besom
/ˈbiː.zəm/
besom noun: a broom made from a bundle of twigs tied onto a shaft.
Noun
besom (plural besoms)
- A broom made from a bundle of twigs tied onto a shaft.
- As a kid I went to the Russian Bath with my own father. … Down in the cellar men moaned on the steam-softened planks while they were massaged abrasively with oak-leaf besoms lathered in pickle buckets.1976 September, Saul Bellow, Humboldt’s Gift, New York, N.Y.: Avon Books, →ISBN, page 56
- At Ickwell Green, in Bedfordshire, there is a permanent maypole. There, the May Queen is accompanied by moggies (raggedly dressed women) carrying besoms - birch-twig brooms.1980, AA Book of British Villages, Drive Publications Ltd, page 263
- A troublesome woman.
- "Eh, but she was a besom, if a' tales be true !"1903, Samuel Rutherford Crockett, The Dark O' the Moon: A Novel, page 130
- Janet's eyes began to look dim, and I had to frown at her very hard; then I had to turn my frown on Jean ... and Janet, the besom, took advantage of my divided attention.1917, A.S. Neill., A Dominie Dismissed, page 10
- Any cleansing or purifying agent.
- "The march of an army through a conquered country supposing it to be a highly civilized one, is a besom of destruction, whose havoc, moral and material, it would take at least a century to recover."1851, “A Few Words about War and the Peace Congress.”, in Littell’s Living Age, volume 28, page 364
Verb
besom (third-person singular simple present besoms, present participle besoming, simple past and past participle besomed)
- To sweep.
- Now, in her iceberg-white, holily laundered crinoline nightgown, under virtuous polar sheets, in her spruced and scoured dust-defying bedroom in trig and trim Bay View, a house for paying guests at the top of the town, Mrs Ogmore-Prichard widow, twice, of Mr Ogmore, linolium, retired, and Mr...1954, Dylan Thomas, Under Milk Wood […] , New York: New Directions, page 13
besom meaning in Bengali, Arabic and Persian
besom in Bengali
- broom
- ঝাঁটা jhãṭa, বাড়ন baṛon, খেংরা kheṅra
besom in Arabic
- broom
- مِقَشَّة miqašša
besom in Persian
- broom
- جاروب jârub
Examples of besom in a sentence
- "She's a besom, a proper besom, her and her gears.1963, Margaret McLean MacPherson, The Shinty Boys, page 187:
- "She's a besom but no' bad at times, like now," Agnes said as she bit into a dough-ring.2013, Nora Kay, Best Friends:
Forms of besom
| Noun | |
|---|---|
| plural | besoms |
| alternative form (obsolete) | beesom |
| Verb | |
| third-person singular present | besoms |
| present participle | besoming |
| past participle | besomed |
| past | besomed |
Origin of besom
From Middle English besme, beseme, from Old English besma, besema (“besom, broom, rod”), from Proto-West Germanic *besmō (“broom”).
Words formed from besom
Phrases with besom
Questions about besom
- What does besom mean?
- Besom means a broom made from a bundle of twigs tied onto a shaft.
- What is besom in Bengali?
- Besom in Bengali is ঝাঁটা (jhãṭa), বাড়ন (baṛon), খেংরা (kheṅra). See Besom meaning in Bengali.
- How do you use besom in a sentence?
- "She's a besom, a proper besom, her and her gears.
- What part of speech is besom?
- Besom can be a noun or a verb.
- How do you pronounce besom?
- Besom is pronounced /ˈbiː.zəm/.
- What is the plural of besom?
- The plural of besom is besoms.
Words near besom in the dictionary
Source and license
Adapted from Wiktionary: besom (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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Pronunciation audio from Wikimedia Commons, each file under its own free license: LL-Q1860 (eng)-Vealhurl-besom.wav.
Cite this entry: “besom.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/besom. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.