Word.ws English Dictionary

bestir

UK/bɪˈstɜː//bɪˈstɝ/

bestir verb: to put into brisk or vigorous action; to move with life and vigor.

Verb

bestir (third-person singular simple present bestirs, present participle bestirring, simple past and past participle bestirred)

  1. (transitive) To put into brisk or vigorous action; to move with life and vigor.
    • Notwithstanding all the various temptations to bad temper, pride, greediness, adultery and so forth, the enemy really has but one temptation, and that is, to bestir the saints.1986, Watchman Nee, The Life that Wins, page 75
  2. (reflexive) To make active; to rouse oneself.
    • Like the knocking at the door in Macbeth, or the cry of the watchman in the Tour de Nesle, they show that the horrible cæsura is over and the nightmares have fled away, because the day is breaking and the ordinary life of men is beginning to bestir itself among the streets.c. 1870, Robert Louis Stevenson, Nuits Blanches
    • The old man and his wife bestirred themselves to make every thing ready for the unexpected guests, […]1872, James De Mille, The Cryptogram, published 2009

bestir meaning in Tamil, Urdu, Malayalam and Vietnamese

bestir in Tamil

எழுச்சிகொளவை, ஊக்கு முனைந்தெழச்செய்

bestir in Urdu

کلبلانا

bestir in Malayalam

ഉത്സാഹിപ്പിക്കുക

bestir in Vietnamese

to put into brisk or vigorous action
vùng vằng

Examples of bestir in a sentence

  • When he had bestirred himself, […] it was clear daylight, though the sun had not tipped the yellow wall in the east.1912 January, Zane Grey, chapter 9, in Riders of the Purple Sage […], New York, N.Y.; London: Harper & Brothers Publishers, →OCLC, page 108:
  • And so I hope we can bestir ourselves not to “Rally Around Caesar,” as the recent Economist recommends.2009, June Jordan, Some of Us Did Not Die:
  • Why is it so important to bestir oneself?2010, Moshe Samsonowitz, Beyond What the Eye Perceives, page 42:

Forms of bestir

third-person singular presentbestirs
present participlebestirring
past participlebestirred
pastbestirred

Origin of bestir

From Middle English bestyrien, bestirien, from Old English bestyrian (“to heap up, pile up”), equivalent to be- + stir.

Words that rhyme with bestir

48 more rhymesFewer rhymes

Questions about bestir

What does bestir mean?
Bestir means to put into brisk or vigorous action; to move with life and vigor.
What is bestir in Tamil?
Bestir in Tamil is எழுச்சிகொளவை, ஊக்கு முனைந்தெழச்செய். See Bestir meaning in Tamil.
How do you use bestir in a sentence?
When he had bestirred himself, […] it was clear daylight, though the sun had not tipped the yellow wall in the east.
What part of speech is bestir?
Bestir is a verb.
How do you pronounce bestir?
Bestir is pronounced /bɪˈstɜː/ (UK).
What is the past tense of bestir?
The past tense of bestir is bestirred.

Words near bestir in the dictionary

  1. besties
  2. bestill
  3. bestilled
  4. bestills
  5. besting
  6. bestir
  7. bestirre
  8. bestirred
  9. bestirres
  10. bestirring
  11. bestirs

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: bestir (page history and authors); bestir (Tamil Wiktionary) (page history and authors); bestir (Urdu Wiktionary) (page history and authors); bestir (Malayalam Wiktionary) (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: en-us-bestir.ogg.

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