Emily Dickinson Lexicon

BE-CURL', v.t.

To curl. [Not used.]

BED, n. [Sax. bed; D. bed; G. bett or beet; Goth. badi. The sense is a lay or spread, from laying or setting.]

1. A place or an article of furniture to sleep and take rest on; in modern times, and among civilized men, a sack or tick filled with feathers or wool; but a bed may be made of straw or any other materials. The word bed includes often the bedstead.
2. Lodging; a convenient place for sleep.
3. Marriage; matrimonial connection. George, the eldest son of his second bed. – Clarendon.
4. A plat or level piece of ground in a garden, usually a little raised above the adjoining ground. – Bacon.
5. The channel of a river, or that part in which the water usually flows. – Milton.
6. Any hollow place, especially in the arts; a hollow place in which any thing rests; as, the bed of a mortar.
7. A layer; a stratum; an extended mass of any thing, whether upon the earth or within it; as, a bed of sulphur; a bed of sand or clay.
8. Pain, torment. Rev. ii The grave. Is. lvii. The lawful use of wedlock. – Heb. xiii. The bed of the carriage of a gun, is a thick plank which lies under the piece, being, as it were the body of the carriage. The bed of a mortar is a solid piece of oak, hollow in the middle, to receive the breech and half the trunnions. In masonry, bed is a range of stones, and the joint of the bed is the mortar between the two stones placed over each other. – Encyc. Bed of justice, in France, was a throne on which the king was seated when he went to parliament. Hence the phrase, to hold a bed of justice. To make a bed, is to put it in order after it has been used. To bring to bed, to deliver of a child, is rarely used. But in the passive form, to be brought to bed, that is, to be delivered of a child, is common. It is often followed by of; as, to be brought to bed of a son. To put to bed, in midwifery, is to deliver of a child. Dining bed, or discubitory bed, among the ancients, a bed on which persons lay at meals. It was four or five feet high, and would hold three or four persons. Three of these beds were ranged by a square table, one side of the table being left open, and accessible to the waiters. Hence the Latin name for the table and the room, triclinium, or three beds. – Encyc. From board and bed. In law, a separation of man and wife, without dissolving the bands of matrimony, is called a separation from board and bed, a mensa et toro. In this case the wife has a suitable maintenance allotted to her out of the husband's estate, called alimony. – Blackstone.

BED, v.i.

To cohabit; to use the same bed. If he be married and bed with his wife. – Wiseman.

BED, v.t.

1. To place in a bed. – Bacon.
2. To go to bed with. [Unusual.] – Shak.
3. To make partaker of the bed. – Bacon.
4. To plant and inclose or cover; to set or lay and inclose; as, to bed the roots of a plant in soft mold.
5. To lay in any hollow place, surrounded or inclosed; as, to bed a stone.
6. To lay in a place of rest or security, covered, surrounded or inclosed; as, a fish bedded in sand, or under a bank.
7. To lay in a stratum; to stratify; to lay in order, or flat; as, bedded clay, bedded hairs. – Shak.

BE-DAB'BLE, v.t. [be and dabble.]

To wet; to sprinkle. Bedabbled with the dew. – Shak.

BE-DAB'BLED, pp.

Wet; sprinkled.

BE-DAB'BLING, ppr.

Wetting; sprinkling.

BE-DAFF', v.t.

To make a fool of. [Not in use.] – Chaucer.

BED'A-GAT, n.

The name of the sacred books of the Boodhists in Burmah. – Malcom.

BE-DAG'GLE, v.t. [be and daggle.]

To soil, as clothes, by drawing the ends in the mud, or spattering them with dirty water.

BE-DAG'GLED, pp.

Soiled by reaching the mud in walking; bespattering.

BE-DARE', v.t. [be and dare.]

To dare; to defy. [Not used.] – Peele.

BE-DARK', v.t. [be and dark.]

To darken. [Not used.] – Gower.

BE-DARK'EN-ED, pp.

Darkened; obscured.

BE-DASH', v.t. [be and dash.]

To wet, by throwing water, or other liquor upon; to bespatter, with water or mud.

BE-DASH'ED, pp.

Bespattered with water or other liquid.

BE-DASH'ING, ppr.

Bespattering; dashing water upon, or other liquid.

BE-DAUB', v.t. [be and daub.]

To daub over; to besmear with viscous, slimy matter; to soil with any thing thick and dirty. – Shak.

BE-DAUB'ED, pp.

Daubed over; besmeared.

BE-DAUB'ING, ppr.

Daubing over; besmearing.

BE-DAZ'ZLE, v.t. [be and dazzle.]

To confound the sight by too strong a light; to make dim by luster. – Shak.

BE-DAZ'ZLED, pp.

Having the sight confounded by too strong a light.

BE-DAZ'ZLING, ppr.

Confounding or making dim by a too brilliant luster.

BE-DAZ'ZLING-LY, adv.

So as to bedazzle.

BED'CHAM-BER, n. [bed and chamber.]

An apartment or chamber intended or appropriated for a bed, or for sleep and repose.