beldams

"To be sure!" exclaimed the beldams, which is a form of interjection amongst the negroes, to express both assent and wonder.

Swallow Barn, or A Sojourn in the Old Dominion. In Two Volumes. Vol. II. 1832

He will escape the epidemic madness, which broods over its own injurious notions of the Deity, and ‘realizes the hell that priests and beldams feign.’

The Complete Poetical Works of Percy Bysshe Shelley 2003

Dietrich interrupted them, saying that it ill beseemed heroes to scold like ancient beldams, and forbade Hildebrand to say more.

Hero Tales and Legends of the Rhine Lewis Spence 1914

They nailed the horseshoe to the stable door to keep out the witches, lest the old beldams should ride their steeds by night to the witches 'revels; but no one wished to exclude the fairies.

English Villages 1892

The fancy can hardly put such sweet ladies in the place of those nimble beldams, who hopped about there in the wind-swept street, plucking up their day's supply of firing from the involuntary bounty of the cart.

Literature and Life (Complete) William Dean Howells 1878

The fancy can hardly put such sweet ladies in the place of those nimble beldams, who hopped about there in the wind-swept street, plucking up their day's supply of firing from the involuntary bounty of the cart.

Short Stories and Essays (from Literature and Life) William Dean Howells 1878

Many histories were made for her, the beldams vying with each other in constructing the worst one.

He Fell in Love with His Wife Edward Payson Roe 1863

The hags pursue their incantations; higher and higher flames their ghastly fire, and the grizzled wolves and spotted snakes slink in terror to their holes, as the shrieks and muttered spells of the beldams make the moon-forsaken night more hideous.

Horace Theodore Martin 1862

The wrinkled beldams involved themselves in their rusty cloaks as he passed by; even the mild-featured maidens seemed to dread contamination; and many a stern old man arose, and turned his repulsive and unheavenly countenance upon the gentle boy, as if the sanctuary were polluted by his presence.

The Gentle Boy : 1839

The wrinkled beldams involved themselves in their rusty cloaks as he passed by; even the mild-featured maidens seemed to dread contamination; and many a stern old man arose, and turned his repulsive and unheavenly countenance upon the gentle boy, as if the sanctuary were polluted by his presence.

The Gentle Boy 1837