[ad. L. bestiārius ‘a fighter with beasts in the public spectacles,’ and med.L. bestiārium a menagerie, also ‘liber de bestiis compositus,’ etc., f. bestia beast: see -ARY.]
† 1. A beast-fighter in the Roman amphitheater. (L. bestiarius.) Obs.
1625. T. Godwin, Rom. Antiq., 20. The Amphitheatre was full of hollow passage … for the convenient keeping of wilde beasts, and beastiaries.
2. A treatise on beasts: applied to the moralizing treatises written during the Middle Ages.
[1834. Gentl. Mag., CIV. I. 190. The Bestiarium in the Ashmolean library.]
1840. Wright, Reliq. Antiq., I. 203 (title), A Bestiary. Ibid. (1865), Hist. Caricat., vi. (1875), 95. The earliest Bestiaries, or popular treatises on natural history.
1871. Sacristy, I. 7/1. The Bestiaries … are natural histories of animals treated so that the peculiarities of animals shall convey a wholesome moral.
