Beadle
WordNet
noun
(1) A minor parish official who serves as an usher and preserves order at services
(2) United States biologist who discovered how hereditary characteristics are transmitted by genes (1903-1989)
WiktionaryText
Etymology
From bedel, from bydel; cognate with Old High German butil 'bailiff', Latin bidellus generalis, Dutch pedel, French bedeau
Noun
- a parish constable, a uniformed minor (lay) official who ushers and keeps order
- an attendant to the minister
- (context?) a warrant officer
Quotations
- 1789, William Blake, "Holy Thursday"
- Twas on a holy Thursday, their innocent faces clean,
- The children walking two and two in red and blue and green:
- Grey-headed beadles walked before, with wands as white as snow,
- Till into the high dome of Paul's they like Thames waters flow. - William Blake, "Holy Thursday" (1789)
- 1929, Virginia Woolf, A Room of One's Own, Penguin Books, paperback edition, page 8
- His face expressed horror and indignation. Instinct rather than reason came to my help; he was a Beadle; I was a woman.
- 1929, Virginia Woolf, A Room of One's Own, Penguin Books, paperback edition, page 8