''beset'' ▫ᴱᴺ Entries

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''beset'' ▫ᴱᴺ｜Definition｜1st｜20260227140228-00-⌔

beset - Wiktionary, the free dictionary

English

Verb

beset (third-person singular simple present besets, present participle besetting, simple past and past participle beset)

• (transitive) Senses relating to surrounding.
  • To assail or attack (someone) from all sides; to set about.
    • ✤ Synonyms: beleaguer; see also Thesaurus: pester
    • ✤ He that hath read Seneca or Boethius, is well provided against any ordinary misfortune; and to have by heart the story of Argalus and Parthenia; the dolorous madrigals of old Plangus in the Arcadia; or the history of Pyramus and Thisbe, is a never failing remedy for the mubble-fubbles: For to be acquainted with sadness, besets familiarity, and familiars never kill one another, unless the devil is in them.¹
    • ✤ “Nay, for matter o’ that, he never doth any mischief,” said the woman; “but to be sure it is necessary he should keep some arms for his own safety; for his house hath been beset more than once; and it is not many nights ago that we thought we heard thieves about it […]²
    • ✤ It may be but an idle whim, but it has always seemed to me, that the extraordinary vacillations of movement displayed by some whales when beset by three or four boats; the timidity and liability to queer frights, so common to such whales; I think that all this indirectly proceeds from the helpless perplexity of volition, in which their divided and diametrically opposite powers of vision must involve them.³
  • To occupy and block (an entrance, a passage, etc.), especially to prevent people from passing.
  • (chiefly passive voice) To decorate (someone or something) by surrounding with accessories, etc.
    • ✤ Synonyms: bedazzle, bejewel, bespangle
  • (archaic) Followed by with: to encircle or surround (someone or something); to hem in.
    • ✤ Synonyms: (rare) bebay, environ, inbind, (Scotland, obsolete) umbeset
    • ✤ For thou, deere Lord, thou me besett’st;/Thy rodd and thy staff be/To comfort me: […]⁴
    • ✤ Thou me beſetſt behind, before,/and laidſt thine hand on me,/Such knovvledge is for me too ſtrange,/it to attain’s${}^{[sic–meaningattainest]}$ too hie[high].⁵
    • ✤ It was a handsome old stucco hall, very elegantly appointed, for Winter was a bachelor and prided himself on his style; but the place was beset by collieries.⁶
    • ✤ Vegetatively it is the nearest to H. translucens with its oblong-lanceolate leaves, with the margins and keel beset with pellucid teeth, but it differs and is characterised by the greyish-black quadrantly positioned globose flowers; […]⁷
    • (nautical, chiefly passive voice) To trap (a ship) within frozen sea; to ice in.
  • (figurative) Of dangers, difficulties, enemies, etc.: to negatively affect (someone or something); to trouble.
    • ✤ Fred Brentnall, in his squeaky lorikeet voice reads to the House Lawson’s last two stanzas, just to highlight the danger besetting the colony of Queensland, indeed, the whole country: […]⁸
    • ✤ Some of Grimsby’s other (extraordinarily up-to-date) targets include Donald Trump and Daniel Radcliffe, whose fates here are too breath-catchingly cruel to spoil, and also the admirably game Strong, whose character is beset by a constant stream of humiliations that hit with the force of a jet of … well, you’ll see.⁹
    • ✤ Track and platforms have been upgraded, but refurbished trains from Vivarail have been beset by software problems.¹⁰
    • ✤ In commercial after commercial, humans are oblivious, enfeebled, barely functioning idiots beset by more tasks, stimuli and demands on their time than anyone could reasonably handle.¹¹
  • (often military, archaic) Of soldiers, etc.: to surround (a place) to compel surrender; to besiege.
  • (obsolete) To capture (an animal); to ensnare, to entrap.
• (transitive, obsolete) Senses relating to placing or setting.
  • To arrange or set (something) in order.
  • To give (something); to bestow, to present.
  • To spend or use (something, such as effort, money, time, or words).
  • Followed byon or upon: to place or set (love, trust, etc.) on someone.
• (obsolete) Senses relating to being appropriate.
  • (transitive) To be appropriate or fitting for (something); to become, to befit.
  • (intransitive) Followed by with: to accord or go well with something.

