Benettle

verb

verb ·Rare ·Advanced level

Definitions

Verb
  1. 1
    To nettle:; To whip or sting with nettles.

    "As they retraced their benettled footsteps, Mr Truscott's silent rage was such as to obscure even […]"

  2. 2
    To nettle:; To vex or provoke. obsolete

    "Where men of ordinary skill, May have the fortune, if they will, To keep in circumstances middling By nothing in the world but piddling ; Hence, with their fancies thus benettled, The future course of life is settled :"

Example

More examples

"As they retraced their benettled footsteps, Mr Truscott's silent rage was such as to obscure even […]"

Etymology

From be- + nettle.

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