bedizen

Valid in Scrabble

Scrabble points
19
Words With Friends
21
Letters
7
Pronunciation
/bɪˈdaɪz(ə)n/
See all 3 pronunciations
/bɪˈdaɪz(ə)n/ · /bɪˈdaɪzən/ · /-ˈdɪ-/

Definition of bedizen

2 senses · 1 part of speech · etymology included

verb

  1. (also, figuratively, literary, transitive)To dress or ornament (someone or something), especially in a gaudy, showy, or tasteless manner.
    “Self is a great Fop and a great Slattern: Soul has given her very good Cloaths, fine Ornaments, plain and neat, but Self either leaves them, like a Slut, in every Corner of the Houſe; or vvhen ſhe puts them on, ſhe does bedizen them vvith Lace and Embroidery, Fringes and Ruffles, Patches, and Povvder, that you can hardly ſee enough of the Garment to diſtinguiſh the excellent Stuff vvhich it is made of: […]”
    “Thus the Violet that gayly bedizens the Mead / A fragrance more ſvveet does ſupply, / Tho' oft' rudely bruſh'd by the Traveller's tread, / Than if rear'd in the garden hard bye.”
    “[T]he whole [group] had been bedizzened out, into a burlesque imitation of an antique masque.”
    “You have bedizened me in green, a colour he detests. Lo you! let me have a blue robe, and—search for the ruby carcanet, which was part of the King of Cyprus's ransom—it is either in the steel-casket, or somewhere else.”
    “They would rather see the rising generation exhibit a partiality for the tawdry tinsel in which a false philosophy bedisens its votaries, than find them intent only on the splendours of an unseen, and, to their low and sceptical minds, unreal state of existence.”
See all 2 definitions

verb

  1. (also, figuratively, literary, transitive)To dress or ornament (someone or something), especially in a gaudy, showy, or tasteless manner.
    “Self is a great Fop and a great Slattern: Soul has given her very good Cloaths, fine Ornaments, plain and neat, but Self either leaves them, like a Slut, in every Corner of the Houſe; or vvhen ſhe puts them on, ſhe does bedizen them vvith Lace and Embroidery, Fringes and Ruffles, Patches, and Povvder, that you can hardly ſee enough of the Garment to diſtinguiſh the excellent Stuff vvhich it is made of: […]”
    “Thus the Violet that gayly bedizens the Mead / A fragrance more ſvveet does ſupply, / Tho' oft' rudely bruſh'd by the Traveller's tread, / Than if rear'd in the garden hard bye.”
    “[T]he whole [group] had been bedizzened out, into a burlesque imitation of an antique masque.”
    “You have bedizened me in green, a colour he detests. Lo you! let me have a blue robe, and—search for the ruby carcanet, which was part of the King of Cyprus's ransom—it is either in the steel-casket, or somewhere else.”
    “They would rather see the rising generation exhibit a partiality for the tawdry tinsel in which a false philosophy bedisens its votaries, than find them intent only on the splendours of an unseen, and, to their low and sceptical minds, unreal state of existence.”
  2. (Northern-England, literary, transitive)To make (someone or something) dirty; to bedaub, to besmear, to dirty.
    “Slinger brast aght o'th' door like a roarin lion,—but he wor sooin collard, an' he wor soa bedisend with soft cake an' puttaty pillins at his own mother could'nt ha owned him.”

Definitions from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA.

Etymology

PIE word *h₁epi From be- (intensifying prefix) + dizen (“to attire, dress, especially showily”). Dizen is derived from dialectal dize (“to put (tow) on a distaff”), probably from Middle English *disen, from Old English *disan, *disian, from *dise, *disen (“bunch of flax on a distaff”), from Proto-Germanic *disanō (“distaff”); further etymology unknown.

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