# besom
## English
### Etymology

From Middle English besme, beseme, from Old English besma, besema (“besom, broom, rod”), from Proto-West Germanic *besmō (“broom”).

### Pronunciation

* IPA: /ˈbiː.zəm/
* Audio (Southern England):(file)

### Noun

besom (plural besoms)
* A broom made from a bundle of twigs tied onto a shaft.
    Hypernym: broom
    Hyponym: witch's besom
** 1976 September, Saul Bellow, Humboldt’s Gift, New York, N.Y.: Avon Books, →ISBN, page 56: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.
** 1980, AA Book of British Villages, Drive Publications Ltd, page 263:At Ickwell Green, in Bedfordshire, there is a permanent maypole. There, the May Queen is accompanied by moggies (raggedly dressed women) carrying besoms - birch-twig brooms.
* (Scotland, Northern England, derogatory) A troublesome woman.
    Coordinate terms: witch, bitch (vulgar)
** 1903, Samuel Rutherford Crockett, The Dark O' the Moon: A Novel, page 130:"Eh, but she was a besom, if a' tales be true !"
** 1917, A.S. Neill., A Dominie Dismissed, page 10:Janet's eyes began to look dim, and I had to frown at her very hard; then I had to turn my frown on Jean ... and Janet, the besom, took advantage of my divided attention.
** 1963, Margaret McLean MacPherson, The Shinty Boys, page 187:Uncle Angus went on about the behavior of the car. "She's a besom, a proper besom, her and her gears. She'll be the death of me yet one of these days."
** 2013, Nora Kay, Best Friends:"She's a besom but no' bad at times, like now," Agnes said as she bit into a dough-ring.
* Any cleansing or purifying agent.
** 1851, “A Few Words about War and the Peace Congress.”, in Littell’s Living Age, volume 28, page 364:"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."

#### Derived terms

* besomer
* besom-head
* besomlike
* besom pocket
* witch's besom

#### See also

* besom on Wikipedia.Wikipedia

### Verb

besom (third-person singular simple present besoms, present participle besoming, simple past and past participle besomed)
* (archaic, poetic) To sweep.
** 1954, Dylan Thomas, Under Milk Wood […] ‎, New York: New Directions, page 13: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 Prichard, failed bookmaker, who maddened by besoming, swabbing and scrubbing, the voice of the vacuum-cleaner and the fume of polish, ironically swallowed disinfectant...

#### Translations
### Anagrams

* mebos, mobes

## Middle English
### Noun

besom
* (Late Middle English) Alternative form of besme

## Serbo-Croatian
### Noun

besom (Cyrillic spelling бесом)
* instrumental singular of bes

### Noun

besom (Cyrillic spelling бесом)
* instrumental singular of besa

## Yola
### Etymology

(This etymology is missing or incomplete. Please add to it, or discuss it at the Etymology scriptorium.)

### Pronunciation

* This entry needs pronunciation information. If you are familiar with the IPA then please add some!

### Adjective

besom
* This term needs a translation to English. Please help out and add a translation, then remove the text {{rfdef}}.
** 1927, “ZONG OF TWI MAARKEET MOANS”, in THE ANCIENT DIALECT OF THE BARONIES OF FORTH AND BARGY, COUNTY WEXFORD, page 129, line 5:Thick besom fighed a spagh wi kick an a blaake […]The stupid kid figged the spoke, with a kick and a bleat […]

### References

* Kathleen A. Browne (1927) The Journal of the Royal Society of Antiquaries of Ireland Sixth Series, Vol.17 No.2, Royal Society of Antiquaries of Ireland, page 129