subs. (old colloquial).—Generic for dullness, stupidity, blockishness: e.g., ‘As deaf (dumb, dull, quick or blind) as a beetle’; BEETLE-BRAIN (or HEAD) = a dolt, a fool, a blockhead (B. E.); also numerous derivatives.
1424. The Legend of St. Edith, 81. BLEYNDE AS A BETULLE.
1521. WHITTINGTON, Vulgaria, etc., (1527), 2. Tendre wyttes … be made as DULL AS A BETELL.
1548. UDALL, Paraphrase of Erasmus, Mark i. 5. Jerusalem … albeit she were in very dede as BLYNDE AS A BETELL.
1566. STAPLETON, A Returne of Untruthes upon Jewell, iii, 91. With such BETLE arguments as you make.
1566. KNOX, The History of the Reformation in Scotland [Works (1846) I, 164]. That dolt hath not a worde to say for him self, but was as DOUME AS A BITLE in that mater.
1579. TOMSON, Calvin’s Sermons, Timothy, 471. 2. Wee cease not to bee bruite beasts, as BLINDE AS BETLES. Ibid., 931. 2. They that had charge to guyde other, were poore BLINDE BETELS themselves.
1634. WITHALS, Dictionary, 554. Celerius elephanti pariunt: as quicke as a BEETLE.
1642. ROGERS, Naaman the Syrian, 4. Our faculty to understand is still left … we are not meere blockes and BEETLES.
1692. WASHINGTON, tr. Milton’s Defence of the People of England, V. (1851), 132. They … confute such a Beetle as you are.
1765. TUCKER, The Light of Nature Pursued, I, 475. A blockhead, yea a numskull, not to say, a BEETLE.
