broomstickn.
/ˈbruːmstɪk/, /ˈbrʊmstɪk/, U.S. /ˈbrumˌstɪk/, /ˈbrʊmˌstɪk/ 1. Same as broomstaff n.
ΘΚΠ
society > occupation and work > equipment > tool > parts of tools generally > [noun] > handle > of specific tool > of broom
broomstaff1623
broomstick1683
broom-shaft1767
broom-shank1818
broom-handle1826
1683 W. Kennett tr. Erasmus Witt against Wisdom 58 Shall take a Broom-stick for a streight-bodied woman.
1709 Ld. Shaftesbury Sensus Communis: Ess. Freedom of Wit 118 A Story of a Witch upon a Broom-Stick, and a Flight in the Air.
1731 A. Pope Epist. to Earl of Burlington 9 The thriving Plants ignoble Broomsticks made.
1841 E. Miall in Nonconformist 1 265 Not more hopeless..the attempt to make a broomstick bud.
2. transferred. plural. Applied to thin undersized limbs. colloquial.
ΚΠ
1896 ‘E. Lyall’ How Children raised Wind iii ‘Give it to me,’ said Fay, holding out her tiny arms, her ‘broomsticks’, as the boys irreverently called them.
Phrases
to marry over the broomstick: to go through a quasi-marriage ceremony, in which the parties jump over a broomstick; also called ‘to jump the besom’.
ΘΚΠ
society > society and the community > kinship or relationship > marriage or wedlock > wedding or nuptials > [verb (intransitive)] > jump over broomstick
to marry over the broomstick1824
1824 T. B. Macaulay Misc. Writings (1860) I. 95 They were married over a broom-stick.
1881 J. Hawthorne Fortune's Fool (1883) i. iv ‘There's some as think she was married over the broom-stick, if she was married at all’.
Compounds
ΚΠ
1774 Westm. Mag. 2 16 He had no inclination for a Broomstick-marriage.
1807 Salmagundi 31 Dec. 400 The broomstick whirl'd hags that appear in Macbeth.
1851 H. Mayhew London Labour I. 353/1 I never had a wife, but I have had two or three broomstick matches, though they never turned out happy.
This entry has not yet been fully updated (first published 1888; most recently modified version published online December 2021).
<
n.1683