. At first; before any thing is done. What is a man's contending with insuperable difficulties, but the rolling of Sisyphus's stone up the hill, which is soon beforehand to return upon him again? L'Estrange. BEFORETIME. adv. [from before and time.] Formerly; of old time. 1 Samuel. Beforetime in Israel, when a man went to enquire of God, thus he spake. TO BEFORTUNE. v. n. [from be and fortune.] To happen to; to betide. I give consent to go along with you; Recking as little what betideth me, As much I wish all good befortune you, Shaksp. To BEFO'UL. v. a. [from be and foul.] To make foul; to soil; to dirt. To BEFRIEND. v. a. [from be and friend.] To favour; to be kind to; to countenance; to show friendship to; to benefit. Swift. TO BEFRINGE. v. a. [from be and fringe.] To decorate, as with fringes. When I flatter, let my dirty leaves Clothe spice, line trunks, or, flutt'ring in a row, Befringe the rails of Bedlam and Soho. Pope. To BEG. v. n. [beggeren, Germ.] To live upon alms; to live by asking relief of others. I cannot dig; to beg I am ashamed. Luke. To BEG. v. a. 1. To ask; to seek by petition. He went to Pilate, and begged the body. Matthew, See how they beg an alms of flattery. Young. 2. To take any thing for granted, without evidence or proof. We have not begged any principles or suppo sitions, for the proof of this; but taking that common ground, which both Moses and all antiquity present. Burnet, To BEGE'T. v. a. I begot, or begat; I have begotten, or begot. [bezertan, Saxon, to obtain. See To GET] 1. To generate; to procreate; to become the father of, as children. But first come the hours, which we begot Which are the children of an idle brain, By ignorance, by expectation fed. Granville. 2. To produce, as effects. If to have done the thing you gave in charge, Shakspeare. Begat upon His mother Martha by his father John. Spectator. BEGE'TTER. n. s. [from beget.] He that, procreates, or begets; the father. For what their prowess gain'd, the law declares Is to themselves alone, and to their heirs: . No share of that goes back to the begetter; But if the son fights well, and plunders betterDryden Men continue the race of mankind, commonly without the intention, and often against the consent and will, of the begetter, Locke. BEGGAR. n. s. [from beg. It is more properly written begger; but the common orthography is retained, because the derivatives all preserve the a.] 1. One who lives upon alms; one who has nothing but what is given him. 2. He raiseth up the poor out of the dust, and lifteth up the beggar from the dunghill, to set them among princes. 1 Samuel. We see the whole equipage of a beggar so drawn by Homer, as even to retain a nobleness and dignity. Broome. One who supplicates for any thing; a petitioner: for which, beggar is a harsh and contemptuous term. What subjects will precarious kings regard? A beggar speaks too softly to be heard. Dryden 3. One who assumes what he does not prove. These shameful beggars of principles, who give this precarious account of the original of things, assume to themselves to be men of reason. Tillotson. To BEGGAR. v. a. [from the noun.] 1. To reduce to beggary; to impoverish. Whose heavy hand hath bow'd you to the grave, And beggar'd yours for ever. Shakspeare, They shall spoil the clothiers wool, and begGraunt. gar the present spinners. The miser For her person, It beggar'd all description; she did lie In her pavilion, cloth of gold, of tissue, O'er-picturing Venus. Shakspeare. BEGGARLINESS. n. s. [from beggarly.] The state of being beggarly; meanness; poverty. BEGGARLY. adj. [from beggar.] Mean; poor; indigent; in the condition of a beggar: used both of persons and things. I ever will, though he do shake me off To beggarly divorcement, love him dearly. Shak A beggarly account of empty boxes. Sbaksp. Who, that behold such a bankrupt beggaris fellow as Cromwell entering the parliament house, with a thread-bare, torn cloak, and BEG greasy hat, could have suspected that he should, by the murder of one king and the banishment of another, ascend the throne? South. The next town has the reputation of being extremely poor and beggarly. Addison. Corusodes, by extreme parsimony, saved thirty-four pounds out of a beggarly fellowship. Szwift. BEGGARLY.adv. [from beggar.] Meanly; despicably; indigently. Touching God himself, hath he revealed, that it is his delight to dwell beggarly? and that he taketh no pleasure to be worshipped, saving only in poor cottages ? Hooker. BEGGARY. 7. s. [from beggar.] Indigence; poverty in the utmost degree. On he brought me into so bare a house, that it was the picture of miserable happiness and rich beggary. Sidney. While I am a beggar, I will rail, And say there is no sin but to be rich: And being rich, my virtue then shall be, To say there is no vice but beggary. Shakspeare. We must become not only poor for the present, but reduced, by further mortgages, to a state of beggary for endless years to come. To BEGIN v. n. I began, or begun; I have begun. [beginnan, Sax. from be, or by, and gangan, gaan, or gan, to go.] Swift. 