bedizen

Hello, you have come here looking for the meaning of the word bedizen. In DICTIOUS you will not only get to know all the dictionary meanings for the word bedizen, but we will also tell you about its etymology, its characteristics and you will know how to say bedizen in singular and plural. Everything you need to know about the word bedizen you have here. The definition of the word bedizen will help you to be more precise and correct when speaking or writing your texts. Knowing the definition ofbedizen, as well as those of other words, enriches your vocabulary and provides you with more and better linguistic resources.

English

Alternative forms

Etymology

From be- +‎ dizen.

Pronunciation

Verb

bedizen (third-person singular simple present bedizens, present participle bedizening, simple past and past participle bedizened)

  1. (transitive) To ornament something in showy, tasteless, or gaudy finery.
    Synonym: embellish
    • 1735, Alexander Pope, “A LETTER of ADVICE to a Young LADY, who had married above herself, grew vain, and despis’d her Husband”, in Mr. Pope’s Literary Correspondence, volume 2, London: E. Curll, pages 69–70:
      Self is a great Fop and a great Slattern: Soul has given her very good Cloaths, fine Ornaments, plain and neat, but Self either leaves them, like a Slut, in every Corner of the House; or when she puts them on, she does bedizen them with Lace and Embroidery, Fringes and Ruffles, Patches, and Powder, that you can hardly see enough of the Garment to distinguish the excellent Stuff which it is made of []
    • 1848, William Makepeace Thackeray, chapter 19, in The Book of Snobs, London: Punch, page 71:
      Suppose you get in cheap made dishes from the pastrycook’s, and hire a couple of green-grocers, or carpet-beaters, to figure as footmen, dismissing honest MOLLY, who waits on common days, and bedizening your table (ordinarily ornamented with willow-pattern crockery) with twopenny-halfpenny Birmingham plate.
    • 1918, H. L. Mencken, Damn! A Book of Calumny, page 78:
      Thus a Frenchman, viewing the undraped statues which bedizen his native galleries of art, either enjoys them in a purely aesthetic fashion—which is seldom possible save when he is in liquor—or confesses frankly that he doesn't like them at all; whereas the visiting Americano is so powerfully shocked and fascinated by them that one finds him, the same evening, in places where no respectable man ought to go.
    • 1943, Marjorie Faith Barnard, “Arrow of Mistletoe”, in The Persimmon Tree and Other Stories, Sydney: Clarendon, page 12:
      She wore only the subtlest touch of make up and round her delicate throat only a single string of pearls. Among the hundred bedizened women she was a rarity.
    • 1969, Maya Angelou, chapter 31, in I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings, New York: Bantam, published 1971, page 209:
      Dolores flitted around the car, screaming like a banshee, her face bedizened with fury.
  2. (transitive, UK dialectal, Northern England) To dirty; cover with dirt.

Derived terms

Translations