☼ Concept Map

''bevel'' ▫ᴱᴺ Entries

↩ 🔳 🔳 🔳

Primary

⁀➴

''bevel'' ▫ᴱᴺ｜Definition｜1st｜20260124004559-00-⌔

bevel - Wiktionary, the free dictionary

English

Noun

bevel (plural bevels)

  • An edge that is canted, one that is not a 90-degree angle; a chamfer.
    • ✤ I added a bevel all around the bottom to reduce the visual mass a bit. A lot of MCM furniture uses tricks like this to appear lighter.1
    • ✤ to give a bevel to the edge of a table or a stone slab
  • An instrument consisting of two rules or arms, jointed together at one end, and opening to any angle, for adjusting the surfaces of work to the same or a given inclination; a bevel square.
    • ✤ *finding the length with a bevel *2
  • (gambling) A die used for cheating, having some sides slightly rounded instead of flat.
    • ✤ The different types of dice made for cheating (flat passers, bevels, cut edges, loaded dice, […]3
    • ✤ * Bevels are shapes having one or more sides sandpapered so that they are slightly rounded rather than flat.*4

Verb

bevel (third-person singular simple present bevels, present participle (US) beveling or (UK) bevelling, simple past and past participle (US) beveled or (UK) bevelled)

  • (transitive) To give a canted edge to a surface; to chamfer.

Adjective

bevel (comparative more bevel, superlative most bevel)

  • Having the slant of a bevel; slanting.
    • ✤ a bevel angle
  • (obsolete, figurative) Morally distorted; not upright.
    • ✤ I may be straight, though they themselves be bevel.5

Etymology

From Middle English ﹡bevel, from Anglo-Norman ﹡baivel (whence obsolete French beauveau) a diminutive of Old French baïf (“open-mouthed”), perhaps from baer (“to gape”), from Medieval Latin ﹡batāre (“to gape, yawn, be open”), probably of imitative origin.6 If so, then related to Italian badare.

Pronunciation

  • IPA: /ˈbɛv.əl/
  • Rhymes: -ɛvəl
  • Audio (Southern England): 🔊

Printed 2026-06-28.

(echo:: @ ⌗)

Footnotes

  1. 2026 August, Collin Knoff, “Mid-Century Modern Table”, in Popular Woodworking, volume 290, number 4, page 50: ↩

  2. 1832, Edward Shaw, Civil Architecture: ↩

  3. 1974, The New York Times Book Review, volume 2, page 35: ↩

  4. 1978, John Scarne, Scarne’s Guide to Casino Gambling, page 176: ↩

  5. 1609, William Shakespeare, “Sonnet 121”, in Shake-speares Sonnets. […], London: By G[eorge] Eld for T[homas] T[horpe] and are to be sold by William Aspley, →OCLC: ↩

  6. “bevel”, in The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language, 5th edition, Boston, Mass.: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, 2016, →ISBN. ↩

Link to original

Secondary

• • •