bishoping

Verb

bishop (third-person singular simple present bishops, present participle bishoping or bishopping, simple past and past participle bishoped or bishopped)

1. To act as a bishop, to perform the duties of a bishop, especially to confirm another's membership in the church.
   • Se bisceop biþ gesett... to bisceopgenne cild.c. 1000, Thorpe's Laws, II. 348 (Bosw.)
   1. (broadly, obsolete, jocularly) To confirm (in its other senses).
      • Why sent they it by Felton to be bishoped at Paules?1596, W. Warner, Albions Eng., x. liv. 243
2. To make a bishop.
   • Thys hathe bene often tymes... sene in preachers before they were byshoppyd or benificed.1549, H. Latimer, 2nd Serm. before Kynges Maiestie, 5th Serm. sig. Pviv
3. (rare) To provide with bishops.
   • Italy would be well bishoped if her episcopacy... did not exceed fifty-nine.1865 December 6, Daily Telegraph, 5/3
4. (UK, dialectal) To permit food (especially milk) to burn while cooking (from bishops' role in the inquisition or as mentioned in the quotation below, of horses).
   • If the porage be burned to, or the meate ouer rosted, we say the bishop hath put his foote in the potte or the bishop hath played the cooke, because the bishops burn who they lust and whosoever displeaseth them.ante 1536, Tyndale, Works, 166 (T.)
5. (broadly) To make a horse seem younger, particularly by manipulation of its teeth.
   • This way of making a Horse look young is... called Bishoping.1727, R. Bradley, Family Dict. at "Horse"

See all 29 meanings of bishop