bestir
Americanverb (used with object)
verb
Other Word Forms
Inflected Forms
Participles
Conjugated Forms
Present
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bestirsimple
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bestirssimple
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have bestirredperfect
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has bestirredperfect
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am bestirringprogressive
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are bestirringprogressive
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is bestirringprogressive
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have been bestirringperfect progressive
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has been bestirringperfect progressive
Past
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bestirredsimple
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had bestirredperfect
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was bestirringprogressive
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were bestirringprogressive
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had been bestirringperfect progressive
Future
Etymology
Origin of bestir
before 900; Middle English bistiren, Old English bestyrian to heap up. See be-, stir 1
Vocabulary lists containing bestir
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 took a lot to bestir Angelenos from their bungalows and Buicks, but their throats felt like sandpaper, and their chests hurt like the blazes.
From Los Angeles Times ● Mar. 26, 2026
If the United States needs workers and desperate people in flight want to work, as Mr. Thiessen correctly argued, then Congress should bestir itself and reform the legal immigration system.
From Washington Post ● Oct. 10, 2022
But before Americans bestir themselves to act, they must come to understand that the threat is real and the danger is here.
From Salon ● Oct. 8, 2021
It was not and Northampton's comeback will bestir them ahead of next Sunday's play-off at Saracens.
From The Guardian ● May 4, 2013
What were the odds that the people running this school would actually bestir themselves to make room for Jesse?
From "Geeks: How Two Lost Boys Rode the Internet Out of Idaho" by Jon Katz
Even so, she eventually bestirs herself to tell Disciple that she wants a divorce.
From New York Times ● Sep. 23, 2019
Now and then, one of the evening dailies bestirs itself to launch a crusade, e.g., the World-Telegram's recent series on slum landlords and university-student cheating.
From Time Magazine Archive
While the federal government bestirs itself about alleged monopolies, the American Bar Association is suggesting an important amendment to the Clayton Act.*
From Time Magazine Archive
Almost nothing short of scandal ever bestirs the absentee owners to a concerted effort to exercise any real control over their company's affairs.
From Time Magazine Archive
Concerning the Gods, there are those who deny the very existence of the Godhead; others say that it exists, but neither bestirs nor concerns itself nor has forethought for anything.
From "Franny and Zooey" by J. D. Salinger
If they bestirred themselves to ask “how is he right?” those questions and his answers didn’t make it into the broadcast.
From Los Angeles Times ● Jan. 17, 2024
Given the cornucopia of issues Americans have to select from each day, the recent firing and rehiring of the House of Representatives’ chaplain may not have bestirred many to form an opinion.
From Washington Post ● May 4, 2018
Slightly fewer than fifty-five per cent of all voting-age adults bestirred themselves to go to the polls.
From The New Yorker ● Apr. 23, 2017
There is no amount of lawlessness we will not, at our convenience, argue was bestirred by someone else’s choices or selfness or lack of vigilance.
From The Guardian ● Dec. 2, 2015
More wakeful than he’d been, he realized that winter had become less cold, and he bestirred himself to be up and around.
From "Abel's Island" by William Steig
In the Japanese Diet, Premier Yoshida will often drowse through the opposition speeches, sometimes bestirring himself to deal with questions: "I will not answer that."
From Time Magazine Archive
IT was an occasion without precedent and another gauge of the new economic winds bestirring the Soviet Union.
From Time Magazine Archive
Evidently the Son of Heaven was bestirring himself on behalf of his unhappy people.
From Time Magazine Archive
Al- though this report was denied in Madrid, it remains as indicative of the feeling bestirring liberal Spaniards concerning the Royal House.
From Time Magazine Archive
"I don't notice that Margaret W. is bestirring herself," answered Judy.
From Molly Brown's Sophomore Days by Speed, Nell
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.
