beleaguer
Contents
English[edit]
Alternative forms[edit]
Etymology[edit]
Borrowed from Dutch belegeren, equivalent to be- + lair.
Pronunciation[edit]
Verb[edit]
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.: Published by John Owen, OCLC 877448942, stanzas 1 and 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.
- To vex, harass, or beset.
Derived terms[edit]
Translations[edit]
to besiege; to surround with troops
to vex, harass, or beset
