bestow

Etymology

It is formed from English be- + stow,^[2][3][4][5] Middle English bistouen, also bestowen.^[2][6][5] Merriam-Webster Unabridged and the Oxford Dictionary of English take the second part directly from the noun, from Old English stōw (“a place”),^[7][8][9] and the prefix is an intensifier according to the Oxford Dictionary of English.^[8] Hoad, by contrast, treats the verb stow as a shortening of bestow.^[10] Johnson derived the word from Dutch besteden.^[11]

Earliest recorded meaning

To apply or devote something to a purpose: about 1315, in William of Shoreham.^[2] Merriam-Webster Unabridged also has the 14th century for this sense,^[7] and Dictionary.com dates the word to 1275–1325.^[12] Etymonline and Barnhart first find it in the early and later 14th century as giving alms.^[13][5]

Semantic evolution

Weekley explains the word as meaning to put in a place, as in well bestowed.^[14] It was used of placing someone or something in a position from about 1374, in Chaucer's Troilus and Criseyde,^[2] of storing goods from 1393, in Gower,^[2] and of settling a person in marriage from about 1405, again in Chaucer, down to 1714.^[2] Money could be bestowed, that is laid out or spent, from 1377 to 1631,^[2] and a person lodged or put up from 1577.^[2] The sense of giving, which is the main one today, is dated by the OED only from 1535, with on or upon, in the Coverdale Bible's 2 Chronicles,^[2] and by the Shorter Oxford to the mid-16th century,^[3] although Etymonline and Barnhart find the giving of alms in the 14th century.^[13][5] Johnson (1755) placed "to give; to confer upon" first,^[11] and Collins now labels the senses of applying and storing as archaic.^[15] In the dialects of Lincolnshire, Norfolk, Suffolk and Essex it meant to put away carefully or to bury, and in East Anglia to put a woman to bed in childbirth,^[16] a sense the OED marks as rare and dates to about 1320.^[2]

Timeline

• c. 1315 – to apply or devote to a purpose.^[2]
• c. 1320 – to bring a woman to bed in childbirth (obsolete and rare).^[2]
• c. 1374 – to place or locate.^[2]
• 1377 – to spend money (obsolete by 1631).^[2]
• 1393 – to store, to stow away.^[2]
• c. 1405 – to give in marriage (obsolete by 1714).^[2]
• 1535 – to confer on or upon a person, to give.^[2] Etymonline dates "give, confer" to the early 14th century.^[13]
• 1577 – to lodge, to house.^[2]
• 1589 – noun, stowage (recorded only here).^[2]

Meanings

Verb

1. To give or confer something, usually with on or upon: The university bestowed an honorary degree on the poet.^[15][7][2]
2. To apply or devote something, such as time or effort, to a use: an afternoon well bestowed on the garden.^[15][7][2]
3. (archaic) To place or put somewhere.^[2][7][3]
4. (archaic) To store; to stow away.^[2][15][7]
5. (archaic) To lodge or house.^[2][15][12]
6. (obsolete, c. 1405–1714) To settle or give in marriage.^[2][3][11]
7. (obsolete, 1377–1631) To spend money.^[2][7][3]

Word family

• bestowable
• bestowal
• bestower
• unbestowed
• misbestow

Related words

• stow
• stowage
• stowaway
• stow away
• unstow

References

1. ^ a b Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o p q r s t u v w x y z Oxford English Dictionary Online (accessed March 2026), Oxford: Oxford University Press
3. ^ 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
4. ^ The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language (online 2024), 5th ed., Boston: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt
5. ^ a b c d Barnhart, Robert K. (1988), The Barnhart Dictionary of Etymology
6. ^ 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)
7. ^ a b c d e f g 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. ^ Bosworth, Joseph; Toller, T. Northcote (1898), An Anglo-Saxon Dictionary, Oxford: Clarendon Press; Toller, T. Northcote (1921), Supplement
10. ^ Hoad, T. F., ed. (1986), The Concise Oxford Dictionary of English Etymology, Oxford: Clarendon Press
11. ^ a b c Johnson, Samuel (1755), A Dictionary of the English Language, London; 4th ed. 1773; Johnson's Dictionary Online, ed. Beth Rapp Young et al.
12. ^ a b Dictionary.com Unabridged (2016), based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, New York: Random House
13. ^ a b c Harper, Douglas. Online Etymology Dictionary, https://www.etymonline.com
14. ^ Weekley, Ernest (1921), An Etymological Dictionary of Modern English, London: John Murray
15. ^ a b c d e Collins English Dictionary (2023), Glasgow: HarperCollins
16. ^ Wright, Joseph, ed. (1898–1905), The English Dialect Dictionary, 6 vols., Oxford: Henry Frowde; via EDD Online 4.0, University of Innsbruck (CC BY 4.0)