bedight

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English

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Etymology

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From Middle English bedighten, bidihten; equivalent to be- +‎ dight.

Pronunciation

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Verb

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bedight (third-person singular simple present bedights, present participle bedighting, simple past and past participle bedight or bedighted)

  1. (archaic) To equip or bedeck.

Adjective

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bedight (comparative more bedight, superlative most bedight)

  1. (archaic) That has been equipped or bedecked.
    • 1843, Charles Dickens, A Christmas Carol in Prose, Being a Ghost Story of Christmas:
      In half a minute Mrs Cratchit entered – flushed, but smiling proudly – with the pudding, like a speckled cannon-ball, so hard and firm, blazing in half of half-a-quartern of ignited brandy, and bedight with Christmas holly stuck into the top.
    • 1907, Barbara Baynton, edited by Sally Krimmer and Alan Lawson, Human Toll (Portable Australian Authors: Barbara Baynton), St Lucia: University of Queensland Press, published 1980, page 185:
      She, seated between her aunt and Mr. Civil (now retired from the ministry on a pension), listening to the wind (for it was autumn) howling vengefully round the porch; while this envied, bedight girl eating her manifold chocolate gifts, would merrily go forth to further triumphs, laughing at the clown, so philosophically funny, despite the cruel ringmaster's whip cuts.
    • 1908, James Ryder Randall, “John W. Morton”, in Maryland, my Maryland, and other poems, Baltimore, Md., New York: John Murphy Company, page 26:
      [] [F]rom every Southern hill, / And mount and stream and vale bedight []
    • 1922, James Joyce, Ulysses:
      Who comes through Michan’s land, bedight in sable armour? O’Bloom, the son of Rory: it is he.
    • 1985, Cormac McCarthy, Blood Meridian:
      There rose a fabled horde of mounted lancers and archers bearing shields bedight with bits of broken mirrorglass that cast a thousand unpieced suns against the eyes of their enemies.

Anagrams

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