besing

B3E1S1I1N1G2

verb

To sing of or sing about; celebrate in song or poetry; sing the praises of; praise; laud.

Scrabble 9

Meanings

verbbesing (third-person singular simple present besings, present participle besinging, simple past besang, past participle besung)

present singular third person besings · participle present besinging · past besang · participle past besung

  1. transitiveTo sing of or sing about; celebrate in song or poetry; sing the praises of; praise; laud.

    Let him dwindle into a modish balladmonger; let him worship and besing the idols of the time, and the time will not fail to reward him.

    1854, Thomas Carlyle, Burns
    3 more examples

    I have read Stories, (I fear, too true ones;) how young Lords, like you, Have thus besung mean Windows, rhymed their Sufferings Ev'n to th' Abuse of Things Divine, set up Plain Girls, like me, the Idols of their Worship, Then left them […]

    1728, William Shakespeare, Mr. Theobald (Lewis), John Fletcher, Double falshood

    And in the meanwhile, how can a poet better employ himself (provided he does not confine his subject-matter to the Greeks, who have already besung themselves far better than we can sing them, and to the Romans, who were besung by our Elizabethan poets better than they ever will be sung again), [...]

    1972, Isobel Armstrong, Victorian scrutinies

    […] Blanckenburg pointed out that one of the differences between the epic and the novel was that the classic epic was a "heroic poem" besinging the "public acts and events", the "actions of the citizen"; […]

    2001, Jørgen Bruhn, Jan Lundquist, The novelness of Bakhtin: perspectives and possibilities
  2. transitiveTo sing to.

Origin

  1. Proto-West Germanic*bisingwan“to sing about”
  2. Old Englishbesingan“to sing of, bewail, sing charms, enchant”
  3. Middle Englishbesingen
  4. Englishbesing

From Middle English besingen, from Old English besingan (“to sing of, bewail, sing charms, enchant”), from Proto-West Germanic *bisingwan (“to sing about”), equivalent to be- (“of, about”) + sing. Cognate with Saterland Frisian besjunge (“to sing about”), West Frisian besjonge (“to sing about, praise”), Dutch bezingen (“to sing of, chant”), German besingen (“to sing of, sing the praises of”), Danish and Norwegian Bokmål besynge (“to sing of”), Swedish besjunga (“to sing of”).

Full word history & related roots →

Translations

Dutch bezingen
  • bezingensing of or sing about; celebrate in song or poetry; sing the praises of
Hungarian megénekel
  • megénekelsing of or sing about; celebrate in song or poetry; sing the praises of

Rhymes & wordplay

Anagrams

Cite this entry
APA

besing. (n.d.). In WatkinsX Dictionary. Retrieved November 2, 2026, from https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/besing

MLA

“besing.” WatkinsX Dictionary, https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/besing. Accessed November 2, 2026.

Chicago

WatkinsX Dictionary, s.v. “besing,” accessed November 2, 2026, https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/besing.

Source: besing on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.