beagle
/ˈbiːɡəl/
beagle noun: a small short-legged smooth-coated scenthound, often tricolored and sometimes used for hunting hares. Its friendly disposition makes it suitable as a family pet.
Noun
beagle (plural beagles)
- A small short-legged smooth-coated scenthound, often tricolored and sometimes used for hunting hares. Its friendly disposition makes it suitable as a family pet.
- A person who snoops on others; a detective.
- […]whereas burying a body in the wooded area beyond the backyard was the quickest way to make a Nassau County Police Department beagle look good.2002, Susan Isaacs, Long Time No See, page 243
- A bailiff.
- A small kind of shark.
Verb
beagle (third-person singular simple present beagles, present participle beagling, simple past and past participle beagled)
- To hunt with beagles.
- […] reading men who beagled for fresh air and exercise, impecunious hunting men who beagled for economy[…]1933, Charles Pascoe Hawkes, Heydays: a salad of memories and impressions, page 20
- To search.
- […]Pope clapped his hand to his forehead and beagled like a maniac; he had clean forgotten Thorofare Gap.1997, Fletcher Pratt, A Short History of the Civil War: Ordeal by Fire, page 150
Proper noun capitalized: Beagle
Beagle (plural Beagles)
- A surname.
beagle meaning in Hindi, Tamil, Marathi and Bengali
beagle in Hindi
- बीगल, बीगल करना
beagle in Tamil
- பீகிள், பீகல்
beagle in Marathi
- बीगल, बिगल, बीगलला
beagle in Bengali
- বিগল, শিকারি কুকুর, ছোট জাতের শিকারি কুকুর
More languagesFewer languages
- beagle in Telugu
- బీగల్, బీగిల్
- beagle in Malayalam
- ബീഗിൾ, ബീഗൽ
- beagle in Kannada
- ಬೀಗಲ್
- beagle in Punjabi
- ਬੀਗਲ
- beagle in Gujarati
- બીગલ, બિગલ
- beagle in Odia
- ବିଗଲ, ବୀଗଲ
- beagle in Nepali
- बिगल, बीगल, बीगल गर्न
- beagle in Tagalog
- aso
- beagle in Malay
- anjing beagle
- beagle in Indonesian
- siberat
Examples of beagle in a sentence
- He was a prosecutor before entering private practice and gaining a reputation as a legal beagle.
- The beagle and basset were bred as pack hounds.
- Linus was half basset and half beagle hound, thus a bagel.
Forms of beagle
| Noun | |
|---|---|
| plural | beagles |
| Verb | |
| third-person singular present | beagles |
| present participle | beagling |
| past participle | beagled |
| past | beagled |
| Proper noun | |
| plural | Beagles |
Origin of beagle
Inherited from Middle English *begel (attested in the plural begles), of uncertain origin. Possibly from Middle French beegueule (“one who keeps their mouth open”), whence modern French bégueule (“a colloquial insult said to women of low status and accused of stupidity, who always have their mouths gaped or open; a prude”); from Old French beer, bayer (“to gape, gawk”) + Old French gueule (“gullet”). The modern French bigle (“beagle”) however is a borrowing from the English. Alternatively, a modification of Middle English bedel (“beadle”) in the sense of "constable, detective". The change of /t/, /d/ to /k/, /ɡ/ before /l/ is common; compare hurkle, variant of hurtlen (“to hurtle”), and in Modern English, huckleberry, turkle (“turtle”), and stickle.
Words formed from beagle
Words that rhyme with beagle
Questions about beagle
- What does beagle mean?
- Beagle means a small short-legged smooth-coated scenthound, often tricolored and sometimes used for hunting hares. Its friendly disposition makes it suitable as a family pet.
- What is beagle in Hindi?
- Beagle in Hindi is बीगल, बीगल करना. See Beagle meaning in Hindi.
- What part of speech is beagle?
- Beagle can be a noun, a verb or a proper noun.
- How do you pronounce beagle?
- Beagle is pronounced /ˈbiːɡəl/.
- What is the plural of beagle?
- The plural of beagle is beagles.
Words near beagle in the dictionary
Source and license
Adapted from Wiktionary: beagle (page history and authors); Beagle (page history and authors); beagle (Hindi, IndicTrans2 machine translation) (model and license); beagle (Tamil, IndicTrans2 machine translation) (model and license); beagle (Marathi, IndicTrans2 machine translation) (model and license); beagle (Bengali Wiktionary) (page history and authors); beagle (Telugu, IndicTrans2 machine translation) (model and license); beagle (Malayalam, IndicTrans2 machine translation) (model and license); beagle (Kannada Wiktionary) (page history and authors); beagle (Punjabi, IndicTrans2 machine translation) (model and license); beagle (Gujarati, IndicTrans2 machine translation) (model and license); beagle (Odia, IndicTrans2 machine translation) (model and license); beagle (Nepali, IndicTrans2 machine translation) (model and license). 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.
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Pronunciation audio from Wikimedia Commons, each file under its own free license: LL-Q1860 (eng)-Vealhurl-beagle.wav.
Cite this entry: “beagle.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/beagle. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.