Meaning

present participle and gerund of beetle.

Definitions by Sense

1. present participle and gerund of beetle
2. The process by which fabrics, etc. are beetled, or beaten with a mallet.
3. A jutting or protrusion.
4. Jutting or protruding, especially of a person's brows.

Example Sentences

These gave place at last to things less and less unspeakable; till at last, from beneath the very brow of the beetlings and the menacings of the Terror Stone came the audible words of Pierre:—

As I anticipated, we had passed right through the precipice, and were now on the farther side, and immediately beneath its beetling face.

The beetling head of the cliff projected over the cane-brake.

Put a clay pipe in [Richard] Nixon’s mouth and a hod on his shoulder or a shillelagh in his hand, and there, complete with beetling brows and uptilted nose, is the original of the old cartoon stereotype of the fighting Irishman—the Irishman of the draft riots or of Punch’s version of the Sinn Feiner.

If the fire, with its giant black kettle swung over the flames, is our never-extinguished shrine, then the stove is an altar. It is habitually tended by my step-aunt Calliope (usually known as Calli), a dark, stocky, dense-looking woman with beetling black brows and a tied-back sheaf of thick hair, still raven-black without a trace of silver after her forty-four years.

Word Forms

• beetlings

Synonyms for beetling

Related Words

When Should You Use Beetling?

Use beetling when its meaning, tone and grammar fit the full sentence. A synonym is not always a direct replacement.

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