Word.ws English Dictionary

besailing

besailing is the present participle and gerund of besail.

Meaning of besail

Verb

besail (third-person singular simple present besails, present participle besailing, simple past and past participle besailed)

  1. (archaic, poetic, rare, transitive) To attack or assail; lunge at or toward; assault.
    • The civvies and the brakesmen, with clubs they did me besail;
      They marched me right straight over to the Albany Jail […]1960, New York Folklore Quarterly, volume 16, page 100

Questions about besailing

What is besailing the present participle and gerund of?
Besailing is the present participle and gerund of besail.

Words near besailing in the dictionary

  1. besaiels
  2. besail
  3. besaile
  4. besailed
  5. besailes
  6. besailing
  7. besails
  8. besaint
  9. besainted
  10. besainting
  11. besaints

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: besailing (page history and authors); besail (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:

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