Etymology

From Middle English besetten, bisetten (“to besiege, blockade; to fill, occupy; to harass, beset; to allot, bestow; to arrange, manage; to place, set; to provide for; to treat in a certain way”),¹² from Old English besettan, bisettan (“to surround, beset; to set near; etc.”),¹³ from Proto-West Germanic ﹡bisattjan, from Proto-Germanic ﹡bisatjaną (“to fill, occupy”), from ﹡bi- (prefix meaning ‘at; by’) (ultimately from Proto-Indo-European ﹡h₁epi (“at; near; on”)) + ﹡satjaną (“to place down, set”) (ultimately from Proto-Indo-European ﹡sed- (“to sit”)).¹⁴ By surface analysis, be- (prefix meaning ‘around; by, close to, near, next to’) +‎ set.

Pronunciation

• (Received Pronunciation) IPA: /bɪˈsɛt/
• Audio (Southern England): 🔊
• (General American) IPA: /bəˈsɛt/, /bi-/
• Audio (General American): 🔊
• Rhymes: -ɛt
• Hyphenation: be‧set

Printed 2026-06-28.

(echo:: @ ⌗)

Footnotes

1. 1654, Edmund Gayton, Festivous notes on the history and adventures of the renowned Don Quixote: ↩

2. 1749, Henry Fielding, The History of Tom Jones, a Foundling, volume, London: A[ndrew] Millar, […], →OCLC: ↩

3. 1851 November 14, Herman Melville, “The Sperm Whale’s Head”, in Moby-Dick; or, The Whale, 1st American edition, New York, N.Y.: Harper & Brothers; London: Richard Bentley, →OCLC, page 369: ↩

4. a. 1587 (date written), Philip Sidney, “Psalm XXIII. Dominus regit me.”, in The Psalmes of David […], London: From the Chiswick Press by C[harles] Whittingham, for Robert Triphook, […], published 1823, →OCLC, page 37: ↩

5. 1648, Zachary Boyd, “Psal[m] CXXXIX. [Verse 5.]”, in The Psalmes of David in Meeter: With the Prose Interlined, Glasgow: […] [T] he heires of George Anderson, →OCLC, signature Y2, recto: ↩

6. 1928, D[avid] H[erbert] Lawrence, chapter X, in Lady Chatterley’s Lover, [Germany?]: Privately printed, →OCLC, page 151: ↩

7. 1985, Charles L. Scott, The Genus Haworthia (Liliaceae): A Taxonomic Revision, page 80: ↩

8. 2006, Pip Wilson, “If Blood should Stain the Wattle”, in Faces in the Street: Louisa and Henry Lawson and the Castlereagh Street Push, 3rd edition, Coffs Harbour, N.S.W.: [Pip Wilson], published January 2007, →ISBN, page 147: ↩

9. 2016 February 23, Robbie Collin, “Grimsby review: ‘ Sacha Baron Cohen ’s vital, venomous action movie’”, in Chris Evans, editor, The Daily Telegraph ‎${}^{[1]}$, London: Telegraph Media Group, →ISSN, →OCLC, archived from the original on 17 November 2019: ↩

10. 2021 July 28, Paul Clifton, “£67 million Isle of Wight Line Extension Submitted to DfT [Department for Transport]”, in Rail, number 936, Peterborough, Cambridgeshire: Bauer Media, →ISSN, →OCLC, page 21: ↩

11. 2025 June 25, Ismail Muhammad, “Why Does Every Commercial for A.I. Think You’re a Moron?”, in The New York Times Magazine ‎${}^{[2]}$, New York, N.Y.: The New York Times Company, →ISSN, →OCLC, archived from the original on 1 October 2025: ↩

12. “bisetten, v.”, in MED Online, Ann Arbor, Mich.: University of Michigan, 2007. ↩

13. Joseph Bosworth (1882), “bi-settan”, in T[homas] Northcote Toller, editor, An Anglo-Saxon Dictionary […], Oxford, Oxfordshire: Clarendon Press, →OCLC, page 104, column 2. ↩

14. “beset, v.”, in OED Online ⁠, Oxford: Oxford University Press, December 2025; “beset, v.”, in Lexico, Dictionary.com; Oxford University Press, 2019–2022. ↩

Link to original

Secondary

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