Definitions

from The Century Dictionary.

  • noun A small inflammatory tumor; a pustule.
  • To gather matter; swell and come to a head, as a pimple; fester; suppurate.
  • noun A sweet Australian drink made by steeping honey-bearing flowers in water. Also called bool and bull.
  • noun A mouth; an opening, as between hills; a narrow pass.

from the GNU version of the Collaborative International Dictionary of English.

  • noun (Med.), Prov. Eng. A small inflammatory tumor; a pustule.
  • intransitive verb Prov. Eng. To gather matter; to swell and come to a head, as a pimple.

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.

  • noun A small inflammatory tumor; pustule.
  • verb dialectal To gather matter; swell; come to a head, as a pimple; fester; suppurate.

Etymologies

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License

From Middle English beel, bele, from Old English bȳle, bȳle ("boil, carbuncle, bile"), from Proto-Germanic *būlijōn (“swelling”), from Proto-Indo-European *bhōw- (“to swell, be strong or numerous”). Cognate with German Beule ("boil"). More at boil.

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Examples

  • In his 1889 classic The Useful Native Plants of Australia, J. H. Maiden describes a drink known as beal or bool, prepared in tarnuks the large wooden bowls seen in every camp’ by steeping the flowers of banksia or ironwood trees in water.

    Wildwood Roger Deakin 2009

  • In his 1889 classic The Useful Native Plants of Australia, J. H. Maiden describes a drink known as beal or bool, prepared in tarnuks the large wooden bowls seen in every camp’ by steeping the flowers of banksia or ironwood trees in water.

    Wildwood Roger Deakin 2009

  • Please do have them email me though to discuss – andy. beal @gmail.com

    Pilgrim’s Picks for August 8 2007

  • Like Andy, we have decided to make any further links to Wikipedia on Online Bulletin NOFOLLOW links, hopefully resulting in Wikipedia reverting this new policy. andy beal, nofollow, Site News, wikipediaBookmark to: [...]

    Wikipedia Links No Longer Passing PageRank 2007

  • A set o tarpaulins, tattered and split, suddenly sounded a rippling beal overhead, and a few windblown drops of rain spattered down marked the aged concrete walkway on which they stood.

    Delta Search Shatner, William 1997

  • And while the feast was fresh in people’s memory, they affected to speak of the cailleach beal-tine as dead.

    Chapter 62. The Fire-Festivals of Europe. § 4. The Beltane Fires 1922

  • There was one particular piece which whoever got was called cailleach beal-tine-i. e., the Beltane carline, a term of great reproach.

    The Golden Bough: A Study in Magic and Religion 1922

  • There was one particular piece which whoever got was called cailleach beal-tine—i. e., the Beltane carline, a term of great reproach.

    Chapter 62. The Fire-Festivals of Europe. § 4. The Beltane Fires 1922

  • There was one particular piece which whoever got was called _cailleach beal-tine_ -- _i. e., _ the Beltane _carline, _ a term of great reproach.

    The Golden Bough James George Frazer 1897

  • Years of civil war were brought to an end in 2005 with the signing of a peace beal between the two sides.

    euronews 2010

Comments

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  • My mother-in-law, born in West Virginia in 1935, was told by her mother that the reason for her hearing loss was that she had a "bealed ear." This evidently was a term used in Appalachia at that time to indicate the suppurating result of a middle ear infection with ruptured eardrum.

    January 9, 2010