Word.ws English Dictionary

besteal

besteal verb: to steal, move stealthily.

Verb

besteal (third-person singular simple present besteals, present participle bestealing, simple past bestole, past participle bestolen)

  1. (archaic, intransitive, obsolete, rare) To steal, move stealthily.
    • Come, come, truly see what mortal man behold, the mother of beauty to them all bestole. Truly matchless thou art, my beloved. I love you more than all!2018, Edgar Beaumont, Teleportkinesis
    Synonyms:
    steal away

Synonyms of besteal

Forms of besteal

third-person singular presentbesteals
present participlebestealing
pastbestole
past participlebestolen

Origin of besteal

From Middle English bistelen, from Old English bestelan, from Proto-West Germanic *bestelan, from Proto-Germanic *bistelaną, corresponding to be- (“off, away”) + steal. Cognate with Saterland Frisian besteele, Dutch bestelen, German Low German bestehlen, Luxembourgish bestielen, German bestehlen, Swedish bestjäla (“to rob”).

Questions about besteal

What does besteal mean?
Besteal means to steal, move stealthily.
What part of speech is besteal?
Besteal is a verb.
What is the past tense of besteal?
The past tense of besteal is bestole.

Words near besteal in the dictionary

  1. Beste
  2. bestead
  3. besteaded
  4. besteading
  5. besteads
  6. besteal
  7. bestealing
  8. besteals
  9. bested
  10. besteer
  11. bestem

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: besteal (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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