[see STEAD.] Strictly, the place occupied by a bed; but long ago transferred to the wooden or metal stand on which a bed is raised; the framework of a bed.
c. 1440. Promp. Parv., 28. Bedstede, stratum.
1530. Palsgr., 197/1. Bedde stede, chalit.
1535. Coverdale, Song Sol. iii. 7. Aboute Salomons bedsteade there stonde LX. valeaunt men.
1611. Bible, Deut. iii. 11. Behold, his bedsted was a bedsted of yron.
1621. G. Sandys, Ovid’s Met., VIII. (1626), 167. A homely bed-steed made of willow.
1713. Swift, Fr. J. Denny, Wks. 1755, III. I. 145. We bound our lunatick … down to the bedsted.
1872. Yeats, Techn. Hist. Comm., 352. Celebrated for its bedsteads of cast iron.
