Dictionary

bespangle 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 spangle English bespangle From be- + spangle.

Meanings

1. To cover something with spangles.
   • Get up, get up for shame, the blooming morne / Upon her wings presents the god unshorne. / See how Aurora throwes her faire / Fresh-quilted colours through the aire; / Get up, sweet slug-a-bed, and see / The dew bespangling herbe and tree. 1648, Robert Herrick, “Corinna’s Going a Maying”, in Hesperides, or The VVorks both Humane & Divine, London: Printed for John Williams, and Francis Eglesfield, […], →OCLC; republished in The Poetical Works of Robert Herrick, London: William Pickering, […], 1825, →OCLC, pages 91–92:
   • He it was who had bespangled the soils with russet leaves and reeds and who had breathed the breath of life into beings. 1961, Norma Lorre Goodrich, “Beowulf”, in The Medieval Myths, New York: The New American Library, page 20:

Forms