Dictionary

bedabble en · VERB

Etymology

Etymology tree Proto-Indo-European *h₁ep-der. Proto-Indo-European *h₁épsder. Proto-Indo-European *h₁épider. Proto-Indo-European *h₁pi Proto-Germanic *bider. Proto-Germanic *bi- Proto-West Germanic *bi- Old English be- Middle English bi- English be- English dabble English bedabble From be- + dabble.

Meanings

1. To dabble about or all over with moisture; make something wet by sprinkling or spattering water, paint, or other liquid on it.
   • A vision of her pale, sweet face, with her bright hair all bedabbled with gore, seemed to float constantly before his aching eyes. 1848, Elizabeth Gaskell, chapter 14, in Mary Barton:
   • 1912, Charles Egbert Craddoc (pseudonym of Mary Noailles Murfree), “The Crucial Moment” in The Raid of the Guerilla and Other Stories, Philadelphia: Lippincott, […] the weapon in Jeffrey's hand was discharged in his latest impulse of action after he fell to the floor, the blood gushing from a wound that crimsoned all the delicate whiteness of his shirt-front and bedabbled his snowy hair and beard.
   • The rest was fill’d somewhat indiscriminately, with Philosophers, Antiquarians, Mathematicians, and Mechanics. A Scotch Peasant produc’d a New Orrery; a German Mechanic, a Table Fountain contriv’d to play in a Desert, to the great Entertainment, and Bedabbling of every body present […] 1751, John Hill, chapter 7, in The Adventures of Mr. George Edwards, A Creole, London: T. Osborne, page 163:
   • Bedabbled with the dew, and torn with briers, I can no further crawl, no further go. c. 1595–1596 (date written), William Shakespeare, “A Midsommer Nights Dreame”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies: Published According to the True Originall Copies (First Folio), London: […] Isaac Iaggard, and Ed[ward] Blount, published 1623, →OCLC, [Act III, scene ii]:

Forms

Translations (6)

fi kastella (to make wet) · ru забры́згивать (to make wet) · ru бры́згать (to make wet) · bg изпръсквам (to make wet) · bg нацапвам (to make wet) · ru забры́згать (to make wet)