becloud

Verb

becloud (third-person singular simple present beclouds, present participle beclouding, simple past and past participle beclouded)

1. (transitive) To cause to become obscure or muddled.
   • […] Intemperance and Superfluity beclouds the Mind, dulls the edge of the Apprehension, and brings upon it an unmanly Languor, bearing down all the noble Faculties of the Soul into Ignorance and Stupidity […]1688, Thomas Tryon, Monthly Observations for the Preserving of Health with a Long and Comfortable Life, London, page 9
   • […] conscience was not to be perverted by the sophistry which had beclouded my reason.1799, Mary Ann Radcliffe, “The Story of Fidelia”, in The Female Advocate, London: Vernor & Hood, page 164
2. (passive, transitive, usually) To cover or surround with clouds.
   • And then while you're a cooking, they say, / Such a fogo beclouds all the room, / That the girls have to group out the way, / In search of the tongs or the broom.1824, The New England Farmer, volume 2, page 176
   • Day light began to forsake the red-room; it was past four o’clock, and the beclouded afternoon was tending to drear twilight.1847 October 16, Currer Bell [pseudonym; Charlotte Brontë], chapter II, in Jane Eyre. […], volume I, London: Smith, Elder, and Co., […], →OCLC, page 19
3. (figuratively, transitive) To cast in a negative light, cast a pall over, darken.
   • What Fury has possest thee? What strange fit
     Usurps thy patience, and beclouds thy brow?1649, Francis Quarles, The Virgin Widow, London: R. Royston, act I, page 8
   • We live in the midst of alarms; anxiety beclouds the future; we expect some new disaster with each newspaper we read.1856, Abraham Lincoln, speech given on 19 May, 1856 in Speeches and Letters of Abraham Lincoln, London: J.M. Dent, 1907, p. 46