Word.ws English Dictionary

beteem

beteem verb: to permit; allow; suffer.

Verb (1)

beteem (third-person singular simple present beteems, present participle beteeming, simple past and past participle beteemed)

  1. (obsolete, transitive) To permit; allow; suffer.
    • So excellent a king, that was to this / Hyperion to a satyr, so loving to my mother / That he might not beteem the winds of heaven / Visit her face too roughly.c. 1599–1602 (date written), William Shakespeare, “The Tragedie of Hamlet, Prince of Denmarke”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies […] (First Folio), London: […] Isaac...
  2. (obsolete, transitive) To grant, vouchsafe (something to someone); accord; give.
    • So would I (said th'enchaunter) glad and faine / Beteeme to you this sword, you to defend [...].1590, Edmund Spenser, “Book II, Canto VIII”, in The Faerie Queene. […], London: […] [John Wolfe] for William Ponsonbie, →OCLC
  3. (dialectal, transitive) To bestow; afford; allow; deign.

Verb (2)

beteem (third-person singular simple present beteems, present participle beteeming, simple past and past participle beteemed)

  1. (obsolete, transitive) To bring forth; produce; shed.

Verb (3)

beteem (third-person singular simple present beteems, present participle beteeming, simple past and past participle beteemed)

  1. (rare, transitive) To pour all about.

Forms of beteem

third-person singular presentbeteems
present participlebeteeming
past participlebeteemed
pastbeteemed

Origin of beteem

From be- + teem (“to befit”). Cognate with Dutch betamen (“to befit, behove, beseem”).

From be- + teem (“to produce”).

From be- + teem (“to empty, pour”).

Questions about beteem

What does beteem mean?
Beteem means to permit; allow; suffer.
What part of speech is beteem?
Beteem is a verb.
What is the past tense of beteem?
The past tense of beteem is beteemed.

Words near beteem in the dictionary

  1. beteaches
  2. beteaching
  3. betear
  4. beteela
  5. beteelas
  6. beteem
  7. beteemed
  8. beteeming
  9. beteems
  10. betekhtinite
  11. betel

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: beteem (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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