beetleheaded

Having a "wooden" head; utterly deficient in intellect; stupid exceedingly. a beetle-headed, flap-ear'd knave." Shakesp.: Tam, of Shrew, iv. 1. beetle-stock, s. The stock or handle of a beetle. "To crouch, to please, to be a beetle -stock Of thy great master's will." Spenser: M. Hubberd's Tale. bee'-tle (2) (tle as tel), s. [A.S. betl , betel, bitel (1) a beetle, a coleopterous insect; (2) a "black beetle," i.e., a cockroach; from bit an = to bite.] 1. Entom.: Any member of the enormously large order of insects called by naturalists Coleoptera, meaning Sheathed Wings. [COLEOPTERA.) They have four wings, the inferior pair, which are membranous, being protected by the superior pair, which are horny. "The poor beetle that we tread upon, In corporal suff'rance finds a pang as great As when a giant dies." Shakesp.: Meas. for Meas, iii. 1. To be as blind as a beetle is an expre ion founded probably upon the habits of some beetles of the Scarabæus family, which come droning into houses in the evening, are attracted by the glare of the lamp, fly round it and through the room, ending by tumbling backwards on the ground, and finding a difficulty in getting up again. No beetles are really blind, except a few cave species. "Others come sharp of sight and too provident for that which concerned their own interest; but as blind as beetles in foreseeing this great and common danger." -Knolles: History of the Turks. 2. Popularly: A "black beetle," viz., a cockroach, which, however, is not properly a beetle at all, but belongs to the order Orthoptera, and is akin on one side to the cricket, on the other to the earwig. * beetle-stones, s. pl. An old name given to nodules of clay-ironstone found at New haven, near Edinburgh, and elsewhere. The appellation was given from the erroneous notion that the nodules were of insect origin. [CLAY-IRONSTONE.] ( Buck land : Geol. & Mineralogy, 1836, vol. i., p. 199.) bee'-tle (1) (tle=tel), v. t. [From Eng. beetle, 8. (1) (q.v.).] To beat with a heavy mallet. "Then lay it [yarn] out to dry in your bleaching. yard; but be sure never to beat or beetle it"-Max well: Sel. Trans., p. 344. (Jamie son.)