16. The effect of the prefix may be felt by ap plying it to verbs, which do not customarily receive it. To reik, to bereik. To scribble, to bescribble. To scatter, to bescatter, used by Spenser. To speir (Scotch), to enquire, Anglosaxon, spyrian, vestigare, scrutari. To bespeir, to find out a person or thing by speiring: Anglosaxon bespyr-ian ex vestigiorum notis deprehendere. To sink, to besink; Anglosaxon besincan, absorbere. To dip, to bedip. The former may be intransitive, the latter cannot, or only as a reflected verb, to bedip one's self. Anglosaxon bedypan, mergere, intingere. To swink, to beswink, Anglosaxon beswinc-an, laborem alicui rei impendere. To step, to bestep, Anglosaxon bestaepan, calcare. To wind, to bewind, as to bewind a ball with thread, Anglosaxon bewindan, Moso-Gothic biwandan, involvere. 17. TO WAVE, TO BEWAVE, Scotch, "to cause "to wander or waver."-Jamieson. Behaldand the large sie, Gyf ony schip tharon, micht be persavit, Quhilk late before the windis had BEWAVIT. G. Douglas's Virgil, p. 18. 1. 41. 18. There are a good many verbs formed from nouns with BE, all having an active or transitive import, TO BEDEW, BEMIRE, BESPICE, BESOT, &c. 19. BELATED is derived from the Anglosaxon latian, tardare, cunctari. 20. BE is principally useful to be prefixed to verbs, which without it are most frequently used in a neuter or intransitive sense. Prefixed to verbs which were transitive before, it seems sometimes to make them imply much or excess, -BELOVED, TO BEDECK, TO BEGRUDGE, TO BETOSS, TO BETHUMP, TO BESTAIN, то BESMEAR. So in German bekiissen, to load with kisses, TO BEKISS. But who is this, what thing of sea or land, That so BEDECK'D, ornate and gay, Comes this way sailing Like a stately ship. Milton. 21. In one instance BE seems equivalent to περι, circum: TO BESET, i. e. to set guards, soldiers, or others about a person or place. And it may be thought to have the same import in besiege and beleager. 22. Mr. Lye observes, that the Anglosaxon prefix GE had sometimes the effect of cum in the Latin: so conspuere, to bespue, or bespit, conspergere to besprinkle. 23. But though BE generally imparts a transitive character to verbs, there are exceptions-TO BELIEVE (of which afterwards), TO BECOME, TO BEGIN, TO BEHEAD TO BETRAY, TO BEHOLD, The effect of the prefix is not, I TO BELONG. think, perceptible in these. Nor in TO BREATHE, which seems clearly to be a contraction of be-oreth-ian, from the Anglosaxon oreth-ian, of the same import. To the nouns which H. Tooke has enumerated as being only third persons of the indicative of verbs, "GIRTH what girdeth, WARMTH what warmeth, &c." he might have added BREEZE, i. e. breathes, quod spirat,—at least he has not given any more plausible instance of this mode of derivation; and he might have noted, that the Italian BREZZA, and French BRISE, are undoubtedly from the same root. TO BELIEVE, is from the Anglosaxon leaf-an, lef-an, or lyf-an, credere, permittere, Lye. We often say we admit, grant or allow, a thing, when it would be the same to say we believe it. The substantive leave is from the same root. LIEVE (qu. beleave) is explained by Johnson, "to "credit upon the authority of another, or from 66 66 some other reason than our personal know'ledge." Ten thousand things there are which we BELIEVE merely upon the authority or credit of those, who have spoken or written of them. Watts' Logic. - TO ALLOW (and the French allouer), is probably * Contrary to analogy, BEHEAD is used only in a privative sense. a corruption of the same Anglosaxon verb with the prefix A, alief-an, concedere, permittere. And by the same prefix, we find the connexion of the English verbs TO SEEK, and TO ASK, the Anglosaxon sec-an, with the prefix is asec-an, contracted as'c-an. 24. TO BEQUEATH, Anglosaxon becwaeth-an, legare, is from cwaeth-an, dicere, qu. to be-say or declare property to any one. Before writing came to be so common an acquirement, a person's testament or will was naturally enough called, what it must often have been, his quithe (Anglosaxon), or declaration how he wished his property bestowed after his death. 66 25. TO BESTOw, from to stow or place, Anglosaxon, stow, locus, unde verbale nostrum, to stow, vel bestow," i. e. "collocare, sive in loco ponere."-Lye. 66 66 26. TO DEFILE is a corruption of to befile, Anglosaxon befyl-an, afyl-an, gefyl-an, contaminare, polluere, Scotch to file. 27. From the Anglosaxon spraeng-an, spreng-an, spargere, aspergere, inspergere, we have the diminutive TO SPRINKLE, and BESPRINKLE, and the past participle BESPRENT. This evening late, by then the Had ta'en their supper on the chewing flocks savoury herb Of knot-grass dew BESPRENT, and were in fold, I sat me down to watch upon a bank With ivy canopied, &c. Milton's Comus. |