bedside
(ˈbɛdˌsaɪd)
[Coalesced from bed's side in prep. phrases like ‘by the beddes side’ = beside the bed; thus not a true compound.]
a. Place or position by a bed: used in various phrases, to signify proximity to, companionship with, or attendance on, one confined to bed.
| c 1374 Chaucer Parl. Foules 99 Right at my beddis side. c 1435 Torr. Portugal 1364 The damyselle..Set hym on her bed-syde. c 1440 Gesta Rom. i. 3 My wif..wolle hyde his body by hire beddys syde. 1628 Earle Microcosm. 11 A meer dull Physician; His practice is some business at bed-sides. 1713 Swift Fr. J. Denny Wks. 1755 III. i. 145 Snatched up a peruke-block that stood by the bedside. 1752 C. Lennox Fem. Quix. I. iii. viii. 176 Never-ceasing attendance at the bed-side of her sick father. 1840 Thirlwall Greece VII. lv. 94 He instantly hurried to his friend's bedside. |
b. attrib., as bedside book, bedside literature; bedside manner, the deportment of a medical man towards his patient.
| 1837 Dickens Pickw. xxxviii. 416 A female servant came out..to shake some bed-side carpets. 1860 F. Nightingale Notes on Nursing viii. 46 If a patient can turn on his side, he will eat more comfortably from a bed-side table. 1869 Prentiss Stepping Heavenward (1870) xxv. 237 He was her ‘pet-doctor’, he had such ‘sweet, bed-side manners’. 1879 C. M. Yonge Magnum Bonum II. xxvii. 570 Poor Janet found the thing in the back of the bedside table-drawer. 1884 Punch 15 Mar. 121 Lady Visitor. ‘Oh that's your Doctor, is it? What sort of a doctor is he?’ Lady Resident. ‘Oh well, I don't know much about his ability; but he's got a very good bedside manner!’ 1907 Brit. Med. Jrnl. 28 Dec. 1845/1 The ordinary notion is that a good bedside manner consists of suavity carried to the verge of civility. 1920 Cornh. Mag. July 63 Bedside Books. Ibid. 64 Bedside literature. 1949 D. Smith I capture Castle i. ii. 12, I keep my bedside candlestick on a battered tin trunk. |