Word.ws English Dictionary

bestraught

bestraught adjective: distracted; mad, distraught.

Adjective

bestraught (comparative more bestraught, superlative most bestraught)

  1. (obsolete) Distracted; mad, distraught.
    • For, Belford ('tis folly to deny it), I have been, to use an old word, quite bestraught.1748, [Samuel Richardson], “Letter DXII”, in Clarissa. Or, The History of a Young Lady: […], volume (please specify |volume=I to VII), London: […] S[amuel] Richardson; [a]nd sold by John Osborn, […]...

Forms of bestraught

comparativemore bestraught
superlativemost bestraught
alternative formbestrought

Origin of bestraught

From be- + straught (“stretched”), modelled after distraught, forstraught, etc.

Words formed from bestraught

Questions about bestraught

What does bestraught mean?
Bestraught means distracted; mad, distraught.
What part of speech is bestraught?
Bestraught is an adjective.

Words near bestraught in the dictionary

  1. bestrange
  2. bestranged
  3. bestrangement
  4. bestranges
  5. bestranging
  6. bestraught
  7. bestraughted
  8. bestreak
  9. bestreaked
  10. bestreaking
  11. bestreaks

Source and license

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