Bestay

verb

verb ·Rare ·Advanced level

Definitions

Verb
  1. 1
    To secure or steady; cause to come to a fixed position or state; bring to a halt or stop. transitive

    "Mid the half-furrowed field bestay the plough, Bid the twin toilers of the yoke go free, And aught that doth thee patient servitude, From closing sabbath to its blest return, [...]"

Example

More examples

"Mid the half-furrowed field bestay the plough, Bid the twin toilers of the yoke go free, And aught that doth thee patient servitude, From closing sabbath to its blest return, [...]"

Etymology

From be- + stay, from Middle English *stayen, steyen, from Old French estaier, estayer (“to prop, stay, support”), from estaye (“prop, support”), of Proto-Germanic origin. More at stay.

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