Beetle

Guessing competitions were tackled with much enthusiasm, followed by a beetle drive, and judging by the laughter, this was popular with all.

For quotations using this term, see Citations:beetle.

He beetled off on his vacation.

I beetled across to our table, but no Pauline, no Mr Cresswell, no Mr Rudyard.

“[…] But he seems to have beetled off somewhere as usual. […]”

In the falling darkness Harry saw small collections of lights as they passed over more villages, then a winding road on which a single car was beetling its way home through the hills. …

Her eyes still closed, his aunt smiled cruelly. “I know what you are dying to say, Bertie. Go ahead—take the cheap shot. I’ll squash you like the nasty little bug you are.” ¶ Thus chastened, the little man beetled away.

beetle brows

The heavy chimney beetled over the thatched roof.

To the dreadful summit of the cliff / That beetles o'er his base into the sea.

Each beetling rampart, and each tower sublime.

I was indeed gently affected, and shared his fears, remembering well the bulging walls of the old house, and the toppling mass of heavy chimney work which beetled over the roof, beneath which these poor doves had made their nest.

He stood a barehead boy upon a cliff / Pine-crowned, that hung high beetling a bleak north sea, / His long bright hair did stream like yellow silk, […]

Impelled by some obscure quest, I ascended a rift or cleft in this beetling precipice, noting as I did so the black mouths of many fearsome burrows extending from both walls into the depths of the stony plateau.

By the power of an imperious spirit, Peter was able to extend his meagre five feet two in space by expanding his chest, cocking his crest, inflating his whiskers, and beetling his brows.

to beetle cotton goods

Scatter black sand, and offer camphor, sandal, flowers, beetle-leaves, and all sorts of fragrance.

Beetle-leaf is absolutely a primary necessary article of life; every person consumes it daily, especially when travelling; the hindoo of caste has great difficulties in the way of cooking food, which are augmented whenever from home, and the beetle alleviates his hunger.

"It consists of the beetle leaf, in which the piece of an areca-nut is mixed with some lime out of the oyster and muscle shells, and so put into the mouth and chewed. Out of the beetle leaves, during the preparation, the fibres that are hard and rough are first drawn to the leaf; the form of a little horn is then given, open at the bottom, and pointed at the top, which when the areca-nut is inserted is closed, and so chewed."