
- গির্জা, বিশ্ববিদ্যালয়ের নিম্নপদস্থ কর্মচারী
beadle in Arabic
- a parish constable
- شَمّاس šammās
Forms of beadle
| plural | beadles |
|---|---|
| alternative Scotland | bedral |
| alternative Scotland | bethral |
| alternative Scotland | betherel |
| alternative form (obsolete) | bedel |
| alternative form (obsolete) | bedell |
Origin of beadle
From Middle English bedel, bidel, from Old English bydel (“warrant officer, apparitor”), from Proto-West Germanic *budil, from Proto-Germanic *budilaz (“herald”), equivalent to bid + -le. Cognate with Dutch beul, German Büttel. More at bid.
Words formed from beadle
Words that rhyme with beadle
Questions about beadle
- What does beadle mean?
- Beadle means a parish constable, a uniformed minor (lay) official, who ushers and keeps order.
- What is beadle in Bengali?
- Beadle in Bengali is গির্জা, বিশ্ববিদ্যালয়ের নিম্নপদস্থ কর্মচারী. See Beadle meaning in Bengali.
- What part of speech is beadle?
- Beadle can be a noun or a proper noun.
- How do you pronounce beadle?
- Beadle is pronounced /ˈbiːdəl/.
- What is the plural of beadle?
- The plural of beadle is beadles.
Words near beadle in the dictionary
Source and license
Adapted from Wiktionary: beadle (page history and authors); Beadle (page history and authors); beadle (Bengali Wiktionary) (page history and authors). Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws reformatted the entry and added links. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.
Last updated:
Pronunciation audio from Wikimedia Commons, each file under its own free license: LL-Q1860 (eng)-Vealhurl-beadle.wav.
Cite this entry: “beadle.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/beadle. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.