beak
noun
- external anatomical structure of birds
verb
No English definition recorded for this entry.
L330884 on Wikidata ↗Wiktionary
Pronunciation: /biːk/
noun
Etymology: Unknown; originally cant; first recorded in 17thC; probably related to obsolete cant beck "constable".
- A justice of the peace; a magistrate.
“They take up men, Dick, for going about in women's clothes, and vice versaw, I suppose. You'll bail me, old fellaa, if I have to make my bow to the beak, won't you?”
“Harry looked rather bulky, you know, Tom, and the slop (policeman) says, 'Hallo, what you got here?' and by [blank] he took us both before the beak.”
- A schoolmaster (originally, at Eton).
“It’s easy enough to be a beak when you’re young and athletic, and can offer the latest University smattering. The difficulty is to keep your place when you get old and stiff, and younger smatterers are pushing up behind you. Crawl into a boarding-house and you’re safe. A master’s life is frightfully tragic.”
verb
Etymology: From Middle English bec, borrowed from Anglo-Norman bec, Old French bec, from Latin beccus, from Gaulish *bekkos, from Proto-Celtic *bekkos (“beak, snout”), possibly from Proto-Indo-European *bak-, *baḱ- (“pointed stick, peg”). Cognate with Breton beg (“beak”). Compare Saterland Frisian Bäk (“mouth; muzzle; beak”); Dutch bek (“beak; bill; neb”).
- To strike with the beak.
- To seize with the beak.
- To play truant.
“Knew the Jampot well. I spent many an afternoon while I was beaking school in that fine establishment.”
“I was living at home at her age, by and large doing what my parents told me, apart from beaking school.”