Definitions

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.

  • verb transitive To hedge about; surround with or as with a hedge.
  • verb transitive To determine the boundary or limit of; define.
  • verb transitive To surround; beset; plague; hinder.
  • verb transitive To straiten; restrict; constrain; limit.

Etymologies

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License

From Middle English *biheggen, *biheien, *beheȝen, from Old English behegian ("to hedge around"), equivalent to be- +‎ hedge. Cognate with Dutch beheggen ("to put a hedge around, behedge").

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Examples

  • It is ever making itself an obtuse triangle before the god of its idolatry -- its knees and nose on the earth, its tail-feathers in the air; but we had yet to learn that it considered "that divinity which doth behedge a king" capable of sanctifying a woman's shame, transforming a foul leman into an angel of light!

    The Complete Works of Brann the Iconoclast, Volume 1. 1898

  • Having been spawned in a royal bed -- perchance the same in which his great gran'dame Catherine was wont to receive her paramours -- he becomes the most powerful of princes -- haloed with "that divinity which doth behedge a king" -- and all the earth rejoices to do him honor.

    The Complete Works of Brann the Iconoclast, Volume 1. 1898

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