bestir

present singular third person bestirs · participle present bestirring · participle past bestirred · past bestirred

1. transitiveTo put into brisk or vigorous action; to move with life and vigor.

   Notwithstanding all the various temptations to bad temper, pride, greediness, adultery and so forth, the enemy really has but one temptation, and that is, to bestir the saints.

   1986, Watchman Nee, The Life that Wins, page 75

2. reflexiveTo make active; to rouse oneself.

   The old man and his wife bestirred themselves to make every thing ready for the unexpected guests, […]

   1872, James De Mille, The Cryptogram, published 2009

   5 more examples

   Like the knocking at the door in Macbeth, or the cry of the watchman in the Tour de Nesle, they show that the horrible cæsura is over and the nightmares have fled away, because the day is breaking and the ordinary life of men is beginning to bestir itself among the streets.

   c. 1870, Robert Louis Stevenson, Nuits Blanches

   When he had bestirred himself, […] it was clear daylight, though the sun had not tipped the yellow wall in the east.

   1912 January, Zane Grey, chapter 9, in Riders of the Purple Sage […], New York, N.Y.; London: Harper & Brothers Publishers, →OCLC, page 108

   And so I hope we can bestir ourselves not to “Rally Around Caesar,” as the recent Economist recommends. I hope we will bestir ourselves to rally around an emergency/militant reconstruction of a secular democracy consecrated to the equality of each and every living one of us.

   2009, June Jordan, Some of Us Did Not Die

   Why is it so important to bestir oneself? Bestirring oneself means that one feels truly fortunate and excited to stand before one's Creator and that one longs for this moment.

   2010, Moshe Samsonowitz, Beyond What the Eye Perceives, page 42

   Could these well-paid civil servants bestir themselves not only to rescue the American republic from danger but to strengthen its democratic governance, refresh its ideals, and reclaim its sadly soiled national honor?

   2017 July 9, Garrett Epps, “The Generational Significance of the Travel Ban Cases”, in The Atlantic, →ISSN