Etymology: Old English bíetel , in Anglian *bétel , ‘beating implement,’ < Germanic *bautilo-z , < bautan , in Old English béatan , ‘to beat’ + *-il , -el , -l , -le suffix, suffix denoting an instrument; cognate with Middle High German bôzel cudgel, Low German betel , bötel ‘a mall’ ( Bremisches Wb. I. 126). The variant forms in i and e in middle and modern English are due to the late West Saxon bítel , býtel , and Anglian bétel respectively; of the latter the modern beetle is the regular representative. Those like bittle show the ordinary shortening of a long vowel before two consonants: thus, the Old English genitive bítles , and plural bítlas , would naturally give bittles in Middle English The identification of the form with those of beetle n.² 2 has led to confusion in their figurative senses: see sense 2.

Etymology: Old English bitula , bitela (the sense of which is established by the glosses quoted) is apparently a noun formed on an adjective *bitul , bitol , biting, mordax (in early Middle English bitel adj.), < bítan to bite v.; compare the gloss ‘mordiculus ’ (little biter), which occurs in a list De Nominibus Insectorum in Wülcker Voc. 122. As in similar Old English derivatives the i was certainly short; thence the Middle English bityl , 16th cent. bittil , and modern dialect bittle . The form betlas , pointing to a nominative betel , has not been etymologically explained, but it may, if genuine, be the source of Middle English betylle , 16th cent. betel , modern beetle , though the latter may also be from the normal bitela , with the vowel lengthened, as in evil from Old English yfel , weevil from Old English wifel (Old High German wibil ), Scottish meikle from Old English mycil , dialect leetle < little , etc. The later forms are confused with those of beetle n.¹, whence also confusion in their figurative use: see sense 3.

Etymology: Found first in the combination beetle-browed (1362); much later (1532), beetle is treated as a separate word in beetle brow(s ; whence a derived verb to beetle v.¹ (see beetle n.¹) formed by Shakespeare. (As the 14–15th cent. form had bitel- , bytel- , it has been proposed to identify it with bitel adj. ‘biting, cutting like a sharp-edged tool,’ used by Ormin and Layamon, which is phonetically possible: but, beside the hardly satisfactory sense, there is the difficulty that bitel appears to have been obsolete for 160 years when the first example of bitel-brouwed occurs. It is more likely that the word here is one of the two nouns beetle n.¹ or beetle n.², both extant in 14th cent., and both having the form bitel. The choice depends largely upon the exact meaning originally attached to ‘beetle-browed,’ which was a reproachful epithet, and appears to have referred to the shaggy prominence of the eye-brows. (Brow in Middle English was always = eyebrow, not = forehead.) It is probable therefore (as suggested by Dr. F. Chance) that the comparison is to the short tufted antennæ of some species of beetles, projecting at right angles to the head, which may have been called ‘eyebrows’ in English as well as in French; for in French the expression sourcils de hanneton ‘cockchafers' eyebrows’ is the name given to a species of fringe made in imitation of the antennæ of these insects.)

Etymology: < beetle adj. 2b. Apparently used as a nonce-word by Shakespeare, from whom it has been taken by later writers.

Etymology: < beetle n.¹

Etymology: < beetle n.²