BEETLE • FREE TRANSLATOR.ORG • Definition of Beetle

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/bˈitəl/ Listen

noun

Beetle n.

A heavy mallet, used to drive wedges, beat pavements, etc.

A machine in which fabrics are subjected to a hammering process while passing over rollers, as in cotton mills; called also beetling machine.

Beetle n. Any insect of the order Coleoptera, having four wings, the outer pair being stiff cases for covering the others when they are folded up. See Coleoptera.

Beetle mite (Zool.), one of many species of mites, of the family Oribatidae, parasitic on beetles.

Black beetle, the common large black cockroach (Blatta orientalis).

verb

Beetle v. t. (past & past part. beetled; pres. part. beetling)

To beat with a heavy mallet.

To finish by subjecting to a hammering process in a beetle or beetling machine; as, to beetle cotton goods.

Beetle v. i. To extend over and beyond the base or support; to overhang; to jut. "To the dreadful summit of the cliff That beetles o'er his base into the sea." "Each beetling rampart, and each tower sublime."

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Etymology of 'Beetle'

Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48

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"Beetle" Quotes from Famous Books

... hare, which was running for dear life and was at her wits' end to know where to turn for help. Presently she espied a Beetle, and begged it to aid her. So when the Eagle came up the Beetle warned her not to touch the hare, which was under its protection. But the Eagle never noticed the Beetle because it was so small, seized the hare and ate her up. The Beetle never forgot this, and used to keep an eye on the Eagle's ...

— Aesop's Fables • Aesop

... finished their hurried breakfast, Ben Tackers appeared, accompanied by two vicious looking hounds, whose red eyes and beetle brows made the boys hesitate to approach ...

— The Pony Rider Boys in the Rockies • Frank Gee Patchin

... rubbish to foolish buyers. The great buildings on the right of us, the Inns and the School Board place—as it was then—Somerset House, the big hotels, the great bridges, Westminster's outlines ahead, had an effect of grey largeness that reduced him to the proportions of a busy black beetle in a ...

— Tono Bungay • H. G. Wells

... that night, she sees a burnished beetle on the ground before her, sparkling along the dust as it makes its slow way to a tuft of maize, and puts out her foot and kills it. The country girl recalls a superstition connected with these bright beetles—that if one was killed, the sun, "his friend ...

— Browning's Heroines • Ethel Colburn Mayne

... by countless other sounds, which came through the open window,—the croaking of frogs and tree-toads, the chirping and whistling of insects and reptiles, while I could see a party of fireflies glistening among the curtains of the bed. Now and then a huge beetle would make its way into the room, and go buzzing about round and round, till to my infinite relief it darted out of the window! But the noises and the stings of the mosquitoes drove sleep from my eyelids. Presently I heard ...

— Paddy Finn • W. H. G. Kingston

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