different between bedlam vs caterwauling

English

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 ??????? (B?thleém) from Biblical Hebrew ????? ?????? (bê? le?em, literally “house of bread”).

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /?b?dl?m/

Noun

bedlam (plural bedlams)

1. A place or situation of chaotic uproar, and where confusion prevails.
2. (obsolete) An insane person; a lunatic; a madman.
   • ca. 1605, William Shakespeare, King Lear, Act III, sc. 7:

     Let's follow the old Earl, and get the Bedlam

     To lead him where he would; his roguish madness

     Allows itself to anything.

   • 1678, John Bunyan, The Pilgrim's Progress, Christian overtakes Faithful:

     The pilgrims were clothed with such kind of raiment as was diverse from the raiment of any that traded in that fair. The people, therefore, of the fair, made a great gazing upon them: some said they were fools, some they were bedlams, and some they are outlandish men.

3. (obsolete) A lunatic asylum; a madhouse.
   • 1824, Lord Byron, Don Juan, Canto XIV:lxxxiv:

     Shut up the world at large, let Bedlam out;

     And you will be perhaps surprised to find

     All things pursue exactly the same route,

     As now with those of soi-disant sound mind.

   • 1843, Charles Dickens, "A Christmas Carol":

     “There’s another fellow,” muttered Scrooge; who overheard him: “my clerk, with fifteen shillings a week, and a wife and family, talking about a merry Christmas. I’ll retire to Bedlam.”

   • ca. 1909, Mark Twain, Letters from the Earth, Letter II:

     ... only the holy can stand the joys of that bedlam.

Descendants

• ? Russian: ??????? (bedlám)

Translations

Further reading

• Bethlem Royal Hospital on Wikipedia.Wikipedia
• bedlam in Webster’s Revised Unabridged Dictionary, G. & C. Merriam, 1913.

Anagrams

• ambled, balmed, beldam, blamed, lambed

English

Pronunciation

• (US) IPA^(key): /?kæt???w?l??/

Verb

caterwauling

1. present participle of caterwaul

Noun

caterwauling (plural caterwaulings)

1. A sound that caterwauls.
   • 1918, Eleanor H. Porter, Oh, Money! Money!

     Now, I like a good tune what is a tune; but them caterwaulings and dirges that that chap Gray plays on that fiddle of his—gorry, Mr. Smith, I'd rather hear the old barn door at home squeak any day.