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:
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 Brownell, Gertrude Hall
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 Wells, Carolyn
Oh, he had no right thus to besot himself with adoration!
From Chivalry by Cabell, James Branch
Nightmares Ride in their wake, the spirits to besot.
From All About Coffee by Ukers, William H. (William Harrison)
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 Crow, Martha Foote
This old-school value manager is finding plenty of unloved bargains in a market besotted with AI.
From Barron's ● Jun. 17, 2026
But it is basketball - not football - that New Yorkers are besotted with right now.
From BBC ● Jun. 12, 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
I was immediately besotted by the band’s hookiness, the way their songs felt both precise and slightly feral.
From Salon ● Dec. 30, 2025
I like this word besotted, suggestive as it is of sogginess, soppiness, flies drunk on syrup.
From "Cat's Eye" by Margaret Atwood
That delivers 0-60 mph acceleration pace in the 7s—adequate, though hardly besotting.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Nov. 20, 2015
"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 Wilson, Alexander Johnstone
To accomplish these selfish projects, they applied every engine toward besotting the multitude with superstition and enthusiasm.
From Mysticism and its Results Being an Inquiry into the Uses and Abuses of Secrecy by Delafield, John
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 Eliot, George
How to get over, how to escape from, the besotting particularity of fiction.
From The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 25 (of 25) by Lang, Andrew
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.
