Dictionary

bewrite en · VERB

Etymology

From Middle English bewriten, from Old English bewrītan (“to write, record, copy”), from Proto-West Germanic *biwrītan (“to write down; write about”), equivalent to be- (“about, over”) + write. Cognate with Old Frisian biwrīta (“to write down”), Middle Low German bewriten (“to engrave; to pronounce a blessing”), German bereiẞen (“to scale something by hand, carry out manually”). Compare also Dutch beschrijven (“to describe”), German beschreiben (“to describe”), Swedish beskriva (“to describe”).

Meanings

1. (transitive) To write about; describe.
   • "I said it was a pleasureful thing to be thus bewritten upward. [...]" 1926, Blanche Colton Williams, Best American stories:
   • I humbly beg of you, for God's sake and your own, to read what I here presume to bewrite: [...] 1878, Philip Dwyer, The Diocese of Killaloe from the Reformation to the close of the Eighteenth century:
   • This harvesting bewrites the unhealable Monogrammed Beach Towels of affair and assenting a brew-house. 2011, The history of the Chronoswiss brand can only reach
   • I vow and purpose, here in the presence of " Billy Shakspeare," to bewrite this ill-starred foolscap!! 1838, The Yale literary magazine, volume 3:
2. (transitive) To write to.
   • After I bewrote thee yesterday Mrs. Neville drove Lady Charlotte, young Bagot (Clerk) and self into Glastonbury. 1905, Charles Hallam Elton Brookfield, Frances Mary Brookfield, Mrs. Brookfield and her circle: Volume 1:
3. (transitive) To write; write from; copy.
   • And it was in just one of these accessions of strength, (which after all, I count only as seductive illusions,) that I found myself with pen and paper, bewriting page after page — sketching men and scenes that I thought you would be glad to see, [...] 1850, Donald Grant Mitchell, The battle summer::

Forms

Deriveds

bewriting · bewritten