Word.ws English Dictionary

bedizen

Syllables: be·diz·en/bɪˈdaɪz(ə)n//bɪˈdaɪzən/

bedizen verb: to dress or ornament (someone or something), especially in a gaudy, showy, or tasteless manner.

Verb

bedizen (third-person singular simple present bedizens, present participle bedizening, simple past and past participle bedizened)

  1. (also, figuratively, literary, transitive) To dress or ornament (someone or something), especially in a gaudy, showy, or tasteless manner.
    • Self is a great Fop and a great Slattern: Soul has given her very good Cloaths, fine Ornaments, plain and neat, but Self either leaves them, like a Slut, in every Corner of the Houſe; or vvhen ſhe puts them on, ſhe does bedizen them vvith Lace and Embroidery, Fringes and Ruffles, Patches, and...1723 August 9 (date written; Gregorian calendar), Rev. Dr. ***** [pseudonym], “A Letter of Advice to a Young Lady, who had Married above Herself, Grew Vain, and Despis’d Her Husband”, in Alexander...
    • Thus the Violet that gayly bedizens the Mead / A fragrance more ſvveet does ſupply, / Tho' oft' rudely bruſh'd by the Traveller's tread, / Than if rear'd in the garden hard bye.1792, J[ames Cartwright] Cross, “The Orphan Boy, a Simple Pathetic Tale”, in Parnassian Trifles. Being a Collection of Elegiac, Pastoral, Nautic, and Lyric Poetry, London: […] [F]or the author, at...
  2. (Northern England, literary, transitive) To make (someone or something) dirty; to bedaub, to besmear, to dirty.
    • Slinger brast aght o'th' door like a roarin lion,—but he wor sooin collard, an' he wor soa bedisend with soft cake an' puttaty pillins at his own mother could'nt ha owned him.1876, John Hartley, “Ther’s a Mule i’ th’ Garden. A Christmas Story.”, in Yorksher Puddin’. A Collection of the Most Popular Dialect Stories, Wakefield, West Yorkshire: William Nicholson and Sons...
    Synonyms:
    bedirty, befoul, sully, assoil, beclart, bedaub, imbrue (especially with blood), befile, befilth, begrime

bedizen meaning in Urdu and Bengali

bedizen in Urdu

بھڑکیلے کپڑے پہننا

bedizen in Bengali

অতিরিক্ত, বেমানানভাবে সাজানো

Examples of bedizen in a sentence

  • You have bedizened me in green, a colour he detests.1825 June 22, [Walter Scott], chapter III, in Tales of the Crusaders. […], volume IV (The Talisman), Edinburgh: […] [James Ballantyne and...
  • Twenty-four hours later we were both in the vast halls of the Winter Palace in full uniform, as bedizened with gold as a nouveau riche’s drawing-room.1921, Lord Frederic Hamilton [i.e., Frederick Spencer Hamilton], chapter IX, in Here, There and Everywhere, London: Hodder and Stoughton...
  • Among the hundred bedizened women she was a rarity.[1943], Marjorie Barnard, “Arrow of Mistletoe”, in The Persimmon Tree and Other Stories, Sydney, N.S.W.: The Clarendon Publishing Company...
  • Dolores flitted around the car, screaming like a banshee, her face bedizened with fury.1969, Maya Angelou, chapter 31, in I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings, New York, N.Y.: Random House, →LCCN, page 240:

Synonyms of bedizen

30 more synonymsFewer synonyms

All synonyms of bedizen

Forms of bedizen

third-person singular presentbedizens
present participlebedizening
past participlebedizened
pastbedizened
alternative formbedisen
alternative formbedizzen

Origin of bedizen

PIE word *h₁epi From be- (intensifying prefix) + dizen (“to attire, dress, especially showily”). Dizen is derived from dialectal dize (“to put (tow) on a distaff”), probably from Middle English *disen, from Old English *disan, *disian, from *dise, *disen (“bunch of flax on a distaff”), from Proto-Germanic *disanō (“distaff”); further etymology unknown.

Words formed from bedizen

Words that rhyme with bedizen

Questions about bedizen

What does bedizen mean?
Bedizen means to dress or ornament (someone or something), especially in a gaudy, showy, or tasteless manner.
What is bedizen in Urdu?
Bedizen in Urdu is بھڑکیلے کپڑے پہننا. See Bedizen meaning in Urdu.
How do you use bedizen in a sentence?
You have bedizened me in green, a colour he detests.
What part of speech is bedizen?
Bedizen is a verb.
How do you pronounce bedizen?
Bedizen is pronounced /bɪˈdaɪz(ə)n/ (UK).
What is the past tense of bedizen?
The past tense of bedizen is bedizened.

Words near bedizen in the dictionary

  1. beditate
  2. beditated
  3. beditates
  4. beditating
  5. beditation
  6. bedizen
  7. bedizened
  8. bedizening
  9. bedizenings
  10. bedizenment
  11. bedizenments

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: bedizen (page history and authors); bedizen (Urdu Wiktionary) (page history and authors); bedizen (Bengali Wiktionary) (page history and authors). Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws reformatted the entry and added links. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.

Last updated:

Pronunciation audio from Wikimedia Commons, each file under its own free license: LL-Q1860 (eng)-Vealhurl-bedizen2.wav, LL-Q1860 (eng)-Naomi Persephone Amethyst (NaomiAmethyst)-bedizen.wav.

Cite this entry: “bedizen.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/bedizen. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.