dumbledore

English

WOTD – 6 March 2008

Two views of a dumbledore (bumblebee)

Alternative forms

dumble-dor
drumbledore
dumbledor

Etymology

Compound of dumble (similar to bumble) +‎ dor (“a buzzing flying insect”).

Pronunciation

(Received Pronunciation) IPA^(key): /ˈdʌm.bəl.dɔː/
(US) IPA^(key): /ˈdʌm.bəl.dɔːɹ/
Audio (US) (file)
Audio (AU) (file)

Noun

dumbledore (plural dumbledores)

(dialectal, archaic, old-fashioned) A bumblebee.
- 1875, Charlotte M Yonge, The Daisy Chain:
  Those slopes of fresh turf, embroidered with every minute blossom of the moor — thyme, birdsfoot, eyebright, and dwarf purple thistle, buzzed and hummed over by busy, black-tailed, yellow-banded dumbledores.
- 1901, Thomas Hardy, "An August Midnight" in Poems of the Past and the Present
- 1970 May 21, Evening Telegram, page 3:
  Now and then a dumbledore or ‘busy bee’ as they are called by some, propelled itself across our path, they being extremely large and heavy this year.
- 1987, Seán Virgo, Selakhi, Exile Editions, Ltd., page 20:
  A dumbledore, lured from the plantation, lies on its back, leaping and churning upon Seth’s bright pages.
(dialectal) A beetle, typically a cockchafer or dung beetle.
- 1964, “Transactions of the American Philological Association”, in (Please provide the book title or journal name), Ginn & Co., page 267:
  others may need to be informd that a blastnashun straddlebob is a dumbledore, that is to say, a polyonymous lamellicorn coleopter, cald also a dorbeetle, a dorbug, a maybeetle, a maybug, a cockchafer, a Melolontha vulgaris.
(dialectal) A dandelion.
- 1975, Peter J. Scott, Edible Fruits and Herbs of Newfoundland, St. John’s, Memorial University Oxen Pond Botanical Park, page 39:
  The Dandelion has a number of common names in Newfoundland. These include Dumbledore, Faceclock, and Piss-a-beds.
(slang) A blundering person.
- 1872, Thomas Hardy, Under the Greenwood Tree

Translations

bumblebee — see bumblebee

beetle — see beetle

dandelion — see dandelion

blundering person

Finnish: tomppeli (fi)