Definition of "beldame"
beldame
noun
plural beldames
(obsolete) A grandmother.
Quotations
There he was welcom'd of that honeſt ſyre, And of his aged Beldame homely well; Who him beſought himſelfe to diſattyre, And reſt himſelfe, till ſupper time befell.
1596, Edmund Spenser, “Book VI, Canto IX”, in The Faerie Queene. […], part II (books IV–VI), London: […] [Richard Field] for William Ponsonby, page 470
Diſeaſed nature oftentimes breakes forth, / In ſtrange eruptions, oft the teeming earth / Is with a kind of collicke pincht and vext, / By the impriſoning of vnruly wind / Within her vvombe, vvhich for enlargement ſtriuing / Shakes the old Beldame earth, and topples down / Steeples and moſſegrovvn towers.
c. 1597 (date written), [William Shakespeare], The History of Henrie the Fourth; […], quarto edition, London: […] P[eter] S[hort] for Andrew Wise, […], published 1598, [Act III, scene i]