Dictionary

bestream en · VERB

Etymology

From be- + stream. Cognate with German beströmen (“to pervade”).

Meanings

1. (intransitive) To stream around, about, or all over; flood.
   • His eyes bestreamed with tears, his large heart quaking [...] 1858, Henry Green, A Manchester book:
2. (transitive) To flow in a stream; stream down.
   • Tears bestreamed her face, and the Elder of Midpoint was somewhat bemused at this reception. 2010, Sally Odgers, Shadowdancers:
   • Merchant plays you with a smile beguiling, Wife beguiles you with her tears bestreaming, [...] 1925, Milivoy Stoyan Stanoyevich, Slavonic nations of yesterday and today:
3. (transitive) To drench; mark by streams of.
   • The collars of his serge jacket were pulled up high above his ears, making a fantastic setting for his grimy, tear-bestreamed countenance, [...] 1868, Every Saturday: a journal of choice reading:
   • I do remember a poor Negro, Under the torrid sun by parching thirst Oppress'd; with sweat-bestreamed brow he slaved, Planting of sugar-canes; [...] 2004, Marcus Wood, The poetry of slavery:
   • [...] it is easy to conceive her terror when she saw my friend in this predicament, lying in my arms, and both of us bestreamed with blood. 1824, Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, Thomas Carlyle, Wilhelm Meister's Apprenticeship: A Novel:
   • [...] and, from using only moderate exercise, I am so bestreamed with perspiration as to make it necessary to change my clothes four or five times in the course of the day: [...] 1816, George Pinckard, Notes on the West Indies:
   • Will ye dwell in houses artificially adorned, not so milch for use as for delight, and shall My dwelling-place, wherein was the Holy of holies, and the Cherubim, and the table of shew-brend, be bestreamed with rains, [...] 1885, Edward Bouverie Pusey, The Minor prophets:
4. (broadly, transitive) To cover or be covered in; adorn; wear.
   • Gear, such as Orchomenus bestreams or Thebae of Egypt, Where lies in palace-hall most wealth, whose gates are an hundred, And steeds, and chariots, and fivescore troops are in each one [...] 1899, Homer, Alexander Pope, Philip Gentner, The Iliad of Homer:
   • They were about the business of repair so that in a way fire did remain an enemy of water, as they caulked the longboat and disappeared below deck, carrying leather-bestreamed poles of steaming pitch. 1995, C. W. E. Bigsby, Hester:

Forms