beseech

Etymology

It is inherited from Middle English bisechen,^[2] and the Middle English Dictionary, Etymonline and the American Heritage Dictionary take it inherited from Old English besēcan.^[2][3][4] The OED, Barnhart and Merriam-Webster's Unabridged instead take the compound as made after the Old English period, from Middle English bi- + sechen (“to seek”),^[5][6][7] where the prefix may mean "about" or "thoroughly" according to Barnhart, and is an intensifier according to the Oxford Dictionary of English.^[6][8] The second part is sēcan, the source of seek,^[6][8] from Proto-Germanic *sōkjan,^[9][10] from Proto-Indo-European *sāg-.^[9][10] The final sound is the regular southern outcome of the Old English verb, and although the northern form displaced the southern one in the simple verb, the compound kept the southern one in the standard language;^[5][11][10] the northern type biseken was current from the 12th to the 17th century.^[9][2] Cognates are Old Frisian bisēka, Dutch bezoeken, Old High German bisuochan and German besuchen (“to seek out, visit”).^[6][3]

Earliest recorded meaning

To beg earnestly for a thing, and to implore a person: both about 1175, in the Lambeth Homilies.^[5] Barnhart has "probably before 1200", in the Ancrene Riwle and Layamon's Chronicle of Britain, and Etymonline about 1200.^[6][3]

Semantic evolution

As Weekley notes, the direct object was at first the thing sought,^[12] which fits the literal "to seek after, try to get" that the OED records from about 1200 to 1400 and the Shorter Oxford only in Middle English.^[5][11] The object soon came to be the person begged: the OED thinks the person in beseech someone something was perhaps originally a dative.^[5] Chaucer used the verb 89 times and Gower 75, both for begging and praying,^[13] as in Chaucer's "But we biseken mercy and socour".^[12] Constructions with of a person or of a thing died out in the 16th and early 17th centuries,^[5] and the intransitive use, recorded from about 1225, is now archaic.^[5] Johnson (1755) still distinguished the verb used of a person, to entreat or implore, from the verb used of a thing, to beg.^[14] Shakespeare's Troilus and Cressida has a noun: "Achievement is command; ungain'd, beseech".^[11]

Timeline

• c. 1175 – to beg earnestly for a thing; to implore a person.^[5]
• c. 1200 – to seek after, try to get (obsolete by 1400).^[5]
• c. 1225 – intransitive, to make an earnest request (now archaic).^[5]
• c. 1275 – with a clause or infinitive as object.^[5]
• c. 1540 – with a person and an infinitive, to beg someone to do a thing.^[5]
• 1609 – noun, entreaty, in Shakespeare (obsolete by 1639).^[5][7]

Meanings

Verb

1. To ask someone earnestly to do something; to implore or entreat: The villagers besought the governor to spare the bridge.^[15][7][5]
2. To ask earnestly for a thing; to beg: He beseeched their forgiveness.^[7][5]
3. (archaic) To make an earnest request; to supplicate.^[7][5]
4. (obsolete, c. 1200–1400) To seek after or try to get.^[5][11]

Noun

1. (obsolete, 1609–39) An entreaty.^[5][7][11]

Word family

• beseecher
• beseechingly
• beseechingness

Related words

• seek
• presage
• sagacious

Usage notes

The past tense and participle are besought or beseeched.^[7][15] Etymonline cites the OED as saying that beseeched is "now regarded as incorrect",^[3] but Collins and Merriam-Webster's Unabridged accept it.^[15][7]

References

1. ^ Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c Kurath, Hans; Kuhn, Sherman M.; Lewis, Robert E., eds. (1952–2001), Middle English Dictionary, Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press; online edition ed. Frances McSparran et al. (2000–2018)
3. ^ a b c d Harper, Douglas. Online Etymology Dictionary, https://www.etymonline.com
4. ^ The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language (online 2024), 5th ed., Boston: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt
5. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o p q r Oxford English Dictionary Online (accessed March 2026), Oxford: Oxford University Press
6. ^ a b c d e Barnhart, Robert K. (1988), The Barnhart Dictionary of Etymology
7. ^ a b c d e f g h Merriam-Webster Unabridged Dictionary (2024), online ed., Springfield, Mass.: Merriam-Webster
8. ^ a b Stevenson, Angus, ed. (2010), Oxford Dictionary of English, 3rd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press
9. ^ a b c Hoad, T. F., ed. (1986), The Concise Oxford Dictionary of English Etymology, Oxford: Clarendon Press
10. ^ a b c Ayto, John (2005), Word Origins: The Secret Histories of English Words from A to Z, 2nd ed., London: A & C Black
11. ^ a b c d e Shorter Oxford English Dictionary on Historical Principles (2002), 5th ed., ed. William R. Trumble and Angus Stevenson, Oxford: Oxford University Press
12. ^ a b Weekley, Ernest (1921), An Etymological Dictionary of Modern English, London: John Murray
13. ^ Benson, Larry D., Glossarial Concordance to Middle English (Chaucer, Gower), Johns Hopkins University, github.com/jhu-digital-manuscripts/gcme
14. ^ Johnson, Samuel (1755), A Dictionary of the English Language, London; 4th ed. 1773; Johnson's Dictionary Online, ed. Beth Rapp Young et al.
15. ^ a b c Collins English Dictionary (2023), Glasgow: HarperCollins