Word.ws English Dictionary

bestem

bestem verb: to stem completely; stem all about; hinder.

Verb

bestem (third-person singular simple present bestems, present participle bestemming, simple past and past participle bestemmed)

  1. (archaic, transitive) To stem completely; stem all about; hinder.
    • Whence she might overglance the boundless boiling of billows, / Then she would rush to bestem the salt-plain's quivering wavelet / And from her ankles bare the dainty garment uplifting, / Spake she these words […]1894, Gaius Valerius Catullus, The Carmina of Caius Valerius Catullus

Forms of bestem

third-person singular presentbestems
present participlebestemming
past participlebestemmed
pastbestemmed

Origin of bestem

From be- + stem.

Questions about bestem

What does bestem mean?
Bestem means to stem completely; stem all about; hinder.
What part of speech is bestem?
Bestem is a verb.
What is the past tense of bestem?
The past tense of bestem is bestemmed.

Words near bestem in the dictionary

  1. besteal
  2. bestealing
  3. besteals
  4. bested
  5. besteer
  6. bestem
  7. bestemmed
  8. bestems
  9. bestep
  10. bestepped
  11. bestepping

Source and license

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