beehive

See also: Beehive

English
A man-made beehive.

Etymology

From Middle English beehyve, equivalent to bee +‎ hive.

Pronunciation
  • IPA(key): /ˈbiːhaɪv/
  • Audio (US)(file)

Noun

beehive (plural beehives)

  1. An enclosed structure in which some species of honey bees (genus Apis) live and raise their young.
  2. A man-made structure in which bees are kept for their honey.
  3. (figuratively) Any place full of activity, or in which people are very busy.
  4. A women's hairstyle, popular in the 1960s, in which long hair is styled into a hive-shaped form on top of the head and usually held in place with lacquer.
  5. A particular style of hat.
    • 1963, Margery Allingham, “Foreword”, in The China Governess‎:
      A very neat old woman, still in her good outdoor coat and best beehive hat, was sitting at a polished mahogany table on whose surface there were several scored scratches so deep that a triangular piece of the veneer had come cleanly away,  […] .
  6. A type of anti-personnel ammunition round containing flechettes, and characterised by the buzzing sound made as they fly through the air.
    • 2005, Martin Torgoff, Can't Find My Way Home (Simon & Schuster 2005, page 179)
      By the time it was over, Stone had been blown thirty feet through the air by a beehive round as he was running across a field, knocked out by the concussion of the blast.
  7. (nonstandard) Alternative form of Beehive
    • 2004, Nicholas Tarling, International Students in New Zealand, →ISBN, page 114:
      Brian Small said that the Minister could not 'hide in the beehive any longer'
    • 2010, David Halpern, The Hidden Wealth of Nations, →ISBN, page 216:
      In New Zealand, this approach is taken one step forward in that Ministers physically sit together up in the beehive, as their building is known, rather than being based in the Departments.
    • 1977, New Zealand Libraries - Volumes 40-42, →ISBN, page 30:
      As with other major buildings the beehive demonstrated the need for a standardized building drawing practice which could be applied — and understood
  8. (cellular automata) In Conway's Game of Life, a particular still life configuration with a rounded appearance.

Synonyms

Derived terms
  • beehive quern

Translations
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Translations to be checked

Verb

beehive (third-person singular simple present beehives, present participle beehiving, simple past and past participle beehived)

  1. (rare, transitive) To fill (a place) with busy activity.
    • 1958, T. S. Bawa, ‎Jawaharlal Nehru, Nehru's India: An Analytical Study (page 25)
      Quite naturally, if there are more ministers swarming the cabinet rooms and conference halls, then there will be a spate of civil servants beehiving the secretariat.
    • 1989, Craig Foley, Blood Knot, page 59:
      The patrons beehiving the place whooped and shouted.
    • 2012, Satish C. Bhatnagar, Epsilons and Deltas of Life: Everyday Stories, volume 1, page 16:
      This is not the first time that I learnt of a neighbor's death after a lapse of a few weeks. You just don't see people beehiving a home, like in India […]

See also

Further reading

Anagrams
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