Meaning

4 senses

  1. To move (away) quickly, to scurry away.

    He beetled off on his vacation.

  2. (ambitransitive)To loom over; to extend or jut (above).

    The heavy chimney beetled over the thatched roof.

  3. To beat with a heavy mallet.

    beat with a beetle

  4. To finish by subjecting to a hammering process in a beetle or beetling machine.

    to beetle cotton goods

Examples

252 sentences

  1. Beetles, butterflies and cockroaches are insects.

    Жуки, метелики і таргани - комахи. — rmdas

    ruЖуки, бабочки и тараканы - насекомые. — Biga

    CC BY 2.0 FR · Tatoeba · CM · C1Open on TatoebaReport a problem

  2. We raced our beetles.

    Ми влаштували перегони для наших жуків. — deniko

    ruМы пустили своих жуков бежать наперегонки. — Selena777

    CC BY 2.0 FR · Tatoeba · AlanF_US · B2Open on TatoebaReport a problem

  3. Sami caught a little blue beetle.

    CC BY 2.0 FR · Tatoeba · OsoHombre · C1Open on TatoebaReport a problem

  4. Some spruces are bark-beetle infested.

    deManche Fichten haben Borkenkäfer. — Yorwba

    CC BY 2.0 FR · Tatoeba · Ergulis · C1Open on TatoebaReport a problem

  5. The beetle is on the table.

    CC BY 2.0 FR · Tatoeba · Amastan · B2Open on TatoebaReport a problem

Origin

From Middle English bitle, bityl, bytylle, from Old English bitula, bitela, bītel (“beetle

From Middle English bitle, bityl, bytylle, from Old English bitula, bitela, bītel (“beetle”), from Proto-West Germanic *bitilō, *bītil, from Proto-Germanic *bitilô, *bītilaz (“that which tends to bite, biter, beetle”), equivalent to bite + -le. Cognate with Old High German bicco (“beetle”), Danish bille (“beetle”), Icelandic bitil, bitul (“a bite, bit”), Faroese bitil (“small piece, bittock”).

From Middle English bitel-brouwed (“beetle-browed”). Possibly after beetle, from the fact that some beetles have bushy antennae.

From Middle English betel, from Old English bȳtel, bīetel (“hammer”), from Proto-West Germanic *bautil (“hammer, mallet”), equivalent to beat + -le. Cognate with Low German Bötel (“mallet”).

Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0 · source

Forms

beetles, beetling, beetled, beetled
Base formbeetle · to beetle
3rd person singularbeetles
Present participlebeetling
Past simplebeetled
Past participlebeetled

regular · Lesson

Present simpleLesson

I, you, we, theybeetle
he, she, itbeetles

Past simpleLesson

all personsbeetled

Present perfectLesson

I, you, we, theyhave beetled
he, she, ithas beetled

Future simple (will)Lesson

all personswill beetle

Synonyms

1 synonyms
Close in meaning

Word family

5 related words
RelatedbugA2chaferfireflyladybirdscarab

Lessons for this word

3 lessons

See also

neighbours in the dictionary
beeswaxbeetbeetrootbefall
beetle — meaning, examples, forms, synonyms | Krumeto