1. To enter upon something new: applied to persons. Begin every day to repent: not that thou shouldst at all defer it; but all that is past ought to seem little to thec, seeing it is so in itself. Begin the next day with the same zeal, fear, and humility, as if thou hadst never begun before. Taylor. 2. To commence any action or state; to do the first act, or first part of an act; to make the first step from not doing to doing. They began at the ancient men which were before the house. By peace we will begin. I'll sing of heroes and of kings: Begin, my muse! Ezekiel. Shakspeare. Corley. Of these no more you hear him speak; He now begins upon the Greek: These, rang'd and show'd, shall in their turns Beginning from the rural gods, his hand Prior. Dryden. Rapt into future times, the bard begun, A virgin shall conceive. Pope. 3. To enter upon existence; as, the world I am as free as Nature first made man, And thus the hard and stubborn race of man Judgment must begin at the house of God. The song begun from Jove. All began, 1 Peter. All ends, in love of God and love of man. Pope. 6. To come into act. Now and then a sigh he stole, And tears began to flow. TO BEGIN. v. A. Dryden, BEG 1. To do the first act of any thing; to pass from not doing to doing, by the first act. 2. 3. Ye nymphs of Solyma, begin the song. Pope. They have been awaked, by these awful scenes, to begin religion; and afterwards, their virtue has improved itself into more refined principles, by divine grace. Watts. To trace from any thing, as the first ground. The apostle begins our knowledge in the creatures, which leads us to the knowledge of God. Locke. To begin with. To enter upon; to fall to work upon. A lesson which requires so much time to learn, had need be early begun with. Gov. of Tengue. BEGINNER. n. s. [from begin.] 1. He that gives the first cause, or original, to any thing. 2. Thus heaping crime on crime, and grief on grief, To loss of love adjoining loss of friend, I meant to purge both with a third mischief, And, in my woe's beginner, it to end. Spenser. Socrates maketh Ignatius, the bishop of Antioch, the first beginner thereof, even under the apostles themselves. Hooker. An unexperienced attempter; one in his rudiments; a young practitioner. Palladius, behaving himself nothing like a beginner, brought the honour to the Iberian side. Sidney. They are, to beginners, an easy and familiar introduction; a mighty augmentation of all virtue and knowledge in such as are entered before. Hooker. I have taken a list of several hundred words in a sermon of a new beginner, which not one hearer could possibly understand. BEGINNING. n. s. [from begin.] Swift. 1. The first original or cause. Wherever we place the beginning of motion, whether from the head or the heart, the body moves and acts by a consent of all its parts. Swift. 2. The entrance into act, or being. 3. The state in which any thing first is. Youth, what man's age is like to be, doth show; We may our end by our beginning know. Denbam. 4. The rudiments, or first grounds or materials. By viewing nature, nature's handmaid, art, Makes mighty things from small beginnings grow: Thus fishes first to shipping did impart, Their tail the rudder, and their head the prow. The understanding is passive; and whether or Dryden. not it will have these beginnings, and materials of knowledge, is not in its own power. 5. The first part of any thing. Locke. The causes and designs of an action, are the beginning; the effects of these causes, and the difficulties that are met with in the execution of these designs, are the middle; and the unravelling and resolution of these difficulties, are the end. Broome. To BEGIRD, v. a. I begirt, or begirded; I have begirt. from be and gird.] 1. To bind with a girdle. 2. To surround; to encircle; to encom pass. Or should she, confident As sitting queen adorn'd on beauty's throne, Descend, with all her winning charms begirt, T'enamour. Milton. At home surrounded by a servile crowd, Prompt to abuse, and in detraction loud: Abroad begirt with men, and swords, and spears; His very state acknowledging his fears. Prior. 3. To shut in with a siege; to beleaguer; to block up. It was so closely begirt before the king's march into the west, that the council humbly desired his majesty, that he would relieve it. Clarendon. To BEGIRT. v. a. [This is, I think, only a corruption of begird; perhaps by the printer.] To begird. See BEGIRD, And, Lentulus, begirt you Pompey's house, To seize his sons alive; for they are they Must make our peace with him. Ben Jonson. BEGLERBEG. n. s. [Turkish.] The chief governour of a province among the Turks. To BEGNA'W. v. a. [from be and gnaw.] To bite; to eat away; to corrode; to nibble. His horse is stark spoiled with the staggers, begnarun with the bots, waid in the back, and shoulder-shotten. Shakspeare. The worm of conscience still begnaw thy soul. Shakspeare's Richard 111. BEGO'NE. interject. [only a coalition of the words be gone.] Go away; hence; haste away. Begone! the goddess cries with stern disdain, BEGOTTEN. S beget. The first he met, Antiphates the brave, To BBGRIME. v. a. [from be and grime. See GRIME and GRIM.] To soil with dirt deep impressed; to soil in such a manner that the natural hue cannot easily be recovered. Her name, that was as fresh As Dian's visage, is now begrim'd, and black As my own face. Shakspeare. To BEGUILE. v. a. [from be and guile.] 