Dictionary

begem en · VERB

Etymology

From be- + gem.

Meanings

1. To adorn (as if) with gems.
   • Our Grove we illuminate, glorious to see, With glittering Glow-worms begemming each Tree; 1748, Laetitia Pilkington, “Queen Mab to Pollio”, in Memoirs, Dublin, page 151:
   • Time was, when a stage manager would spend hundreds of thousands of francs to begem with real emeralds the throne upon which a great actress would play the part of an empress. 1929, Marcel Proust, translated by C. K. Scott Moncrieff, The Captive, New York: Modern Library, Part I, Chapter 1, p. 3:
   • One […] threw The wreath upon him, like an anadem, Which frozen tears instead of pearls begem; 1821, Percy B[ysshe] Shelley, Adonais: An Elegy on the Death of John Keats, […], Pisa, Italy: […] Didot; reprinted London: Noel Douglas […], 1927, →OCLC, stanza 11:

Forms