Beleaguer

//bɪˈli.ɡɚ// verb

verb ·Moderate ·College level

Definitions

Verb
  1. 1
    To besiege; to surround with troops.

    "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."

  2. 2
    surround so as to force to give up wordnet
  3. 3
    To vex, harass, or beset.
  4. 4
    annoy persistently wordnet
  5. 5
    To exhaust.

Synonyms

All synonyms
besiegebadgerbugpesterteasebeset

Example

More examples

"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."

Etymology

Borrowed from Dutch belegeren and/or Middle Low German belēgeren; equivalent to be- + lair. Compare also German belagern, Danish belejre. The English spelling was perhaps influenced by unrelated league.

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