beagle

Etymology

It is inherited from Middle English begle, also begele,^[2][3][4] of uncertain origin.^[5][6][4][7] The usual suggestion is that it is borrowed from Old French beegueule (“noisy shouting person; having the mouth open”),^{[4][8][9][10][11]} modern bégueule,^[5][3] formed from beer (“to gape, open wide”) and gueule (“throat”), from Latin gula (“throat”),^{[11][4][8][12]} with reference to the hound's loud bark.^[2][12][3] The OED points out that there is no evidence that the French word was ever applied to a dog, that the word can hardly be Old English because its g would then have become palatal, and that bigle (“beagle”) is a borrowing from English.^[5] Wiktionary gives as an alternative a change of bedel (“beadle”), in the sense of constable.^[1] Skeat left the word unexplained.^[13]

Earliest recorded meaning

A small hound that tracks by scent, used for hunting hares: about 1475, in The Squire of Low Degree.^[5][13] Barnhart dates the first record probably about 1475,^[4] Etymonline to the late 15th century,^[6] and Dictionary.com to 1490–1500.^[14]

Semantic evolution

From the hound that scents out its quarry the word passed in 1559 to a person who makes a business of hunting others down, a spy or informer, and then a constable, sheriff's officer or bailiff;^[5][9] in Scotland and Northumberland beagle was still a sheriff's officer or beadle in the 19th century.^[15] Shakespeare's Timon of Athens (about 1608) uses beagles for whores,^[16] and in 19th-century American slang a beagle was a Virginian, from the popularity of fox-hunting there.^[16] Johnson (1755) defined it simply as a small hound for hunting hares; his etymology was French bigle.^[17] The OED (1887) noted that the hare-hunting beagle had been superseded by the harrier.^[5] The verb, to hunt with beagles, is dated by Merriam-Webster to 1824^[18] and by the Shorter Oxford to the early 19th century,^[9] while the OED's first record is from 1915.^[5] The rhyming legal beagle is a lawyer.^[9]

Timeline

• c. 1475 – a small hound used for hunting hares.^[5][4]
• 1559 – a spy or informer; a constable or sheriff's officer.^[5][9]
• c. 1608 – in Shakespeare's Timon of Athens, a whore.^[16]
• 1824 – verb, to hunt with beagles.^[18] The OED's first record of the verb is from 1915.^[5]
• 1864 – in American slang, a native of Virginia.^[16]

Meanings

Noun

1. A small, sturdy, short-legged hound with a smooth coat, usually white, tan and black, and drooping ears, bred for hunting hares: The beagles picked up the scent near the hedge.^[7][18][5]
2. (archaic) A person who spies on others or hunts them down; a constable or sheriff's officer.^[7][18][5]

Verb

1. To hunt with beagles, usually on foot.^[7][18][5]

Related words

• bay
• gullet
• gules
• abash
• abeyance
• beadle

References

1. ^ a b Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b Klein, Ernest. A Comprehensive Etymological Dictionary of the English Language. 2 vols. Amsterdam: Elsevier, 1966–1967.
3. ^ a b c Weekley, Ernest (1921), An Etymological Dictionary of Modern English, London: John Murray
4. ^ a b c d e f Barnhart, Robert K. (1988), The Barnhart Dictionary of Etymology
5. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m Oxford English Dictionary Online (accessed March 2026), Oxford: Oxford University Press
6. ^ a b Harper, Douglas. Online Etymology Dictionary, https://www.etymonline.com
7. ^ a b c d Collins English Dictionary (2023), Glasgow: HarperCollins
8. ^ a b Hoad, T. F., ed. (1986), The Concise Oxford Dictionary of English Etymology, Oxford: Clarendon Press
9. ^ a b c d e Shorter Oxford English Dictionary on Historical Principles (2002), 5th ed., ed. William R. Trumble and Angus Stevenson, Oxford: Oxford University Press
10. ^ Stevenson, Angus, ed. (2010), Oxford Dictionary of English, 3rd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press
11. ^ a b The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language (online 2024), 5th ed., Boston: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt
12. ^ a b Ayto, John (2005), Word Origins: The Secret Histories of English Words from A to Z, 2nd ed., London: A & C Black
13. ^ a b Skeat, Walter W. (1911), A Concise Etymological Dictionary of the English Language, new ed., Oxford: Clarendon Press
14. ^ Dictionary.com Unabridged (2016), based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, New York: Random House
15. ^ Wright, Joseph, ed. (1898–1905), The English Dialect Dictionary, 6 vols., Oxford: Henry Frowde; via EDD Online 4.0, University of Innsbruck (CC BY 4.0)
16. ^ a b c d Green, Jonathon (2010), Green's Dictionary of Slang, London: Chambers; digital ed. 2016–, https://greensdictofslang.com
17. ^ Johnson, Samuel (1755), A Dictionary of the English Language, London; 4th ed. 1773; Johnson's Dictionary Online, ed. Beth Rapp Young et al.
18. ^ a b c d e Merriam-Webster Unabridged Dictionary (2024), online ed., Springfield, Mass.: Merriam-Webster