besom
English
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besom
- /ˈbiː.zəm/
- /ˈbɛ.zəm/
Where it comes from
From Middle English besme, beseme, from Old English besma, besema (“besom, broom, rod”), from Proto-West Germanic *besmō (“broom”).
noun besoms · beesom
- 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.
- A troublesome woman. "Eh, but she was a besom, if a' tales be true !"
- 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 besoms · besoming · besomed · beesom
- 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 Prichar
Translations
Every language
noun broom
| 中文 | 柳條掃帚 /柳条扫帚 liǔtiáo sàozhou |
|---|---|
| Português | vassoura |
| Français | balai |
| Deutsch | Besen, Reisigbesen |
| Italiano | scopa di saggina |
| Русский | метла metla |
| العربية | مِقَشَّة miqašša |
| עברית | מטאטא m mataté |
noun cleansing agent
| 中文 | 淨化劑 /净化剂 |
|---|
Talk about this word "besom." Wiktionary, via Micwyn, micwyn.com/word/besom. Accessed 6 Nov. 2026. besom. (n.d.). In Wiktionary, via Micwyn. Retrieved November 6, 2026, from https://micwyn.com/word/besom "besom." Wiktionary, via Micwyn. Accessed November 6, 2026. https://micwyn.com/word/besom.Cite this
@misc{besom_2026,
title = {besom},
howpublished = {Wiktionary, via Micwyn},
year = {2026},
url = {https://micwyn.com/word/besom},
urldate = {2026-11-06}
}
