Dictionary

bedim en · VERB

Pronunciation

• (US) audio
• /bɪˈdɪm/

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 dim English bedim From be- + dim.

Meanings

1. (transitive) To make (something) dim; to darken, to obscure.
   • Your voice is sad whene'er you speak / and tears bedim your loving eyes. 1875, Thomas Payne Westendorf, “I’ll Take You Home Again, Kathleen”:
   • Now I recenter my immortal mind / In the deep sabbath of meek self-content; / Cleans'd from the vaporous passions that bedim / God's Image, sister of the Seraphim. 1796 December 24–26 (date written), S[amuel] T[aylor] Coleridge, “Ode on the Departing Year”, in Sibylline Leaves: A Collection of Poems, London: Rest Fenner, […], published 1817, →OCLC, stanza IX, page 58:
   • Often, when all was dry, the heavens cloudless, and I was parched by thirst, a slight cloud would bedim the sky, shed the few drops that revived me, and vanish. 1816 June – 1817 April/May (date written), [Mary Shelley], chapter VII, in Frankenstein; or, The Modern Prometheus. […], volume III, London: […] [Macdonald and Son] for Lackington, Hughes, Harding, Mavor, & Jones, published 1 January 1818, →OCLC:
   • I haue bedymn'd / The Noone tide Sun, call'd forth the mutenous vvindes, / And tvvixt the greene Sea, and the azur'd vault / Set roaring vvarre: […] 1610–1611 (date written), William Shakespeare, “The Tempest”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies […] (First Folio), London: […] Isaac Iaggard, and Ed[ward] Blount, published 1623, →OCLC, [Act V, scene i], page 16, column 2:
   • There will be no folly, nor laughter, nor bedimming of truth […] 1905, James Hastings, Ann Wilson Hastings, Edward Hastings, The Expository Times, volume XVI:
   • Read in thy New Testament and elsewhere,—if, with floods of mealymouthed inanity, with miserable froth-vortices of Cant now several centuries old, thy New Testament is not all bedimmed for thee. 1843 April, Thomas Carlyle, “The Gifted”, in Past and Present, American edition, Boston, Mass.: Charles C[offin] Little and James Brown, published 1843, →OCLC, book IV (Horoscope):

Forms

Deriveds

unbedimmed

Translations (2)

mi parekohu (to make (something) dim — see also darken, obscure) · mi whakarehurehu (to make (something) dim — see also darken, obscure)