Dictionary

besail en · VERB

Etymology

From be- (“at, toward”) + sail (“to attack, assail”), from Middle English sailen (“to attack”), short for assailen (“to assail”).

Meanings

1. (archaic, poetic, rare, transitive) To attack or assail; lunge at or toward; assault.
   • The narrow besailed giants stood with long limbs rooted deep in the surface. Every so often a leg would ponderously rise and anchor itself elsewhere, as a sifter repositioned itself with the changing wind. 2013, A J Dalton, Gateway of the Saviours:
   • The civvies and the brakesmen, with clubs they did me besail; They marched me right straight over to the Albany Jail […] 1960, New York Folklore Quarterly, volume 16, page 100:
   • He remembered a vision which once besailed him suddenly. 2015, Jennifer Armstrong, Killing Substance:
   • No mater what besails us, no matter how much pain, loss or sorrow we endure, something deep within us rises to the occasion, in fusing us with Strength and Courage to get beyond what ever this world of earthly existence throws in our unknowing paths […] 2014, Dr. Adrianna Scheibner, Beyond Good and Evil..... Is Paradise:

Forms