befringe

English

Etymology

be- +‎ fringe

Verb

befringe (third-person singular simple present befringes, present participle befringing, simple past and past participle befringed)

  1. To furnish or adorn with a fringe.
    • 1639, Thomas Fuller, The Historie of the Holy Warre, Cambridge, Chapter 27, p. 78,
      […] women themselves went in armour, (having a brave lasse like another Penthesilea for their leader, so befringed with gold, that they called her Golden-foot) riding astride like men […]
    • 1737, Alexander Pope, The First Epistle of the Second Book of Horace, Imitated, London: T. Cooper, p. 23,
      And when I flatter, let my dirty leaves
      (Like Journals, Odes, and such forgotten things
      As Eusden, Philips, Settle, writ of Kings)
      Cloath spice, line trunks, or flutt’ring in a row,
      Befringe the rails of Bedlam and Sohoe.
    • 1823, Lord Byron, Don Juan: Cantos IX.—X.—XI., London: John Hunt, Canto 10, stanza 29, p. 32,
      […] each dress he sported,
      Which set the beauty off in which he glowed,
      As purple clouds befringe the sun […]
    • 1900, Joseph Conrad, Lord Jim, Chapter 41,
      […] during a year or more, Gentleman Brown’s ship was to be seen, for many days on end, hovering off an islet befringed with green upon azure, with the dark dot of the mission-house on a white beach […]

Part or all of this entry has been imported from the 1913 edition of Webster’s Dictionary, which is now free of copyright and hence in the public domain. The imported definitions may be significantly out of date, and any more recent senses may be completely missing.
(See the entry for befringe in Webster’s Revised Unabridged Dictionary, G. & C. Merriam, 1913.)

Anagrams
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