besot
Americanverb (used with object)
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to intoxicate or stupefy with drink.
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to make stupid or foolish.
The stories had besotted her mind with fear and superstition.
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to infatuate; obsess.
Youth and beauty have a tendency to besot middle-aged men; charm and tenderness does it for women of all ages.
Other Word Forms
Etymology
Origin of besot
Explanation
To besot is to make someone dazed or foolish. If television tends to besot you, it would be smart not to watch a lot of TV right before a big test at school. The verb besot is much less common than the related adjective besotted, which means so infatuated with someone that it leaves you dizzy and a little bit silly. Both words have their roots in the Old English sott, "stupid person or fool." A parent may fill a birthday piñata with toys instead of candy if they believe that sugar would just besot all the party guests.
Vocabulary lists containing besot
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:
Nightmares Ride in their wake, the spirits to besot.
From All About Coffee by William H. (William Harrison) Ukers
And don't you forget You will ne'er be forgot, You never should fret As at times you have frot, I would chase all the cares that beset, if they ever besot.
From The Book of Humorous Verse by Carolyn Wells
Ah cruel fates, why do you then besot Poor Corin's soul with love, when love is fled?
From Elizabethan Sonnet Cycles: Idea, Fidesa and Chloris by Martha Foote Crow
Oh, he had no right thus to besot himself with adoration!
From Chivalry by James Branch Cabell
It will steal in upon you, grow upon you, beset and besot you, till you like no other place in the world so well.”
From Aurora the Magnificent by Gertrude Hall Brownell
It opens in a London pub, where Rodrigo is besotted by a boy who "looks like an angel on the walls of Versailles".
From BBC ● Jun. 10, 2026
Mr. Paul and his collaborators are clearly besotted lovers as well as knowledgeable students of the musicals they are spoofing, so the evening’s spirit is exuberantly affectionate.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Apr. 21, 2026
The dread comes from fears of a reinterpretation of John Galsworthy’s Nobel Prize-winning books, collectively known as “The Forsyte Saga,” to suit an audience besotted with “Bridgerton” and other sensual period adaptations.
From Salon ● Mar. 28, 2026
The film would attract a "whole new generation of people" who had not yet read the book but were "completely besotted" after seeing the film, he added.
From Barron's ● Feb. 28, 2026
The police were already wondering if the painting had been stolen by a besotted visitor.
From "The Mona Lisa Vanishes" by Nicholas Day
That delivers 0-60 mph acceleration pace in the 7s—adequate, though hardly besotting.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Nov. 20, 2015
No; I have never repented fleeing from the stifling poison-breath of sin that was hot and thick around me, and threatened to steal over my senses like besotting wine.
From Romola by George Eliot
"Will you stand here besotting yourself, and allow your child to be flung into a pauper's grave?"
From The Life of Thomas Wanless, Peasant by Alexander Johnstone Wilson
Our scientific assumptions admit just as much of an interpretation and utilisation in favour of a besotting philistinism—yea, in favour of bestiality—as also in favour of "blessedness" and soul-inspiration.
From We Philologists Complete Works of Friedrich Nietzsche, Volume 8 by J. M. (John McFarland) Kennedy
It is a besotting kind of taste, likely to turn into a disease.
From Daniel Deronda by George Eliot
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.
