Word.ws English Dictionary

bespawl

Syllables: be·spawl/bɪˈspɔːl/US/bɪˈspɔl/

bespawl verb: to daub, make foul, or soil (someone or something) with spawl or spittle.

Verb

bespawl (third-person singular simple present bespawls, present participle bespawling, simple past and past participle bespawled)

  1. (obsolete, transitive) To daub, make foul, or soil (someone or something) with spawl or spittle.
    • [T]each thy Incubus to Poëtize, / And throvve abroad thy ſpurious Snotteries, / Vpon that puft-up Lumpe of Barmy froth, / […] / Or Clumſy Chil-blain'd Iudgement; that, vvith Oath, / Magnificates his Merit; and beſpaules / The conſcious Time, vvith humorous Fome; & bravvles, / As if his Organons of...1601, Ben Jonson, Poetaster or The Arraignment: […], London: […] [R. Bradock] for M[atthew] L[ownes] […], published 1602, →OCLC, Act V, scene iii
    • Old Proteus hath been knovvne to leaue his finny Heard, / And in their ſight to ſpunge his foame-beſpavvled beard.1622, Michael Drayton, “The Two and Twentieth Song”, in The Second Part, or A Continuance of Poly-Olbion from the Eighteenth Song. […], London: […] Augustine Mathewes for Iohn Marriott, Iohn...

Examples of bespawl in a sentence

  • [W]hile he would spit beyond the table, he all-to-bespawleth him who skinketh at the feast.1900, Theophrastus, “Of Foulness”, in [anonymous], transl., edited by David J[osiah] Brewer, Edward A. Allen, and William Schuyler, The...
  • Please forgive me for being such a complete bespawling ditz.2017, Peggy A. Wheeler, chapter 28, in The Extraordinary Life of Beautimus Potamus, Calgary, Alta.: Dragon Moon Press, →ISBN:

Synonyms of bespawl

Forms of bespawl

third-person singular presentbespawls
present participlebespawling
past participlebespawled
pastbespawled
alternative formbespaul

Origin of bespawl

From be- (prefix meaning ‘about; around’) + spawl (“to scatter spittle from the mouth, spit”).

Words formed from bespawl

Words that rhyme with bespawl

48 more rhymesFewer rhymes

Questions about bespawl

What does bespawl mean?
Bespawl means to daub, make foul, or soil (someone or something) with spawl or spittle.
How do you use bespawl in a sentence?
[W]hile he would spit beyond the table, he all-to-bespawleth him who skinketh at the feast.
What part of speech is bespawl?
Bespawl is a verb.
How do you pronounce bespawl?
Bespawl is pronounced /bɪˈspɔːl/ (UK).
What is the past tense of bespawl?
The past tense of bespawl is bespawled.

Words near bespawl in the dictionary

  1. bespattle
  2. bespaul
  3. bespauled
  4. bespauling
  5. bespauls
  6. bespawl
  7. bespawled
  8. bespawling
  9. bespawls
  10. bespeak
  11. bespeakable

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: bespawl (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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Pronunciation audio from Wikimedia Commons, each file under its own free license: LL-Q1860 (eng)-Vealhurl-bespawl.wav.

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