betrim

English

Etymology

From be- +‎ trim.

Verb

betrim (third-person singular simple present betrims, present participle betrimming, simple past and past participle betrimmed) (transitive)

1. To set in order; to adorn, deck, or embellish.
   • 1610–1611 (date written), William Shakespeare, “The Tempest”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies […] (First Folio), London: […] Isaac Iaggard, and Ed[ward] Blount, published 1623, →OCLC, [Act IV, scene i], page 14:

     Thy bankes with pioned, and twilled brims

     Which ſpungie Aprill, at thy heſt betrims;

     To make cold Nymphes chaſt crownes; […]

   • 1845, William Tennant, Esther; or the Fall of Haman, Act III, Scene 3, in Hebrew Dramas, Edinburgh: John Menzies, p. 178,^[1]

     I must betrim myself to-day in all

     My rarest ornaments of royalty;

   • 1897, Margaret Sidney, Phronsie Pepper, Boston: Lothrop, Lee & Shepard, Chapter 8, p. 130,^[2]

     Alexia […] fanned vigorously, so that she set all the feathers on her much-betrimmed hat into a violent flutter.

2. To trim (anything) about.

Part or all of this entry has been imported from the 1913 edition of Webster’s Dictionary, which is now free of copyright and hence in the public domain. The imported definitions may be significantly out of date, and any more recent senses may be completely missing.
(See the entry for “betrim”, in Webster’s Revised Unabridged Dictionary, Springfield, Mass.: G. & C. Merriam, 1913, →OCLC.)

Anagrams

• timber, timbre