Forms: 4–7 bestyall(e, -iall(e, 6 beestyal, 6–8 beastial(l, (7 beastual), 5– bestial. [ME.: a. OF. bestial (13th c. in Littré), ad. L. bestiāl-is like a beast, f. bestia beast.]
1. Of or belonging to the lower animals, esp. four-footed beasts.
1393. Gower, Conf., I. 140. To take a mannes hert aweie And sette there a bestiall, So that he lich an oxe shall Pasture.
1470. Harding, Chron., xxxvi. Moruile, Kyng of Britaine, was slayne … with a fysshe bestyall of the sea.
1528. Paynell, Salerne Regim., O ij b. Bestiall fyshe as the see swyne, dogge fyshe, and dolphin.
1549. Compl. Scot., vi. 64. The scheip and nolt … pronuncit there bestial voce.
1607. Topsell, Four-f. Beasts (1673), 29. At length her parents … found their little Daughter in the Bears den, who delivered her from that savage and beastual captivity.
1687. Dryden, Hind & P., I. 166.
| His wild disorder’d walk, his hagger’d eyes, | |
| Did all the bestial citizens surprize. |
1706. Phillips, s.v., Bestial Signs of the Zodiack are Aries, Taurus, Leo, and Capricornus.
1709. Steele, Tatler, No. 49, ¶ 3. A Satyr; of Shape, part Humane, part Bestial.
1831. Carlyle, Sart. Res., I. v. Lurking for his bestial or human prey.
2. transf. Like a beast in its want of intelligence; ‘below the dignity of reason or humanity’ (J.); brutish, untaught, irrational; rude, barbarous.
c. 1400. Maundev., xxii. 224. Thei weren but bestyalle folk, and diden no thing but kepten Bestes.
c. 1400. Rom. Rose, 6718. If a man be so bestial, That he of no craft hath science.
1484. Caxton, Chyualry, 16. They gyue doctryne to the peple laye and bestiall.
1538. Starkey, England, 10. Men were brought from theyr rudenes and beestyal lyfe to thys cyvylyte.
1547. Bauldwin, Mor. Philos. (Palfr.), ii. 2. There is no nation so savage and beastiall.
1615. G. Sandys, Trav., I. 60. To please beastiall Ignorance.
1816. Scott, Bl. Dwarf, iv. The slavish and bestial doctrine.
3. esp. Like a beast in obeying and gratifying the animal instincts and sensual desires; debased, depraved, lustful, cruel, brutal, beastly, obscene.
1447. Bokenham, Seyntys (1835), 95. That he wold be so bestyal To forsakyn hys glorye pontifical.
1509. Barclay, Shyp of Folys (1570), 245. Thy faythfull felowe is bestiall dronkennes.
1594. Shaks., Rich. III., III. v. 80. Beastiall appetite in change of Lust.
1755. Young, Centaur, vi. Wks. 1757, IV. 267. The bestial abyss of a few years’ debauch.
1878. S. Cox, Salv. Mundi, i. (ed. 3), 13. Sodom was a synonym for the most utter and bestial corruption.
4. quasi-sb. The nature of a beast or animal.
1667. H. More, Div. Dial., iii. § 24 (1713), 238. That more full and sensible Sweetness of the Animal or Bestial.
1878. B. Taylor, Deukalion, I. iv. 36. I see the bestial, base unpurified, Its hideous features smeared with filth and blood.
