bedlam means A hamlet in Clint cum Hamlets parish, Harrogate borough, North Yorkshire, England (OS grid ref SE2661). It carries an Arena rating of 1318, earned across 3 head-to-head judged battles.
Among words judged in Lexicurio's Arena, bedlam ranks #987 of 14,438 for Most Storied Words, #2,308 of 14,431 for Most Betrayed by Its Sound, #2,317 of 14,444 for Most Exacting Words, #2,338 of 14,361 for Most Ingenious Words.
bedlam is pronounced /ˈbɛdləm/.
Why “bedlam” is a great word
A scene of wild uproar and utter confusion. From Bedlam, a corruption of Bethlem, itself a corruption of Bethlehem (the Biblical town), from Ancient Greek Βηθλεέμ (Bēthleém), from Biblical Hebrew בֵּית לֶחֶם (bêṯ leḥem, literally 'house of bread'); applied specifically to the Bethlem Royal Hospital, a London asylum infamous for its chaotic conditions, with the sense 'scene of madness and chaos' attested from the 1660s. Unlike pandemonium, which conjures a hellish, riotous din, or turmoil, which speaks of anxious disturbance, bedlam carries the specific, chilling charge of sanity's collapse within confining walls. It is the shattering of crockery in a ward where no one sleeps, the raw-throated shriek that cuts through all other noise, and the sight of a hundred souls each lost in a private, incommunicable storm—the moment when the house of bread becomes only the house of bread broken.
Etymology
From Bedlam, alternative name of the English lunatic asylum, Bethlem Royal Hospital (royal hospital from 1375, mental hospital from 1403) (earlier St Mary of Bethlehem outside Bishopsgate, hospice in existence from 1329, priory established 1247), since used to mean “a place or situation of madness and chaos”. Bedlam as name of hospital attested 1450.
Phonologically, corruption of Bethlem, itself a corruption of Bethlehem (the Biblical town), from Ancient Greek Βηθλεέμ (Bēthleém) from Biblical Hebrew בֵּית לֶחֶם (bêṯ leḥem, literally “house of bread”).
However, also compare Spanish belén (“confusion, disorder; a place characteristic of such”).
name
- A hamlet in Clint cum Hamlets parish, Harrogate borough, North Yorkshire, England (OS grid ref SE2661).
- A hamlet in Bitterley parish, south Shropshire, England (OS grid ref SO5877).
- A hamlet in Great Elm parish, Mendip district, Somerset, England (OS grid ref ST7549).
- Bethlem Royal Hospital, a famous psychiatric hospital, now located in Bromley, South London.
noun
- A place or situation of chaotic uproar, and where confusion prevails.“Some of the wards were veritable "bedlams," and discharged patients have told of abuses practiced in them of which the mere recital causes a shudder.”
- An insane person; a lunatic; a madman.“Lets follow the old Earle, and get the bedlom
To lead him where he would, his rogiſh madnes
Allows it ſelfe to any thing.”
- A lunatic asylum; a madhouse.“It was a ſhrewd ſaying of the old Monk, That two kind of Priſons would ſerve for all offenders in the World, an Inquiſition and a Bedlam: If any man ſhould deny the Being of a God and the Immortality of the Soul, ſuch a one ſhould be put into the firſt of these, the Inquiſition, as being a deſperate Heretick; but if any man ſhould profeſs to believe theſe things, and yet allow himſelf in any known”
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