Dictionary

bedumb en · VERB

Etymology

From be- + dumb. Compare Middle English adumbien, from Old English ādumbian (“to become mute or dumb, keep silence, hold one’s peace”).

Meanings

1. (transitive) To make or render dumb, or mute.
   • Our disease is not smugness, but the anxiety that bedumbs the singer. 1964, John Holloway, The lion hunt: a pursuit of poetry and reality - Page 18:
   • These make no rustle save Some pine-cone dropt, or murmur that condemns Murmur; bedumb'd with moss that giant nave. 1901, Herbert Trench, Deirdre wed and other poems - Page 39:
   • Let not the melancholy past / Bedumb your hardened ears; [...] 1902, Frederick Strange Kolle, Pen lyrics - Page 11:

Forms