bestrew
Americanverb (used with object)
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bestrews,
present (3rd person singular)
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bestrewed,
past participle, past
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bestrewn,
past participle
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bestrewing
present participle
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to strew or cover (a surface).
-
to strew or scatter about.
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to lie scattered over.
verb
Other Word Forms
Inflected Forms
Participles
Conjugated Forms
Present
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bestrewsimple
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bestrewssimple
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have bestrewedperfect
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have bestrewnperfect
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has bestrewedperfect
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has bestrewnperfect
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am bestrewingprogressive
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are bestrewingprogressive
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is bestrewingprogressive
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have been bestrewingperfect progressive
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has been bestrewingperfect progressive
Past
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bestrewedsimple
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had bestrewedperfect
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had bestrewnperfect
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was bestrewingprogressive
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were bestrewingprogressive
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had been bestrewingperfect progressive
Future
Etymology
Origin of bestrew
before 1000; Middle English bistrewen, Old English bestrēowian. See be-, strew
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:
Tears will bedew, if wigs do not bestrew the green.”
From Washington Post ● Jul. 19, 2017
More than a decade after the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, concrete security barriers still bestrew the east side of 23rd Street NW.
From Washington Post ● Jun. 12, 2015
Uprooted trees, torn chunks of pavement and twisted iron fences bestrew the roadsides.
From Time Magazine Archive
Their scarfs of plush are lying On ripening grape and peach; Their sea-shells 'neath the apple trees, Each Spring bestrew their beach.
From Mother Truth's Melodies Common Sense For Children by Miller, Mrs. E. P.
Then by all means bestrew your scenes With half the lotuses that blow, Pothooks and fishing-lines and things, But let the human woman go!
From The Battle of the Bays by Seaman, Owen, Sir
It is safe to say that Richardson would have delivered a more nuanced movie—his Mahogany would undoubtedly have avoided the camp that bestrews the Gordy version.
From Slate ● Oct. 29, 2015
We depart—the only two living beings to be seen in that unreal and miasmal place, that village which bestrews the earth and lies under our feet.
From Under Fire: the story of a squad by Wray, Fitzwater
So might it be possible to ascribe to particular months the tokens with which the obliging sea bestrews the beaches.
From Tropic Days by Banfield, E. J. (Edmund James)
Branches of bloom-laden bird-cherry trees peep in at my window, and now and again the breeze bestrews my writing-table with their white petals.
From A Hero of Our Time by Wisdom, J. H.
Lafayette Square, bestrewed with garbage and covered with graffiti, looked terrible in the images that emerged, and the president didn’t look much better.
From Washington Post ● Jun. 2, 2020
Why, Daedalus wondered, are the world’s cities bestrewed with graffiti even though scientists, years ago, had perfected the porcelain enamel surfaces that make self-cleaning ovens possible?
From New York Times ● Jul. 30, 2017
Their bestrewed compositions also owe a debt to Pollock’s allover paintings — so much for abstraction denied.
From New York Times ● Mar. 12, 2015
Not only was Flappy Bird by far the No. 1 free app on both the iPhone and Android app stores, but blatant rip-offs like Flappy Plane, Fly Birdie, and Ironpants bestrewed the top 50.
From Slate ● Feb. 10, 2014
Splendor and night and fragrance bestrewed the Jacob's-ladder of the terraces down which he passed.
From Titan: A Romance Vol. II (of 2) by Jean Paul
Some he depicted as he saw them, bestrewn with marble stumps and fallen capitals.
From New York Times ● Feb. 15, 2017
What had set me off on this track, a track that became narrower and narrower and finally petered out in a field bestrewn with burdocks and cow pats?
From The Guardian ● Jun. 22, 2013
It is not bedotted with artists’ sunshades as with unknown mushrooms, nor bestrewn with the remains of English picnics.
From The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. XXII (of 25) Juvenilia and Other Papers by Stevenson, Robert Louis
Unluckily, their beds were so thickly bestrewn with rock that neither of them was navigable for any considerable part of its long course through the ill-starred province.
From Critical Miscellanies (Vol. 2 of 3) Turgot by Morley, John
He would smile grimly as with dogged persistence he started this latest child of his fancy out along the trail so thickly bestrewn with the skeletons of elder offspring.
From A Breath of Prairie and other stories by Marchand, J. N.
Morning dawned so calm and clear that but for the swimming ground and the broken tiles bestrewing it, the priest would have thought he had dreamed a terrible nightmare.
From The Splendid Idle Forties Stories of Old California by Atherton, Gertrude Franklin Horn
She was on her feet now, and he saw how entrancing she was, in a blue muslin frock and a broad white hat with a wreath of pink roses bestrewing the tilted brim.
From In Exile and Other Stories by Foote, Mary Hallock
More perilous even than these animals, to the wanderer in the forest, are the innumerable serpents that lurk beneath the accumulation of dead leaves bestrewing the ground.
From Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 60, No. 370, August 1846 by Various
He conveyed the impression that the collection of documents, books, telephones, and other paraphernalia bestrewing his table had reduced him to a state of stupor.
From Dope by Rohmer, Sax
Till then it would be well for you to seek of the wisdom of Merlin guidance to overcome the dangers bestrewing your path.’
From The Red Romance Book by Ford, H. J. (Henry Justice)
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.
