bedight

English

Etymology

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

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /bɪˈdaɪt/
  • (Canada) IPA^(key): [bɪˈdʌɪt]
• Rhymes: -aɪt

Verb

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

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

• bighted, Digbeth