BESET • DICTIONARY ONE.COM • Definition of Beset

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/bɪsˈɛt/ Listen

verb

Beset v. t. (past & past part. beset; pres. part. besetting)

To set or stud (anything) with ornaments or prominent objects. "A robe of azure beset with drops of gold." "The garden is so beset with all manner of sweet shrubs that it perfumes the air."

To hem in; to waylay; to surround; to besiege; to blockade. "Beset with foes." "Let thy troops beset our gates."

To set upon on all sides; to perplex; to harass; said of dangers, obstacles, etc. "Adam, sore beset, replied." "Beset with ills." "Incommodities which beset old age."

To occupy; to employ; to use up. (Obs.)

Synonyms: To surround; inclose; environ; hem in; besiege; encircle; encompass; embarrass; urge; press.

See images of 'Beset'

Etymology of 'Beset'

Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48

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"Beset" Quotes from Famous Books

... searched and known me; Thou knowest my down sitting and mine uprising; Thou understandest my thoughts afar off. Thou compassest my path and my lying down, And art acquainted with all my ways For there is not a word in my tongue, But, lo! O Lord, Thou knowest it altogether. Thou hast beset me behind and before, and laid thine hand upon me. Such knowledge is too wonderful for me! It is high, I can not attain unto it; Whither shall I go from thy Spirit? And whither shall I flee from ...

— Fables of Infidelity and Facts of Faith - Being an Examination of the Evidences of Infidelity • Robert Patterson

... all her love for him, she had never imagined. For her sake he contrived to hide his anger at Michael for his treatment of her, and thus express a sympathetic understanding of the temptations which had beset him. If Margaret had not suffered, he would have ignored the affair altogether, as a matter which did not concern him. Freddy was very far-seeing. Margaret had kept her promise; she had shown that in spite of her romantic love for Michael her womanly pride had not been ...

— There was a King in Egypt • Norma Lorimer

... the king: "Sir Lancelot, of this thing it behoves ye take better rede; lightly might it turn to my shame if all my knights rode forth, and I thereafter were beset with strife and warfare, as full oft hath chanced aforetime! So might it in sooth be mine undoing. It hath chanced afore this that I had lost crown and lands, save for my knights; by them have I ...

— The Romance of Morien • Jessie L. Weston

... win through. I think now that it never shall—or not for many ages—till our Saviour again come upon this earth with a great glory. But all this is a mystery of the great goodness of God and the temptations that do beset us poor mortality. ...

— The Fifth Queen Crowned • Ford Madox Ford

... afternoon Calabressa was walking quickly along the crowded quays of Naples, when he was beset by a more than usually importunate beggar—a youth ...

— Sunrise • William Black

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