bestream

English

Etymology

From be- +‎ stream. Cognate with German beströmen (“to pervade”).

Verb

bestream (third-person singular simple present bestreams, present participle bestreaming, simple past and past participle bestreamed)

1. (intransitive) To stream around, about, or all over; flood.
   • 1858, Henry Green, A Manchester book:

     His eyes bestreamed with tears, his large heart quaking [...]

2. (transitive) To flow in a stream; stream down.
   • 1925, Milivoy Stoyan Stanoyevich, Slavonic nations of yesterday and today:

     Merchant plays you with a smile beguiling, Wife beguiles you with her tears bestreaming, [...]

   • 2010, Sally Odgers, Shadowdancers:

     Tears bestreamed her face, and the Elder of Midpoint was somewhat bemused at this reception.

3. (transitive) To drench; mark by streams of.
   • 1816, George Pinckard, Notes on the West Indies:

     [...] and, from using only moderate exercise, I am so bestreamed with perspiration as to make it necessary to change my clothes four or five times in the course of the day: [...]

   • 1824, Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, Thomas Carlyle, Wilhelm Meister's Apprenticeship: A Novel:

     [...] it is easy to conceive her terror when she saw my friend in this predicament, lying in my arms, and both of us bestreamed with blood.

   • 1868, Every Saturday: a journal of choice reading:

     The collars of his serge jacket were pulled up high above his ears, making a fantastic setting for his grimy, tear-bestreamed countenance, [...]

   • 1885, Edward Bouverie Pusey, The Minor prophets:

     Will ye dwell in houses artificially adorned, not so milch for use as for delight, and shall My dwelling-place, wherein was the Holy of holies, and the Cherubim, and the table of shew-brend, be bestreamed with rains, [...]

   • 2004, Marcus Wood, The poetry of slavery:

     I do remember a poor Negro, Under the torrid sun by parching thirst Oppress'd; with sweat-bestreamed brow he slaved, Planting of sugar-canes; [...]

4. (transitive, by extension) To cover or be covered in; adorn; wear.
   • 1899, Homer, Alexander Pope, Philip Gentner, The Iliad of Homer:

     Gear, such as Orchomenus bestreams or Thebae of Egypt, Where lies in palace-hall most wealth, whose gates are an hundred, And steeds, and chariots, and fivescore troops are in each one [...]

   • 1995, C. W. E. Bigsby, Hester:

     They were about the business of repair so that in a way fire did remain an enemy of water, as they caulked the longboat and disappeared below deck, carrying leather-bestreamed poles of steaming pitch.

Anagrams

• beamster, beer mats, beermats, bemaster, merbeast, termbase