besprinkle

English

Etymology

From Middle English bisprenklen, bisprenglen, bispringlen, equivalent to be- +‎ sprinkle.

Verb

besprinkle (third-person singular simple present besprinkles, present participle besprinkling, simple past and past participle besprinkled)

1. (archaic, transitive) To sprinkle.
   • 1904, John Henry Freese, Alfred John Church, William Jackson Brodribb, Roman History, Books I-III‎^[1]:

     At this crisis the Sabine women, from the outrage on whom the war had arisen, with dishevelled hair and torn garments, the timidity natural to women being overcome by the sense of their calamities, were emboldened to fling themselves into the midst of the flying weapons, and, rushing across, to part the incensed combatants and assuage their wrath: imploring their fathers on the one hand and their husbands on the other, as fathers-in-law and sons-in-law, not to besprinkle themselves with impious blood, nor to fix the stain of murder on their offspring, the one side on their grandchildren, the other on their children.

   • 1871, Marc Monnier, The Wonders of Pompeii‎^[2]:

     We could still recognize the troughs that served for the manipulation of the bread, and the oven, the arch of which is intact, with the cavity that retained the ashes, the vase for water to besprinkle the crust and make it shiny, and, finally, the triple-flued pipe that carried off the smoke — an excellent system revealed by the Pompeian excavations and successfully imitated since then.

Derived terms

• besprinkler