BESIEGE

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IPA (US):

 Dictionary entry overview: What does besiege mean? 

• BESIEGE (verb)
  The verb BESIEGE has 3 senses:

1. surround so as to force to give up

2. cause to feel distressed or worried

3. harass, as with questions or requests

  Familiarity information: BESIEGE used as a verb is uncommon.

 Dictionary entry details 

• BESIEGE (verb)

Present simple: I / you / we / they besiege    ... he / she / it besieges   
Past simple: besieged   
Past participle: besieged   
-ing form: besieging   

Sense 1

Meaning:

Surround so as to force to give up

Classified under:

Verbs of fighting, athletic activities

Synonyms:

beleaguer; besiege; circumvent; hem in; surround

Context example:

The Turks besieged Vienna

Hypernyms (to "besiege" is one way to...):

assail; attack (launch an attack or assault on; begin hostilities or start warfare with)

Troponyms (each of the following is one way to "besiege"):

blockade; seal off (impose a blockade on)

ebb (hem in fish with stakes and nets so as to prevent them from going back into the sea with the ebb)

Sentence frame:

Somebody ----s something

Derivation:

besieger (an enemy who lays siege to your position)

Sense 2

Meaning:

Cause to feel distressed or worried

Classified under:

Verbs of feeling

Context example:

She was besieged by so many problems that she got discouraged

Hypernyms (to "besiege" is one way to...):

distress (cause mental pain to)

Sentence frame:

Something ----s somebody

Sense 3

Meaning:

Harass, as with questions or requests

Classified under:

Verbs of telling, asking, ordering, singing

Context example:

The press photographers besieged the movie star

Hypernyms (to "besiege" is one way to...):

importune; insist (beg persistently and urgently)

Sentence frame:

Somebody ----s somebody

 Context examples 

Ever since I was condemned, my confessor has besieged me; he threatened and menaced, until I almost began to think that I was the monster that he said I was.

(Frankenstein, by Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley)

Also, it seemed to him that the fort was besieged by wolves.

(White Fang, by Jack London)

It was a night of little ease to his toiling mind, toiling in mere darkness and besieged by questions.

(The Strange Case Of Dr. Jekyll And Mr. Hyde, by Robert Louis Stevenson)

That we often put this powder into large hollow balls of iron, and discharged them by an engine into some city we were besieging, which would rip up the pavements, tear the houses to pieces, burst and throw splinters on every side, dashing out the brains of all who came near.

(Gulliver's Travels into several remote nations of the world, by Jonathan Swift)