befezzed

English

WOTD – 11 January 2021

Etymology

From be- (prefix intensifying adjectives with the sense ‘adorned with something’) +‎ fezzed (“wearing a fez”).^[1] Fezzed is derived from fez +‎ -ed (suffix forming adjectives from nouns, with the sense of having the object represented by the noun), and fez from Ottoman Turkish فس (fes, “fez”), from فس (Fes), فاس (Fez, “the city of Fez, Morocco”) (where the red dye used to colour the hat was produced), from Arabic فَاس (fās, “Fez, Morocco; (archaic) fez”), perhaps related to Central Atlas Tamazight ⴰⴼⵣⴰ (afza, “coarse, rough; hard, rocky”) (referring to the Atlas Mountains).

Pronunciation

(Received Pronunciation) IPA^(key): /bɪˈfɛzd/
Audio (Received Pronunciation): (file)
(General American) IPA^(key): /bəˈfɛzd/, /bi-/
Hyphenation: be‧fezzed

Adjective

befezzed (not comparable)

Wearing a fez (“a felt hat shaped like a truncated cone with a tassel attached”); fezzed.
- 1862, Mrs. John B. Speid, chapter II, in Our Last Years in India, London: Smith, Elder and Co., […], →OCLC, page 28:
  [Y]ou have but to clap your hands, and lo! a slave appears, and a very picturesque slave he is, with head befezzed, and full trousers reaching to the knees; [...]
- 1878 July 3, A. Sheffield Smith, “The Paris Exhibition and Its Aids”, in Capital and Labour: A Weekly Journal of Facts and Arguments on Questions Relating to Employers and Employed, volume V, London: […] Wyman & Sons, […], →OCLC, page 425, column 1:
  We can see the befezzed Turk in his bazaar dealng out his wares of pipes, tobacco, and trinkets, and the Japanese in his café concert most monotonously marring music, and astounding gaping wonder.
- 1879 January, “Art. V.—1. The People of Turkey: Twenty Years’ Residence among Bulgarians, Greeks, Albanians, Turks, and Armenians. By a Consul’s Daughter and Wife. […] 2. The Romance of Missions: or, Inside Views of Life and Labour in the Land of Ararat. By Maria A. West. […]”, in The London Quarterly Review, volume LI, number CII, London: Wesleyan Conference Office, […], →OCLC, page 406:
  [W]e are at once struck with the extraordinary nature of the fact that these intense individualities, these nations of widely different origin, [...] are contained in the circuit of a single empire; and we wonder what force it is which compels the strange cohesion. Surely it is not the sword of yonder cross-legged, lethargic, beturbanned, or befezzed being, who, pipe in mouth, looks softly out of his dark eyes with a half-expressed disdain!
- 1883 June 23, “Trades’-Guilds of Constantinople. [From All the Year Round.]”, in Littel’s Living Age, volume XLII (Fifth Series; volume CLVII overall), number 2035, Boston, Mass.: Littel & Co., →OCLC, part I, page 749:
  No one who knows Constantinople will be surprised to learn that a brisk trade is done in the readjustment of the fez, for the greater part of the male population is befezzed, and it is essential to the well-being of every wearer of a fez, that his headdress shall preserve its pristine stiffness, [...]
- 1990, Peter Theroux, “1984”, in Sandstorms: Days and Nights in Arabia, New York, N.Y., London: W[illiam] W[arder] Norton & Company, →ISBN, pages 166–167:
  From inside my taxi I watched theaters, cinemas, bookstores, bars, video shops, and cafes flash past, all set in the dusty stone motifs of Cairo Crazy architecture: mansard roofs with sphinx gargoyles, Catholic statues, Stalin gothic, and those coppery statues of befezzed heroes: Talaat Harb, Suleiman Pasha, Saad Zaghloul.
- 2002, Jeffrey Eugenides, “An Immodest Proposal”, in Middlesex, paperback edition, New York, N.Y.: Picador, published August 2003, →ISBN, book 1, page 60:
  By September 7, 1922, every Greek in Smyrna, including Lefty Stephanides, is wearing a fez in order to pass as a Turk. [...] Lefty, newly moneyed and befezzed, makes his way through the maroon-capped crowd at the quay.
- 2015, Jordan Stratford, “Rumble and Great Speed”, in The Case of the Missing Moonstone (The Wollstonecraft Detective Agency), London: Jonathan Cape, →ISBN, page 177:
  One of the befezzed gentlemen produced a velvet case. Inside was a bed of silk, and the Acorn of Ankara fitted perfectly into a small hollow.

Related terms

Translations

wearing a fez

References

^ Compare “befezzed, adj.” under “be-, prefix”, in OED Online ⁠, Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1887.