besiege
Americanverb (used with object)
verb
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to surround (a fortified area, esp a city) with military forces to bring about its surrender
-
to crowd round; hem in
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to overwhelm, as with requests or queries
Other Word Forms
Derived Forms
Inflected Forms
Participles
Conjugated Forms
Present
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besiegesimple
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besiegessimple
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have besiegedperfect
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has besiegedperfect
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am besiegingprogressive
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are besiegingprogressive
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is besiegingprogressive
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have been besiegingperfect progressive
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has been besiegingperfect progressive
Past
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besiegedsimple
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had besiegedperfect
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was besiegingprogressive
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were besiegingprogressive
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had been besiegingperfect progressive
Future
Etymology
Origin of besiege
First recorded in 1250–1300; Middle English bysegen; see be-, siege
Explanation
To besiege means to attack with an army, or to pester with many requests. When all your teachers ask you to hand in assignments on the same day, you can end up feeling besieged. The source of the word besiege in its military sense is the Latin word for "seat." When an army settles down in front of a fort or other site of attack, they are besieging it or taking a seat there. Picture them continually bombarding the fortress with arrows and cannon shot, and you've got the picture of the figurative sense of the word, "to pester with requests, etc." If you get a lot of spam in your e-mail, you are besieged with advertisements — and maybe also besieged with worries that you'll get a virus!
Vocabulary lists containing besiege
The Vocabulary.com Top 1000
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Grade 9, List 1
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100 SAT Words Beginning with "B"
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Example Sentences
Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.
See Examples For:
One scene that stuck with me: As Union troops besiege Atlanta, shells are exploding, people flee in panic.
From Salon ● Mar. 29, 2025
The feeling of being in a great city as raging infernos besiege it but don’t quite subsume it?
From Slate ● Jan. 9, 2025
That decision to besiege rather than directly attack the giant Azovstal plant means that “many Russian units remain fixed in the city and cannot be redeployed,” the British assessment said.
From Los Angeles Times ● Apr. 25, 2022
"I am not sure that they will be able to besiege Kyiv," he tells me.
From BBC ● Mar. 22, 2022
Adah the Poor Thing, hemiplegious egregious besiege us.
From "The Poisonwood Bible" by Barbara Kingsolver
While stifling heat besieges the nation this weekend from the desert Southwest to the Northeast, coastal Californians can’t afford to be smug.
From Los Angeles Times ● Jul. 23, 2022
In “The Shadow of the Vulture” Suleyman the Magnificent besieges Vienna, whose two champions are the carousing ex-knight Gottfried von Kalmbach and the indomitable woman-warrior known as Red Sonya.
From Washington Post ● Jun. 9, 2021
Widowhood besieges her, and “in the siege she has lost everything.”
From New York Times ● Jun. 9, 2020
Ebola’s embers still glow in West Africa, and yellow fever besieges Angola.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Jun. 14, 2016
And who is the man that besieges her, and where does he come from?'
From The Book of Romance by Ford, H. J. (Henry Justice)
After word spread that a local attorney was starting a class action, residents said they were besieged by out-of-town lawyers competing aggressively for their business.
From Los Angeles Times ● Jul. 12, 2026
They made it to a nearby clinic, San Antonio de Catia La Mar, where the besieged staff was implementing emergency triage, prioritizing those with life-threatening conditions.
From Los Angeles Times ● Jun. 30, 2026
The Spanish and French besieged British Gibraltar, and the Dutch were pulled into the war against Britain as well.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Jun. 26, 2026
In recent months, many residents have returned home to the island, besieged from June 2023 until March 2025, when the army recaptured the capital.
From Barron's ● Apr. 22, 2026
"I do not mean to be besieged here."
From "A Clash of Kings" by George R.R. Martin
After 18 months of besieging el-Fasher, the RSF captured the city - a major victory pushing the army out of its last foothold in the vast Darfur region.
From BBC ● Dec. 16, 2025
It is a besieging of the commercial breaks of historic proportions.
From Slate ● Nov. 3, 2024
Daniel Hagari, said the forces were not besieging Shifa Hospital but allowing a safe exit point on the hospital’s eastern side.
From Seattle Times ● Nov. 11, 2023
The FBI was called in, military advisers were consulted and we had the nearly three-month spectacle of the U.S. government besieging a small, apocalyptic cult movement that was armed to the teeth.
From Salon ● Mar. 24, 2023
She did not have a chance to respond, because we were at her house, and she was more interested in besieging her father with questions.
From "Walk Two Moons" by Sharon Creech
Definitions and idiom definitions from Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023
Idioms from The American Heritage® Idioms Dictionary copyright © 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.
