Bedew

verb

verb ·Rare ·Advanced level

Definitions

Verb
  1. 1
    To make wet with or as if with dew. transitive

    "Balm, from a ſilver-box diſtill'd around, / Shall all bedew the roots, and ſcent the ſacred ground."

  2. 2
    cover with drops of dew or as with dew wordnet

Synonyms

All synonyms
bespatterdabbledampdampendashdew

Example

More examples

"Awed by the vision and the voice divine / ('twas no mere dream; their very looks I knew, / I saw the fillets round their temples twine, / and clammy sweat did all my limbs bedew) / forthwith, upstarting, from the couch I flew, / and hands and voice together raised in prayer, / and wine unmixt upon the altars threw. / This done, to old Anchises I repair, / pleased with the rites fulfilled, and all the tale declare."

Etymology

From Middle English bidewen, bideawen; equivalent to be- + dew. Cognate with Dutch bedauwen (“to bedew”), German betauen (“to bedew”).

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Data sourced from Wiktionary, WordNet, CMU, and other open linguistic databases. Updated March 2026.