besiege
Americanverb (used with object)
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besieges,
present (3rd person singular)
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besieged,
past participle, past
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besieging
present participle
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
-
had besiegedperfect
-
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
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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:
He brought with him perhaps 60,000 soldiers, along with numerous cannons, some of enormous size, to besiege the city; a newly constructed fleet patrolled the Bosporus.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Aug. 5, 2026
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
"If they besiege us here, where can we go then? How long will this suffering continue? We have been displaced about six or seven times," he said.
From BBC ● Dec. 30, 2024
Many had feared Farmer would be criticized for going to costly extremes to save one particular life, and that parents would besiege Zanmi Lasante with demands that their sick children be flown to Boston.
From "Mountains Beyond Mountains" by Tracy Kidder and Michael French
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
The storm rises in Dar Nuba—The Baggara begin to raid—Khojur Kakum of Delen—Mek Omar besieges Delen—The slave guard deserts the Mission—The priests and nuns surrender—They are sent to the Mahdi.
From Ten Years' Captivity in the Mahdi's Camp 1882-1892 by F. R. Wingate
Others floated conspiracy theories accusing the mysterious “they” of trying to “control” Clavicular, or claiming he is besieged with “women trying to ruin his life with rumors.”
From Salon ● Sep. 25, 2026
Two Palestinian families were trapped inside their homes along with five Italian nationals who were visiting one of them, according to two people besieged there who spoke to The Wall Street Journal.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Aug. 13, 2026
He describes how leaving felt like a movie where someone boards the last helicopter flight out of a besieged city.
From BBC ● Aug. 3, 2026
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
There has to be a clever way to turn the tide, but to my besieged brain there’s only one way out: the front door.
From "Love, Hate & Other Filters" by Samira Ahmed
The Houthis also made important gains inland, all but besieging the strategic city of Taiz, Yemen’s third-largest city, in a move that augured more Houthi advances.
From Los Angeles Times ● Oct. 5, 2026
Louai Abu Ridi owns one of the three houses in Qusra, near Nablus, which settlers began besieging more than a week ago, trapping residents inside and effectively blocking supplies, generating condemnation around the world.
From Barron's ● Aug. 17, 2026
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
A similar cavalry charge of 26 horsemen routed the best troops of Emperor Manco himself, as he was besieging the Spaniards in Cuzco.
From "Guns, Germs, and Steel: The Fates of Human Societies" by Jared M. Diamond
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.
