beme
beme noun: a mediaeval trumpet, usually used in hunting or warfare.
Noun
beme (plural bemes)
- A mediaeval trumpet, usually used in hunting or warfare.
- Heart of lion! sound the beme!
Sound it into inner lands; […]1789, Thomas Chatterton, William Barrett's History of Bristol, page 641 - One of the long, curved horns was known as a beme and shows up as the instrument of choice blown by angels announcing the Biblical Day of Judgment.2008, Suzanne Lord, Music in the Middle Ages
- Heart of lion! sound the beme!
Examples of beme in a sentence
- And when the host on both parties saw that sword drawn, then they blew bemes, trumpets, and horns, and shouted grimly, and so both hosts dressed them together.2014, Sir Thomas Malory, Maureen Okun, Joseph Black, Le Morte Darthur, page 302:
- […] be inserted directly into each other to make the long, straight beme or trompe.2014, Jeremy Montagu, Horns and Trumpets of the World, page 94:
Forms of beme
| plural | bemes |
|---|
Origin of beme
Borrowed from Middle English beme, from Old English bēme, bȳme, bīeme (“wooden trumpet; tablet, billet”), from Proto-West Germanic *baumijā (“wooden instrument or utensil”), from Proto-Germanic *baumaz (“tree, lumber, beam, wood”). Related to beam.
Questions about beme
- What does beme mean?
- Beme means a mediaeval trumpet, usually used in hunting or warfare.
- How do you use beme in a sentence?
- And when the host on both parties saw that sword drawn, then they blew bemes, trumpets, and horns, and shouted grimly, and so both hosts dressed them together.
- What part of speech is beme?
- Beme is a noun.
- What is the plural of beme?
- The plural of beme is bemes.
Words near beme in the dictionary
Source and license
Adapted from Wiktionary: beme (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:
Cite this entry: “beme.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/beme. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.