Word.ws English Dictionary

bespake

bespake is the simple past of bespeak.

Meaning of bespeak

Verb

bespeak (third-person singular simple present bespeaks, present participle bespeaking, simple past bespoke or (archaic) bespake, past participle bespoken or (archaic) bespoke)

  1. (archaic, formal, transitive) To speak about; tell of; relate; discuss.
    • [They] bespoke dangers […] in order to scare the allies.1711, Jonathan Swift, The Works of the Rev. Jonathan Swift, Volume 3, The Examiner, Number 44, page 244
  2. (dated, transitive) To speak for beforehand; engage in advance; make arrangements for; order, commission, reserve or arrange for something to be made in advance.
    • '[…] I am come here to bespeak Fanny a seal […]'1811, [Jane Austen], chapter XI, in Sense and Sensibility […], volume II, London: […] C[harles] Roworth, […], and published by T[homas] Egerton, […], →OCLC
  3. (transitive) To stipulate, solicit, ask for, or request, as in a favour.
    • to bespeak a calm hearing
  4. (archaic, transitive) To forbode; foretell.
  5. (archaic, poetic, transitive) To speak to; address.
    • Then ſtaring on her with a ghaſtly Look, / And hollow Voice, he thus the Queen beſpoke.1717, John Dryden, “Book XI. [The House of Sleep.]”, in Ovid’s Metamorphoses in Fifteen Books. […], London: […] Jacob Tonson, […], →OCLC, page 401
  6. (transitive) To betoken; show; indicate; depict; foretell; suggest; allude to.
    • This act bespeaks his kindness.

See all 8 meanings of bespeak

Questions about bespake

What is bespake the simple past of?
Bespake is the simple past of bespeak.

Words near bespake in the dictionary

  1. besour
  2. besoured
  3. besow
  4. besows
  5. besozzlement
  6. bespake
  7. bespangle
  8. bespangled
  9. bespangles
  10. bespangling
  11. besparkle

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: bespake (page history and authors); bespeak (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.

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