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Beseem   Listen
verb
Beseem  v. t.  (past & past part. beseemed; pres. part. beseeming)  Literally: To appear or seem (well, ill, best, etc.) for (one) to do or to have. Hence: To be fit, suitable, or proper for, or worthy of; to become; to befit. "A duty well beseeming the preachers." "What form of speech or behavior beseemeth us, in our prayers to God?"






Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48








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"Beseem" Quotes from Famous Books



... ones. They will come no more; youth will come no more. They were so full to the brim with the wine of life; there have been no others like them. It chokes me up to think of them. Would you like me to come out there and cry? It would not beseem my ...
— Mark Twain, A Biography, 1835-1910, Complete - The Personal And Literary Life Of Samuel Langhorne Clemens • Albert Bigelow Paine

... boy hath largely grown; Weave him fine raiment, fitting to be shown; Fair robes beseem the pilgrim, as the priest Goes he not with us to ...
— The Professor at the Breakfast Table • Oliver Wendell Holmes (Sr.)

... whom replied King Arthur, faint and pale: 'Thou hast betray'd thy nature and thy name, Not rendering true answer, as beseem'd Thy fealty, nor like a noble knight: 75 For surer sign had follow'd, either hand, Or voice, or else a motion of the mere. This is a shameful thing for men to lie. Yet now, I charge thee, quickly go again As thou art lief and dear, and do the thing 80 I bad ...
— Selections from Wordsworth and Tennyson • William Wordsworth and Alfred Lord Tennyson

... Boccaccio! Of thee we now should ask forgiving boon; And of thy spicy myrtles as they blow, And of thy roses amorous of the moon, And of thy lilies, that do paler grow Now they can no more hear thy ghittern's tune, 150 For venturing syllables that ill beseem The quiet glooms ...
— Keats: Poems Published in 1820 • John Keats

... his office as Controller of the Navy, and never afterward entered the House of Commons. Such a person, it appears to me, leads us aptly and becomingly to that steadfast patriot on whose writings you promised me your opinion; not incidentally, as before, but turning page after page. It would ill beseem us to treat Milton with generalities. Radishes and salt are the picnic quota of slim spruce reviewers: let us hope to find somewhat more solid and of better taste. Desirous to be a listener and a learner when you discourse on his poetry, ...
— Imaginary Conversations and Poems - A Selection • Walter Savage Landor

... Speaker,[FN295] by Him * who made[FN296] Hashimite orphan select and supreme! Ibrahim am I not, but I deem this one * The Caliph who sits by Baghdadian stream; Of his grace the heir of all eloquent arts * And no partner hath he in all gifts that beseem." ...
— Supplemental Nights, Volume 5 • Richard F. Burton

... a step nearer to the corp; an' then his heart fair whammled in his inside. For—by what cantrip it wad ill beseem a man to judge—she was hingin' frae a single nail an' by a single ...
— Stories by English Authors: Scotland • Various

... which do mightily assist a blind affection to cozen itself. I was wild—in troth I might go yet farther and say VERY wild, though 'twas a wildness of an innocent sort, since it hurt none but me, brought shame to none, nor loss, nor had in it any taint of crime or baseness, or what might not beseem mine ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain

... but the words are such I have to say, and do so ill beseem The mouth of woman, that I wish them said, And yet am loath to speak them. Have you known That I have aught detracted from your worth? Have I in person wronged you? or have set My baser instruments to ...
— Library Of The World's Best Literature, Ancient And Modern, Vol 4 • Charles Dudley Warner

... dare but sing of you in such a strain As may beseem the wandering harper's tongue, Who of the glory of his Queen hath sung, Outside her castle gates in wind and rain. She, seated mid the noblest of her train, In her great halls with pictured arras hung, ...
— The Home Book of Verse, Vol. 2 (of 4) • Various

... thee beseem a stile so low, In whose sweet looks such sacred beauty shine, — For never yet did Heaven such grace bestow On any daughter born of Adam's line — Thy name let us, though far unworthy, know, Unfold thy will, and whence thou art in fine, Lest my audacious ...
— Jerusalem Delivered • Torquato Tasso

... yours, till ye command the bringer thereof to put it upon her. Well, said King Arthur, it shall be done as ye counsel me. And then he said unto the damosel that came from his sister, Damosel, this mantle that ye have brought me, I will see it upon you. Sir, she said, It will not beseem me to wear a king's garment. By my head, said Arthur, ye shall wear it or it come on my back, or any man's that here is. And so the king made it to be put upon her, and forth withal she fell down dead, and never more spake word ...
— Le Morte D'Arthur, Volume I (of II) - King Arthur and of his Noble Knights of the Round Table • Thomas Malory

... manner in which things were done when a Dictatorship prevailed in the country, and that was what the Dictator did. Upon the whole, I do not think that, in general, out of common history books, you will ever get into the real history of this country, or anything particular which it would beseem you to know. You may read very ingenious and very clever books by men whom it would be the height of insolence in me to do any other thing than express my respect for. But their position is essentially sceptical. Man is unhappily in ...
— On the Choice of Books • Thomas Carlyle

... while he prest His gentle daughter to his breast, With cheerful wonder in his eyes The lady Geraldine espies, And gave such welcome to the same, As might beseem so bright ...
— Poems of Coleridge • Coleridge, ed Arthur Symons

... the "pomps and vanities," but all those other "lusts of the flesh" which may beseem a gentleman may be ...
— The Life and Letters of Thomas Henry Huxley Volume 1 • Leonard Huxley

