Meaning of Besom | Babel Free

Definitions

1. A broom made from a bundle of twigs tied onto a shaft.
2. A troublesome woman.
   Northern-England, Scotland, derogatory
3. Any cleansing or purifying agent.

Equivalents

Examples

“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.”

“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.”

“"Eh, but she was a besom, if a' tales be true !"”

“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.”

“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."”

“"She's a besom but no' bad at times, like now," Agnes said as she bit into a dough-ring.”

“"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."”

CEFR level