Definitions
from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 5th Edition.
- noun plural The first milk secreted by a mammal, especially a cow, after parturition; colostrum.
from The Century Dictionary.
- The first milk given by a cow after calving.
- 2. A disease caused by drinking beestings.
from the GNU version of the Collaborative International Dictionary of English.
- noun Same as
biestings .
from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.
- noun The first
milk drawn from an animal (especially a cow) after it has given birth. - noun Plural form of
beesting .
Etymologies
from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 4th Edition
from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License
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Examples
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Cormo's face and chest were badly swollen with a mass of beestings, and the Centaur was covered in half-dried black mud besides.
Tran Siberian Michael J. Solender 2010
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And the little old women with bandanas on their heads, who cooked for the soldiers, they outdid themselves: black widow spider meat stewed in horse piss and garlic; beestings on a biscuit, dipped in donkey dung and stuffed in red peppers.
Life Lit by Some Large Vision Ossie Davis 2006
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So I put him in the cow-house (not to frighten the little maid), and the folding shutters over him, such as we used at the beestings; and he listened to my voice outside, and held on, and preserved himself.
Lorna Doone Richard Doddridge 2004
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Cormo's face and chest were badly swollen with a mass of beestings, and the Centaur was covered in half-dried black mud besides.
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Her aunt was allergic to beestings, and was presently swaddled from the top of her straw 'brera to the hem of her faded garden dress in gauzy stuff that made her look peculiar in strong light and downright eerie in shade.
Wizard and Glass King, Stephen 1997
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A porridge of goat's beestings was made for her, and for meat there were dressed the hearts of every kind of beast, which could be obtained there.
The Northmen, Columbus and Cabot, 985-1503 Various 1884
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A porridge of goat's beestings was made for her, and for meat there were dressed the hearts of every kind of beast which could be obtained there.
The True Story Book Andrew Lang 1878
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So I put him in the cow-house (not to frighten the little maid), and the folding shutters over him, such as we used at the beestings; and he listened to my voice outside, and held on, and preserved himself.
sionnach commented on the word beestings
First milk of a cow after the birth of a calf.
March 18, 2008
trivet commented on the word beestings
Colostrum!
March 18, 2008
sionnach commented on the word beestings
Gesundheit!
March 19, 2008
trivet commented on the word beestings
We used to keep colostrum in the freezer for bummer lambs and calves.
March 19, 2008
Gammerstang commented on the word beestings
(pl. noun) - (1) The first milk after a cow has calved, which is thick and clotty, and in Northampton called cherry-curds. From German biest-milch . . . Anglo-Saxon beost, byst . . . French calle-bouté, curded or beesty, as the milk of a woman that is newly delivered . . . The earth was in the Middle Ages supposed to be surrounded by a sea of so thick a substance as to render navigation impossible. This was called mer bétée in French and lebermer in German - the loppered sea.
--Hensleigh Wedgwood's Dictionary of English Etymology, 1878
(2) Fore-milk. To draw the first portion of a cow's milk.
--Thomas Darlington's Folk-Speech of South Cheshire, 1887
(3) Colostre, the first milke, tearmed beest, or beestings.
--Randle Cotgrave's Dictionarie of the French and English Tongues, 1611
(4) A disease caused by imbibing beestings; from Latin colostratio.
--Sir James Murray's New English Dictionary, 1888
January 17, 2018