Definitions

from The Century Dictionary.

  • Of, pertaining to, or derived from the beech: as, beechen boughs; beechen shade.
  • Made of the wood of the beech: as, beechen vessels.

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

  • adjective Consisting, or made, of the wood or bark of the beech; belonging to the beech.

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

  • adjective Consisting or made of the wood or bark of the beech.

from WordNet 3.0 Copyright 2006 by Princeton University. All rights reserved.

  • adjective consisting of or made of wood of the beech tree

Etymologies

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License

From Middle English bechen, from Old English bēċen ("made of beechwood, beechen"), equivalent to beech +‎ -en. Cognate with Dutch beuken ("beechen").

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Examples

  • Additional confirmation seems afforded by the fact that in certain places in England boys call beechen tops "bacons."

    Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science Volume 11, No. 24, March, 1873 Various

  • Spring's dewy hand on this fair summit weaves The downy grass, with tufts of Alpine flowers, And shades the beechen slopes with tender leaves, And leads the Shepherd to his upland bowers, Strewn with wild thyme; while slow-descending showers, Feed the green ear, and nurse the future sheaves!

    Charlotte (Turner) Smith (1749-1806) 2008

  • Apparently it comes from “beech” as in beech tree because the Saxons and Germans usually wrote runes on pieces of beechen board.

    Two Things « So Many Books 2005

  • I did not doubt the fact when I read of it under the level boughs of the beechen tree with J. W., sixty years ago, by the green woodland light of the primeval forest which hemmed our village in, and since I am well away from the Alhambra again I do not doubt it now.

    Familiar Spanish Travels 2004

  • Others on this occasion talked very much of antipathies, and produced a thousand instances of such strange effects; for example, the sight of a ram quiets an enraged elephant; a viper lies stock-still, if touched with a beechen leaf;

    Essays and Miscellanies 2004

  • Others on this occasion talked very much of antipathies, and produced a thousand instances of such strange effects; for example, the sight of a ram quiets an enraged elephant; a viper lies stock-still, if touched with a beechen leaf;

    Symposiacs 2004

  • Since the venomous rage of vipers is assuaged if you but touch them with a beechen bough.

    Five books of the lives, heroic deeds and sayings of Gargantua and his son Pantagruel 2002

  • Since the venomous rage of vipers is assuaged if you but touch them with a beechen bough.

    Five books of the lives, heroic deeds and sayings of Gargantua and his son Pantagruel 2002

  • And a snowdrift 'neath a beechen bough Her neck and nut-brown hair.

    She Lived Beside the Anner 1999

  • When Sam awoke, he found that he was lying on some soft bed, but over him gently swayed wide beechen boughs, and through their young leaves sunlight glimmered, green and gold.

    The Lord of the Rings Tolkien, J. R. R. 1954

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