Beldams

Part of speech: noun

Definitions

1. An old woman, often regarded as a hag or witch with malevolent qualities
2. A term used to describe an unpleasant or ill-tempered elderly female
3. A colloquial name for women of a certain age often associated with folklore and superstition

Etymology: "Beldams" is the plural of "beldam", and the singular is the older and more interesting of the two. The word is built from "bel", a form of the French "belle", meaning "beautiful" or "fair", combined with "dam", an old word for a mother or a lady, borrowed into English from Old French "dame". Put together, the original sense was a fair lady, or a grandmother, which is a long way from the shrewish old woman the word describes today. The shift from respectful to insulting happened gradually. Once "dame" had come to be applied to older women in general, "beldam" drifted from a term of courtesy toward a harsher description of an elderly woman, and by the time it reached its modern sense the flattering first element had been left far behind. The plural simply follows the usual English pattern of adding "s".