beetling

beetling

1. present participle of beetle

beetling (plural beetlings)

1. The process by which fabrics, etc. are beetled, or beaten with a mallet.

beetling (not comparable)

1. Jutting or protruding, especially of a person's brows.
   • 1995, Iain Banks, Whit

     If the fire, with its giant black kettle swung over the flames, is our never-extinguished shrine, then the stove is an altar. It is habitually tended by my step-aunt Calliope (usually known as Calli), a dark, stocky, dense-looking woman with beetling black brows and a tied-back sheaf of thick hair, still raven-black without a trace of silver after her forty-four years.