Word.ws English Dictionary

beldam

beldam is the alternative spelling of beldame.

Meaning of beldame

Noun

beldame (plural beldames)

  1. (obsolete) A grandmother.
    • There he was welcom'd of that honeſt ſyre, / And of his aged Beldame homely well; / Who him beſought himſelfe to diſattyre, / And reſt himſelfe, till ſupper time befell.1596, Edmund Spenser, “Book VI, Canto IX”, in The Faerie Queene. […], part II (books IV–VI), London: […] [Richard Field] for William Ponsonby, →OCLC, page 470
  2. (archaic) An old woman, particularly an ugly one.
    • Justice is an old hobbling beldame, and I can't get her to keep pace with Generosity, for the soul of me.1777, Richard Brinsley Sheridan, The School for Scandal, IV.i
    Synonyms:
    crone, hag, harridan

Forms of beldam

pluralbeldams

Words formed from beldam

Questions about beldam

What is beldam the alternative spelling of?
Beldam is the alternative spelling of beldame.

Words near beldam in the dictionary

  1. Belciugatele
  2. belcomethasone
  3. Belcoo
  4. Belcourt
  5. Belcourts
  6. beldam
  7. beldame
  8. beldames
  9. beldams
  10. beldamship
  11. Belden

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: beldam (page history and authors); beldame (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.

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