bedlamとは 意味・読み方・使い方

発音

• IPA: /ˈbɛdləm/

名詞

bedlam (countable and uncountable, plural bedlams)

1. A place or situation of chaotic uproar, and where confusion prevails.

   Synonyms: madhouse, pandemonium

   • 1888, H.H. Giles, The Insane, and the Wisconsin System for their Care, page 18:

     Some of the wards were veritable "bedlams," and discharged patients have told of abuses practiced in them of which the mere recital causes a shudder.

   • 2002, Mark L. Friedman, Everyday Crisis Management, page 134:

     The outside of the Hyatt was bedlam. There was a group of more than a hundred injured people on the circular drive in front of the hotel.

   • 2005, Kazuo Ishiguro, Never Let Me Go, page 31:

     A car was a rarity, and the sight of one in the distance was sometimes enough to cause bedlam during a class.

   • 2020 June 3, Sam Mullins OBE discusses with Stefanie Foster, “LTM: a new chapter begins at 40”, in Rail, page 54:

     "We had an extraordinary February half term - I think we had 22,000 visitors in the seven days. Which actually is a bit like bedlam at times."

2. (obsolete) An insane person; a lunatic; a madman.
   • c. 1603–1606 (date written), [William Shakespeare], […] His True Chronicle Historie of the Life and Death of King Lear and His Three Daughters. […] (First Quarto), London: […] Nathaniel Butter, […], published 1608, →OCLC, [Act III, scene vii]:

     Lets follow the old Earle, and get the bedlom
     To lead him where he would, his rogiſh madnes
     Allows it ſelfe to any thing.

   • 1678, John Bunyan, The Pilgrim’s Progress from This World, to That which is to Come: […], London: […] Nath[aniel] Ponder […], →OCLC, page 123:

     Firſt, The Pilgrims were cloathed 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.
   • 1664, John Tillotson, “Job xxviij. 28.”, in Sermons Preach’d upon Several Occasions, London: […] A[nne] M[axwell] for Sa[muel] Gellibrand, […], published 1671, →OCLC, page 76:

     It was a ſhrewd ſaying of the old Monk, That two kind of Priſons would ſerve for all offenders in the World, an Inquiſition and a Bedlam: If any man ſhould deny the Being of a God and the Immortality of the Soul, ſuch a one ſhould be put into the firſt of these, the Inquiſition, as being a deſperate Heretick; but if any man ſhould profeſs to believe theſe things, and yet allow himſelf in any known wickedneſs, ſuch a one ſhould be put into Bedlam; becauſe there cannot be a greater folly and madneſs, than for a man in matters of greateſt moment and concernment to act againſt his beſt Reaſon and Underſtanding, and by his Life to contradict his Belief.

   • 1823 December 17, [Lord Byron], Don Juan. Cantos XII.—XIII.—and XIV., London: […] [C. H. Reynell] for John Hunt, […], →OCLC, canto XIV, stanza LXXXIV, page 157:

     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 December 19, Charles Dickens, “Stave I. Marley’s Ghost.”, in A Christmas Carol. In Prose. Being a Ghost Story of Christmas, London: Chapman & Hall, […], →OCLC, page 11:

     “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.”

   • c. 1909, Mark Twain [pseudonym; Samuel Langhorne Clemens], “Letter II”, in Bernard DeVoto, editor, Letters from the Earth, New York, N.Y.; Evanston, Ill.: Harper & Row, published 1962, →LCCN, page 13:

     Make a note of it: in man’s heaven there are no exercises for the intellect, nothing for it to live upon. It would rot there in a year—rot and stink. Rot and stink—and at that stage become holy. A blessed thing: only the holy can stand the joys of that bedlam.

派生語

派生した語

• → Russian: бедла́м (bedlám)

Further reading

• Bethlem Royal Hospital on Wikipedia.Wikipedia
• “bedlam”, in Webster’s Revised Unabridged Dictionary, Springfield, Mass.: G. & C. Merriam, 1913, →OCLC.

アナグラム

• balmed, beldam, blamed, ambled, medlab, lambed