1. To impose upon; to delude; to cheat. This I say, lest any man should beguile you with enticing words. Colossians. The serpent me beguil'd, and I did eat! Milt. Whosoever sees a man, who would have beguiled and imposed upon him by making him believe a lye, he may truly say, that is the tan who would have ruined me. South. 2. To deceive; to evade. Is wretchedness depriv'd that benefit, 3. To deceive pleasingly; to amuse. BEGUN. The participle passive of begin rives from half, and interprets it, for my half; as, for my part. It seems to me rather corrupted from behoof, profit; the pronunciation degenerating easily to behafe; which, in imitation of other words so sounded, was written, by those who knew not the etymology, behalf.} 1. Favour; cause favoured: we say in behalf, but for the sake. He was in confidence with those who designed the destruction of Strafford; against whom he had contracted some prejudice, in the behalf of his nation. Clarendon. Were but my heart as naked to thy view, Marcus would see it bleed in his behalf. Addison. Never was any nation blessed with more frequent interpositions of divine providence in its bebalf. Atterbury 2. Vindication; support. 1 He might, in his presence, defy all Arcadian knights, in the behalf of his mistress's beauty, Lest the fiend, Sidney. Or in behalf of man, or to invade Others believe that, by the two Fortunes, you. We so live, and so act, as if we were secure of the final issue and event of things, however we may behave ourselves. Atterbury. 2. It seems formerly to have had the sense of, to govern; to subdue; to discipline: but this is not now used. But who his limbs with labours, and his mind BEHAVIOUR. n. s. [from behave.] Mopsa, curious in any thing but her own good behaviour, followed Zelmane. Sidney. 2. External appearance, with respect to grace. lie mark'd, in Dora's dancing, good grace and handsome behaviour. Sidney. 3. Gesture; manner of action, adapted to particular occasions. Well witnessing the most submissive behaviour that a thralled heart could express. Sidney. When we make profession of our faith, we stand; when we acknowledge our sins, or seek unto God for favour, we fall down; because the gesture of constancy becometh us best in the one, in the other the behaviour of humility. Hooker. One man sees how much another man is a fool, when he dedicates his behaviour to love. Shakspeare. And he changed his behaviour before them, and feigned himself mad in their hands. 1 Samuel. 4. Elegance of manners; gracefulness. The beautiful prove accomplished, but not of great spirit; and study, for the most part, rather behaviour than virtue. Bacon. He who adviseth the philosopher, altogether devoted to the Muses, sometimes to offer sacrifice to the altars of the Graces, thought knowledge imperfect without behaviour. Wetton. 5. Conduct; general practice; course of life. To him, who hath a prospect of the state that attends men after this life, depending on their behaviour here, the measures of good and evil are changed. Locke. 6. To be upon one's behaviour. A familiar phrase, noting such a state as requires great caution; a state in which a failure in behaviour will have bad consequences. Tyrants themselves are upon their behaviour to a superiour power. L'Estrange, To BEHEAD. v. a. [from be and head.] To deprive of the head; to kill by cutting off the head. His beheading he underwent with all christian magnanimity. Clarendon. On each side they fly, Mary, queen of Scots, was beheaded in the Such is the swiftness of your mind, That, like the earth's, it leaves our sense bebind. 8. Inferiour to another; having the posteDryden riour place with regard to excellence. After the overthrow of this first house of God, a second was erected; but with so great odds, that they wept, which beheld how much this latter came behind it. Hooker. 9. On the other side of something. From light retir'd bebind his daughter's bed, He, for approaching sleep, compos'd his head. Dryden BEHIND. adv. 1. Out of sight; not yet produced to view; remaining. We cannot be sure that we have all the particulars before us, and that there is no evidence behind, and yet unseen, which may cast the probability on the other side. Locker 2. Most of the former senses may become adverbial, by suppressing the accusative case; as, I left my money behind, or behind me. BEHINDHAND. adv. [from behind and hand.] 1. In a state in which rent or profit, or any advantage, is anticipated, so that less is to be received, or more performed, than the natural or just proportion.. Your trade would suffer, if your being behindband has made the natural use so high, that your Locks. tradesman cannot live upon his labour. 