beleaguer
English
WOTD – 25 April 2010
Alternative forms
- beleagure
Etymology
Borrowed from Dutch belegeren and/or Middle Low German belēgeren; equivalent to be- + lair. Compare also German belagern. The English spelling was perhaps influenced by unrelated league.
Pronunciation
- (UK) IPA(key): /bɪˈliː.ɡə/, /bəˈliː.ɡə/
Audio (UK) (file)
- (General American) IPA(key): /bɪˈli.ɡɚ/
- Rhymes: -iːɡə(ɹ)
Verb
beleaguer (third-person singular simple present beleaguers, present participle beleaguering, simple past and past participle beleaguered)
- To besiege; to surround with troops.
- 1839, Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, “The Beleaguered City”, in Voices of the Night, Cambridge, Mass.: […] John Owen, OCLC 877448942, stanzas 1–2, page 22:
- I have read in some old marvellous tale, / Some legend strange and vague, / That a midnight host of spectres pale / Beleaguered the walls of Prague. // Beside the Moldau's rushing stream, / With the wan moon overhead, / There stood, as in an awful dream, / The army of the dead.
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- To vex, harass, or beset.
- To exhaust.
Derived terms
- beleaguerment
Translations
to besiege; to surround with troops
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to vex, harass, or beset
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Anagrams
- beleagure