Bedlam
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Written by a house AI from the entry below, in your language. The entry itself is the source.
bedlam¹
- /ˈbɛdləm/
Where it comes from
From Bedlam, alternative name of the English lunatic asylum, Bethlem Royal Hospital (royal hospital from 1375, mental hospital from 1403) (earlier St Mary of Bethlehem outside Bishopsgate, hospice in existence from 1329, priory established 1247), since used to mean “a place or situation of madness and chaos”. Bedlam as name of hospital attested 1450.
Phonologically, corruption of Bethlem, itself a corruption of Bethlehem (the Biblical town), from Ancient Greek Βηθλεέμ (Bēthleém) from Biblical Hebrew בֵּית לֶחֶם (bêṯ leḥem, literally “house of bread”).
However, also compare Spanish belén (“confusion, disorder; a place characteristic of such”).
noun bedlams
- A place or situation of chaotic uproar, and where confusion prevails. Some of the wards were veritable "bedlams," and discharged patients have told of abuses practiced in them of which the mere recital causes a shudder.
- An insane person; a lunatic; a madman. Lets follow the old Earle, and get the bedlom To lead him where he would, his rogiſh madnes Allows it ſelfe to any thing.
- A lunatic asylum; a madhouse. It was a ſhrewd ſaying of the old Monk, That two kind of Priſons would ſerve for all offenders in the World, an Inquiſition and a Bedlam: If any man ſhould deny the Being of a God and the Immortality of the Soul, ſuch a one ſhould be put into the firſt of these, the Inquiſition, as being a deſperate
Bedlam²
- /ˈbɛdləm/
proper noun
- A hamlet in Clint cum Hamlets parish, Harrogate borough, North Yorkshire, England (OS grid ref SE2661).
- A hamlet in Bitterley parish, south Shropshire, England (OS grid ref SO5877).
- A hamlet in Great Elm parish, Mendip district, Somerset, England (OS grid ref ST7549).
- Bethlem Royal Hospital, a famous psychiatric hospital, now located in Bromley, South London.