2. Not upon equal terms, with regard to forwardness. In this sense, it is followed by arith. Consider, whether it is not better to be half a year behindband with the fashionable part of the world, than to strain beyond his circumstances. Spectator. 3. Shakspeare uses it as an adjective, but licentiously, for backward; tardy. And these thy offices, Shakspeare. So rarely kind, are as interpreters Of my behindhand slackness. To BEHOLD. v. a. pret. I beheld, I have beheld, or beholden. [behealban, Saxon.] To view; to see; to look upon: to behold is to see, in an emphatical or intensive sense. Son of man, behold with thine eyes, and hear with thine ears. Ezekiel. When Thessalians on horseback were beheld afar off, while their horses watered, while their heads were depressed, they were conceived by the spectators to be one animal. Brown. Man looks aloft, and, with erected eyes, Beholds his own hereditary skies. Dryden. At this the former tale again he told, With thund'ring tone, and dreadful to behold. Dryden. The Saviour comes, by ancient bards foretold, Hear him ye deaf, and all ye blind behold! Pope. BEHOLD. interject. [from the verb.] See; lo: a word by which attention is excited, or admiration noted. Behold! I am with thee, and will keep thee. Genesis. When out of hope, bebold her! not far off, Such as I saw her in my dream, adorn'd With what all earth or heaven could bestow, To make her amiable. Milton. BEHOLDEN. particip. adj. [gehouden, Dutch; that is, held in obligation. It is very corruptly written beholding.] Obliged; bound in gratitude: with the particle to. Horns, which such as you are fain to be bebelden to your wives for. Shakspeare. Little are we beholden to your love, And little look'd for at your helping hands. Shakspeare. I found you next, in respect of bond both of near alliance, and particularly of communication in studies; wherein I must acknowledge myself bebolden to you. Bacon. I think myself mightily beholden to you for the reprehension you then gave us. Addison. We, who see men under the awe of justice, cannot conceive what savage creatures they would be without it; and how much bebolden we are to that wise contrivance. Atterbury. BEHOLDER. n. s. [from behold.] Spectator; he that looks upon any thing. Was this the face, That, like the sun, did make beholders wink? Shakspeare. These beasts among, Milton. Denbam. Things of wonder give no less delight To the wise Maker's than bebolder's sight. The justling chiefs in rude encounters joins Each fair bubolder trembling for her knight. Granville. The charitable foundations, in the church of Rome, exceed all the demands of charity; and raise envy, rather than compassion, in the breasts of bebolders. Atterbury. BEHO'LDING. adj. [corrupted from be bolden.] Obliged. See BEHOLDEN. BEHOLDING. n. s. Obligation. Love to virtue, and not any particular be boldings, hath expressed this my testimony. Carew BEHO'LDINGNESS. n. s. [from beholding, mistaken for bebolden.] The state of being obliged. The king invited us to his court, so as I must acknowledge a beboldingness unto him. Sidney. In this my debt I seem'd loth to confess, In that I shunn'd beholdingness. Donne It would be of no beboof, for the settling of government, unless there were a way taught, how to know the person to whom belonged this power and dominion. Locke To BEHO'OVE. v. n. [behopan, Saxon, it is a duty. To be fit; to be meet either with respect to duty, necessity, or convenience. It is used only impersonally with it. For better examination of their quality, it be booveth the very foundation and root, the highest well-spring and fountain of them, to be discovered. Hooker. He did so prudently temper his passions, as that none of them made him wanting in the offices of life, which it bebooved or became him to perform. Atterbury. But should you lure the monarch of the brook, Bebooves you then to ply your finest art. Thomson BEHO'OVEFUL. adj. [from behoof.] Useful; profitable; advantageous. This word is somewhat antiquated. It is very bebooveful in this country of Ireland, where there are waste deserts full of grass, that the same should be eaten down. Spenser. Laws are many times full of imperfections; and that which is supposed bebooveful unto men, Hooker. proveth oftentimes most pernicious. Madam, we have cull'd such necessaries As are bebooveful for our state to-morrow. Shak It may be most behooveful for princes, in matters of grace, to transact the same publickly: so it is as requisite, in matters of judgment, punishment, and censure, that the same be transacted privately. Clarendon. BEHO'OVEFULLY.adv.[from behooveful.) Profitably; usefully. |