Betoken
verb ·Moderate ·High school level
Definitions
- 1 To signify by some visible object; show by signs or tokens. transitive
"There be other 2 signes in often use of which the first is made thus + and betokeneth more : the other is thus made – and betokeneth lesse."
- 2 indicate, as with a sign or an omen wordnet
- 3 To foreshow by present signs; indicate something future by that which is seen or known. transitive
"“ Ah ! hospitable land, thou (nevertheless) betokenest war,” i. e., although hospitable, thou nevertheless betokenest war. — Bello."
- 4 be a signal for or a symptom of wordnet
Example
More examples"Thus our own Christmas fir was decked as a symbol of the celestial sun tree. The lights, according to Professor Schwartz, represent the flashes of lightning overhead, the golden apples, nuts and balls symbolize the sun, the moon and the stars, while the little animals hung in the branches betoken sacrifices made in gratitude to the sun god."
Etymology
From Middle English bitoknen, bitacnen, from Old English betācnian (“to betoken, signify, designate”), from Proto-West Germanic *bitaiknijan. Equivalent to be- + token. Cognate with Dutch betekenen (“to mean, signify”), German bezeichnen (“to call, designate”), Swedish beteckna (“to represent, designate, indicate”) and Danish betegne (“to represent, designate, indicate”).
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Data sourced from Wiktionary, WordNet, CMU, and other open linguistic databases. Updated March 2026.