beray

present singular third person berays · participle present beraying · participle past berayed · past berayed

1. To make foul; befoul; soil.

   2 more examples

   [U]pon a vaine and fooliſh ſuperſtition, enjoining men to begrime and beray themſelves with durt, to lie and vvallovv in the mire, to obſerve Sabbaths and ceaſe from vvorke, to lie proſtrate and groveling upon the earth with the face dovvnevvard, to ſit upon the ground in open place, and to make many ſtrange and extravagant adorations.

   1603, Plutarch, “Of Superstition”, in Philemon Holland, transl., The Philosophie, Commonlie Called, The Morals […], London: […] Arnold Hatfield, →OCLC, page 261

   1652, Heinrich Cornelius Agrippa, John French (as J. F.) (translator), Three Books of Occult Philosophy, Also it is said, that if a woman take a needle, and beray it with dung, and then wrap it up in earth, in which the carkass [carcass] of a man was buryed [buried], and shall carry it about her in a cloth which was used at the funerall, that no man shall be able to ly [have sex] with her as long as she hath it about her.

   Synonyms: bedirty, soil, sully, assoil, beclart, bedaub, bedirty, imbrue (especially with blood)