Dictionary

bespatter en · VERB

Pronunciation

• (US) audio
• /biˈspætɚ/ (General-American)

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 spatter English bespatter From be- + spatter.

Meanings

1. (transitive) To spatter or cover with something; sprinkle with anything liquid, or with any wet or adhesive substance.
2. (transitive) To soil by spattering.
   • The flour bespattering Squeaker's now neglected clothes spoke eloquently of his clumsy efforts at damper making. 1902, Barbara Baynton, edited by Sally Krimmer and Alan Lawson, Bush Studies (Portable Australian Authors: Barbara Baynton), St Lucia: University of Queensland Press, published 1980, page 15:
   • [D]azed and blinded, she bent her head as if to let the pelt of jagged hail, the drench of dirty water, bespatter her unrebuked. 1927 May, Virginia Woolf, chapter 6, in To the Lighthouse (Uniform Edition of the Works of Virginia Woolf), new edition, London: Leonard and Virginia Woolf at the Hogarth Press, […], published 1930, →OCLC, part I (The Window), page 54:
3. (figuratively, transitive) To asperse with calumny or reproach; shend.
   • Beſides, he hath not been afraid to rail on you, my Lord, who are now appointed to be his Judge, calling you an ungodly Villain, with many other ſuch like vilifying terms, with which he hath beſpattered most of the Gentry of our Town. 1678, John Bunyan, The Pilgrim’s Progress from This World, to That which is to Come: […], London: […] Nath[aniel] Ponder […], →OCLC; reprinted in The Pilgrim’s Progress as Originally Published by John Bunyan: Being a Fac-simile Reproduction of the First Edition, London: Elliot Stock […], 1875, →OCLC, page 163:

Forms

Deriveds

bespatterer · bespatterment

Translations (6)

fi herjata (to asperse with calumny) · fi panetella (to asperse with calumny) · fi roiskia (to soil by spattering) · fi pirskotella (to sprinkle with anything liquid, or with any wet or adhesive substance) · fi pirskottaa (to sprinkle with anything liquid, or with any wet or adhesive substance) · fi roiskuttaa (to soil by spattering)