ˈbeefˌeater
[f. beef + eater; cf. OE. hláf-ǽta, lit. ‘loaf-eater,’ a menial servant.
(The conjecture that sense 2 may have had some different origin, e.g. from buffet ‘sideboard,’ is historically baseless. No such form of the word as *buffetier exists; and beaufet, which has been cited as a phonetic link between buffet and beefeater, is merely an 18th c. bad spelling, not so old as beef-eater.)]
1. An eater of beef; contemptuously, a well-fed menial. (Properly with hyphen, beef-eater.)
| 1610 Histrio-m. iii. 99 Awake yee drowsie drones That long have suckt the honney from my hives: Begone yee greedy beefe-eaters y'are best. a 1628 F. Greville Sidney (1652) 109 We conquered France, more by such factions and ambitious assistances than by any odds of our Bows, or Beef-eaters, as the French were then scornfully pleas'd to terme us. 1854 Badham Halieut. 516 Amongst immortal gluttons, Hercules (βουϕάγος) the beef-eater was chief. |
2. a. Popular appellation of the Yeomen of the Guard, in the household of the Sovereign of Great Britain, instituted at the accession of Henry VII in 1485; also of the Warders of the Tower of London, who were named Yeomen Extraordinary of the Guard in the reign of Edward VI, and wear the same antique uniform as the ‘Beefeaters of the Guard.’
| 1671 Crowne Juliana iv. 44 The Beef-eaters o' the Guard. Ibid. You Beef-eater, you saucy cur. 1736 Fielding Pasquin ii. i, Is not there a sort of employment, sir, called—beef eating? If your lordship please to make me a beef-eater. 1779 Sheridan Critic iii. i. (1883) 175 Enter Beef-eater, with his halbert. 1848 Macaulay Hist. Eng. I. 293 Without some better protection than that of the trainbands and beefeaters. 1864 H. Spencer Illustr. Univ. Progr. 63 The Beefeaters at the Tower wear the costume of Henry VIIth's body-guard. |
b. A style of hat worn by women, resembling that worn by a Yeoman of the Guard. Also attrib.
| 1785 E. Sheridan Jrnl. 5 July (1960) ii. 59 Hats tied under the chin, beefeaters etc are not worn by fashionable people. 1895 Daily News 3 Sept. 6/3 The black straw sailor hat, with Beefeater crown. 1909 Westm. Gaz. 4 Jan. 5/2 A style of hat which was a favourite with us a year or two ago—viz., a velvet beefeater—has been brought in again. |
3. Ornith. A genus of African birds (Buphaga), called also Ox-peckers, allied to the Starling family, which live chiefly on parasitic larvæ hatched under the skin of cattle.
| 1836 Penny Cycl. VI. 22 The Beef-eater..or Pique-bœuf..digs and squeezes out with his forceps of a beak the larva that lies festering under the tough hide of the quadruped. |