sb. (and a.) Forms: 4 pl. bedoynes, 7 pl. baduini, sing. bedwin, 8 bedonian, bedouia, bedoween, 8– bedouin (9 beduin). Also β. 9 sing. bedawy, -awee, pl. bedawin, -een. [a. F. bedouin, 12th c. OF. li bedowin (pl.), 13th c. beduins, beduyn (sing.), a. Arab. badāwīn, or badawīn, pl. of badāwīy or badawīy a dweller in the desert, f. badw desert. First known to Europeans in Crusading times. The plural, being of most frequent use, was adapted in med.L. as beduīni, bedewīni, It. beduini, baduini, whence a sing. L. beduīnus, It. beduino, F. beduin, etc., with the Arab. pl. ending -īn retained: cf. assassin, also cherubin, seraphin, rabbin. In English apparently forgotten after Crusading times till the 17th c. The mod. spelling is French: travellers acquainted with Arabic often substitute the forms in β.] An Arab of the desert.
c. 1400. Maundev., v. 35. I duelled with him as soudyour in his werres … aȝen the Bedoynes.
1603. R. Johnson, Kingd. & Commw., 171. Parte of the Arabians … live in the fields and mountaines, and are termed Baduini.
1635. Pagitt, Christianogr., I. ii. (1636), 71. A few Christians remaining, called Bedwins.
1767. Russel, in Phil. Trans., LVIII. 144. The Bedouins at this place.
1788. Gibbon, Decl. & F. (1802), IX. 223. The same life is uniformly pursued by … the modern Bedoweens.
1796. Morse, Amer. Geog., II. 609. The Bedonians, or wandering Arabs.
1847. Kinglake, Eöthen, 180. I was now amongst the true Bedouins.
β. 1865. Fam. Treas. Sund. Read., VII. 442. The tent of the modern Bedawy.
1870. R. Anderson, Missions Amer. Board, III. iii. 45. The wild Bedawin … were worse than the Greeks.
b. transf. One who leads a Bedouin-like life elsewhere; a gipsy. (Cf. City Arab.)
1863. Times, 21 May, 11/3. Where, in short, were all the dingy bedouins of England who travel through to this great gathering…?
2. attrib. or as adj.
1844. Mem. Babylonian P’cess, 82. I had seen several Bedouin girls.
1861. Sala, Tw. round Clock, 45. Half-starved Bedouin children, mostly Irish.
