Forms: 5–9 beldame, 7 belldame, 5– beldam. [Not a direct adoption of the F. belle dame ‘fair lady,’ but formed upon dam, earlier dame, in its Eng. sense of ‘mother,’ with bel- employed to express relationship, as in belsire, belfader: see BEL B. For the transference to a more remote ancestor see also BELSIRE; for the extension to old woman, etc., cf. gaffer, gammer, goody, grandame, granny.]
† 1. A father or mother’s mother, a grandmother. Also fig. Obs.
c. 1440. Promp. Parv., 29. Beldam [v.r. beldame], faders and moders modyr, bothe.
1483. Cath. Angl., 27. Beldame, auia.
c. 1483. Caxton, Bk. Trav., in Promp. Parv., 29, note. Recommaunde me to your bel-fadre, and to your bel dame, à vostre tayon et à vostre taye.
1530. Palsgr., 179/2. Beldame, meregrant.
c. 1550. Paynell, trans. Vives’ Duty Husb. (T.). The mother, the beldame, the aunt, the sister, the cosyn.
1593. Shaks., Lucr., 953. To shew the beldame daughters of her daughter.
1613. Drayton, Poly-olb., vi. (T.). The beldam and the girl, the grandsire and the boy.
1628. Milton, Vac. Exerc., 46. When beldam Nature in her cradle was.
† b. A great-grandmother, or still more remote ancestress; by Plot used for a woman who has lived to see five generations of female descendants.
1679. Plot, Staffordsh. (1686), 322. She lived to be a Beldam, that is to see the sixt generation.
1863. Chambers, Bk. of Days, I. 306. At the same rate she might have been beldam at sixty six.
2. An aged woman, a matron of advanced years. (In 16th c. used in addressing nurses.)
1580. H. Gifford, Gilloflowers (1875), 98. And thus … This aged beldam speakes.
1596. Spenser, F. Q., III. ii. 43. [To ‘her aged nourse’] ‘Beldame, your words doe worke me litle ease.’
1598. Drayton, Heroic. Ep., xix. 15. Here is no Beldam Nurse, to powt nor lowre.
1709. Steele, Tatler, No. 83, ¶ 2. I am neither Childish-young, nor Beldam-old.
1752. Foote, Taste, I. i. This superannuated Beldame gapes for Flattery.
1768. Beattie, Minstr., I. xliii. Her legend when the Beldame ’gan impart.
1821. Byron, Sardan., I. ii. (1868), 352. That blood-loving beldame, My martial grandam.
1856. Longf., Blind Girl, I. 122. The beldame, wrinkled and gray takes the young bride by the hand.
3. esp. with depreciative sense: A loathsome old woman, a hag; a witch; a furious raging woman (without the notion of age), a virago.
a. 1586. Sidney, Arcadia (1613), 10. A beldame … accused for a witch.
1608. R. Johnson, Sev. Champions, 212. Come all you witches, beldames, and Fortunetellers.
a. 1641. Bp. Mountagu, Acts & Mon. (1642), 177. Tarquinius taking her to be some frantick Beldame.
1706. Addison, Rosamond, I. iii. Fly from my passion, Beldame, fly!
1822. Scott, Nigel, xxxv. That accursed beldam whom she caused to work upon me.
1857. F. Locker, Lond. Lyrics (1862), 100. The beldams shriek, the caldron bubbles.
