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.

to be put in peril, to be beset

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

-joe (self-bestead) friday

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.