... each priceless stone; 'Twas once the Emir Galafir's own; A demon gave it in Metas vale; But when Turpin smote it might nought avail— From side to side did his weapon trace, And he flung him dead in an open space. Say the Franks, "Such deeds beseem the brave. Well the archbishop his cross ...
— The Harvard Classics, Volume 49, Epic and Saga - With Introductions And Notes • Various

... "'Twould well beseem," quoth Hagen, / "the people's lofty lord Foremost in storm of battle / to swing the cutting sword, As do my royal masters / each fair example show. Where hew they through the helmets / their swords do make the ...
— The Nibelungenlied - Translated into Rhymed English Verse in the Metre of the Original • trans. by George Henry Needler

... mother was of Anglo-Saxon strain, and the real heir must be pure unmixed Norman; and for this, Lady Eveline Berenger, in the first bloom of youth, must be wedded to a man who might be her father, and who, after leaving her unprotected for years, will return in such guise as might beseem her grandfather!" ...
— The Betrothed • Sir Walter Scott

... might a youth beseem; Save a slight scarf, his beauty bare, and white As cygnet's bosom on some silver stream; Or young narcissus, when to ...
— Zophiel - A Poem • Maria Gowen Brooks

... of this goodly band, Whose sundry parts were here too long to tell, But she that in the midst of them did stand, Seemed all the rest in beauty to excel, Crowned with a rosy garland that right well Did her beseem. And, ever as the crew About her danced, sweet flowers that far did smell, And fragrant odors they upon her threw; But most of all those three did her ...
— Among My Books • James Russell Lowell

... not lay upon me the unpleasant duty of commanding a guest, when it is my privilege as host to entreat. Go, Mr. Seymour, and make you ready. Katharine will return in a moment, and it does not beseem gentlemen, much less officers, to keep a lady waiting, you know. Philip and Bentley have gone fishing, and I am informed they will not return until late. We will ...
— For Love of Country - A Story of Land and Sea in the Days of the Revolution • Cyrus Townsend Brady

... women who were following the chief of police and some city constables, and said warningly: "Those are all wanton queans, whom the law of this city compels to lend their aid in putting out fires. How would it beseem your rank to join these who shame their sex——No, no! It would be said to-morrow that the ornament of the ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers

... be popular, that he would accept of the consulship, and make some such use of it as might be helpful to the patrician interest. Servilius, accepting of the offer, and making use of his interest with the people, persuaded them to hope well of the good intention of the fathers, whom it would little beseem to be forced to those things which would lose their grace, and that in view of the enemy, if they came not freely; and withal published an edict, that no man should withhold a citizen of Rome by imprisonment from giving his name (for that was ...
— The Commonwealth of Oceana • James Harrington

... for Italian emigration towards the provinces, formed the first link in the long chain of that momentous and beneficial course of action. Right and wrong, fortune and misfortune were so inextricably blended in this singular man and in this marvellous political constellation, that it may well beseem history in this case—though it beseems her but seldom— ...
— The History of Rome (Volumes 1-5) • Theodor Mommsen

... fundamental respects the two still carry in undiminished, perhaps in increasing, clearness, the notes of resemblance that beseem a ...
— Prose Masterpieces from Modern Essayists • James Anthony Froude, Edward A. Freeman, William Ewart Gladstone, John Henry Newman and Leslie Steph

... himself would turn him back from this interview till he had learned what she had to tell him and why she had so carefully exacted that he should hear her story in a spot overlooking the Hollow it would beseem them both ...
— Dark Hollow • Anna Katharine Green

... the same mother bare Kretheus and rash Salmoneus, and in the third generation we again were begotten and look upon the strength of the golden sun. Now if there be enmity between kin, the Fates stand aloof and would fain hide the shame. Not with bronze-edged swords nor with javelins doth it beseem us twain to divide our forefathers' great honour, nor needeth it, for lo! all sheep and tawny herds of kine I yield, and all the lands whereon thou feedest them, the spoil of my sires wherewith thou makest ...
— The Extant Odes of Pindar • Pindar

... he said mildly, "you will reconsider your words! It would ill beseem you to strive to do me harm in the parish were my ministrations are welcome, as appealing to that portion of the people who follow the godly Luther. Oh yes,"—and he smiled cheerfully—"you will reconsider your ...
— Thelma • Marie Corelli

... it would be satisfactory to know whether the walls and pillars at Brou ever were really painted; the contrary seems proven. But in any case, though a touch of rouge might not ill beseem this curious sanctum, it would not be so at Chartres, for the only suitable hue is the shining, greasy patina, grey turning to silver, stone-colour turning buff—the colouring given by age, by time helped by accumulated vapours of prayer and ...
— The Cathedral • Joris-Karl Huysmans

... life ever at the service of these kingdoms, we commanded all to avoid the room, the rather that we suspected this boy to be a girl. What think ye, my lords?—few of you would have thought I had a hawk's eye for sic gear; but we thank God, that though we are old, we know so much of such toys as may beseem a man of decent gravity. Weel, my lords, we questioned this maiden in male attire ourselves, and I profess it was a very pretty interrogatory, and well followed. For, though she at first professed that she assumed this disguise in order to countenance the woman ...
— The Fortunes of Nigel • Sir Walter Scott



Words linked to "Beseem" :   match, tally, agree, check, jibe, gibe, suit, correspond, fit, befit



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