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#171179 11/06/2007 4:17 PM
Joined: Nov 2007
Posts: 1
stranger
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I'm reading a book by Harry Emerson Fosdick, and he has used the word ill-bestead two times in the first chapter. A Google search turned up nothing..except various works where the word is used. (Shakespeare, eg.) Can you give me a definition. (As an English major,I should know this word; it's giving me a hard time!) Thanks.

LadyM #171180 11/06/2007 4:24 PM
Joined: Apr 2000
Posts: 10,542
Carpal Tunnel
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to be put in peril, to be beset

bestead, by itself, is an archaic term for "situated"

-joe (self-bestead) friday

LadyM #171199 11/07/2007 4:44 PM
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Hi, LadyM. First, thank you for trying to look it up yourself before asking others to do your work for you! :-)

In the future, you might try Onelook. As it happened, it didn't work for ill-bestead or illbestead; but I tried taking off the prefix, and it did give def.'s for bestead.


Moderated by  Jackie 

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