Besom

//ˈbiː.zəm// noun, verb

Definitions

Noun
  1. 1
    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."

  2. 2
    a broom made of twigs tied together on a long handle wordnet
  3. 3
    A troublesome woman. Northern-England, Scotland, derogatory

    ""Eh, but she was a besom, if a' tales be true !""

  4. 4
    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.""

Verb
  1. 1
    To sweep. archaic, poetic

    "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 Prichard, failed bookmaker, who maddened by besoming, swabbing and scrubbing, the voice of the vacuum-cleaner and the fume of polish, ironically swallowed disinfectant..."

Etymology

Etymology 1

From Middle English besme, beseme, from Old English besma, besema (“besom, broom, rod”), from Proto-West Germanic *besmō (“broom”).

Etymology 2

From Middle English besme, beseme, from Old English besma, besema (“besom, broom, rod”), from Proto-West Germanic *besmō (“broom”).

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