Other forms: beagles
A beagle is a small hound with drooping ears, bred to hunt by scent. A pack of beagles, walk the beagle, beagles baying.
The nose is the whole point of the breed, which is why beagles work at airports finding food in luggage. They are cheerful and famously hard to recall once a scent is found.
1nounbeagleA small hound with drooping ears, bred to hunt by scent.
“A beagle at the airport picked out an apple in a rucksack.”
beagle is a dog.
Middle English begel is of uncertain origin, perhaps from Old French beegueule, open-throat, from the noise the hounds make.
Old French
beer
Middle French
beegueule — one who keeps their mouth open
Middle English
*begel
English, today
beagle
Built from
Middle English begel (attested in the plural begles), of unknown origin. Possibly from Middle French beegueule (“one who keeps their mouth open”), whence modern bégueule; from Old French beer, bayer (“to gape, gawk”) + Old French gueule (“gullet”). The modern French bigle (“beagle”) however is a borrowing from the English. Alternatively, a modification of Middle English bedel (“beadle”) in the sense of "constable, detective". The change of to before is common; compare hurkle, variant of hurtlen (“to hurtle”), and in Modern English, huckleberry, turkle (“turtle”), and stickle.
Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA