glee-beam

glee-beam noun: a harp.

Noun

glee-beam (plural glee-beams)

(historical, Anglo-Saxon, kenning) A harp.
- "[…] So we do him service gladly, thronging round our noble king,
  While the glee-beams at the banquet with the Scêfing's praises ring."1895, Mary Louisa Georgina Petrie Carus-Wilson, Tokiwa and Other Poems, page 120
- The king's scop or earl's gleeman, was the favourite of the court; the one indispensable guest at every banquet and every courtly gathering; whose skill with the glee-beam or harp spread joy throughout the festive hall, and whose memory was stored with soul-stirring tales of great deeds, the...1896, Stephen Humphreys Villiers Gurteen, The Epic of the Fall of Man

Another with his fingers may loudly strike the harp, stir the glee-beam for the joy of his companions.1919, The Wellesley Alumnae Quarterly, volume 4, page 166:
Though the priests may not hearken to song, or story, or glee-beam, yet will they shelter us for the night.”1923, Lucy Foster Madison, A Maid at King Alfred's Court:

plural	glee-beams
alternative form	gleebeam

Calque of Old English glēobēam (“harp”, literally “joy-wood”), equivalent to glee + beam.

What does glee-beam mean?: Glee-beam means a harp.
How do you use glee-beam in a sentence?: Another with his fingers may loudly strike the harp, stir the glee-beam for the joy of his companions.
What part of speech is glee-beam?: Glee-beam is a noun.
What is the plural of glee-beam?: The plural of glee-beam is glee-beams.

Adapted from Wiktionary: glee-beam (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: 2026-09-02

Cite this entry: “glee-beam.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/glee-beam. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.