befilm

present singular third person befilms · participle present befilming · participle past befilmed · past befilmed

1. archaicpoeticrareTo cover with a film.

   Every honest effort to be and do right develops sight. Every determination to be and do wrong, befilms it. The voice of the upper Universe cries "be clean."

   1904 February, “Divine Immanence”, in Benjamin Orange Flower, editor, The Arena, volume 31, number 2

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   As the rod furnishes the only royal road to learning, so the world's neglect offers the man who has not patience and courage for the beaten track, a short-cut to common sense; happy if egotism have not so befilmed his mental sight, that the iron finger points in vain the upward path!

   1852, Caroline Matilda Kirkland, The Evening Book: Or, Fireside Talk on Morals and Manners, with Sketches of Western Life, →OCLC

   Her rose sways, lifts from where she dropped it, / Enlarges, floats as though ripples propped it; / While visibly as on chill air breathing / Fragrance transforms to a rosy mist; / Which halo-sphere befilms with wreathing / Trails of pink and amethyst.

   1914, Thomas Sturge Moore, The Sea Is Kind