Definitions

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 5th Edition.

  • adjective Confined to bed; bedridden.

from The Century Dictionary.

  • Confined to bed; bedridden.

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

  • adjective unable to leave one's bed, especially because of illness, weakness or obesity

from WordNet 3.0 Copyright 2006 by Princeton University. All rights reserved.

  • adjective confined to bed (by illness)

Etymologies

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License

bed +‎ -fast

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Examples

  • When the visitors stopped coming, Mamaw fell into depression, went bedfast.

    For All the Good These Hands Have Done Sheldon Lee Compton 2012

  • Or Jim McQuiggin, in Ireland, nursing his completely helpless, bedfast wife, twenty-four hours a day, year after year.

    They Smell Like Sheep Volume 2 Lynn Anderson 2007

  • Or Jim McQuiggin, in Ireland, nursing his completely helpless, bedfast wife, twenty-four hours a day, year after year.

    They Smell Like Sheep Volume 2 Lynn Anderson 2007

  • And her father and mother, sister died with tuberculosis, set it on me and I was bedfast five months.

    CNN Transcript Jan 31, 2002 2002

  • And one of the greatest men I ever met in my life was a fellow named Colonel Phil Hart, who later became a United States senator from the state of Michigan, who ran errands for all of us who were bedfast; who provided baseball tickets -- Detroit Tigers -- the Briggs family owned the Detroit Tigers then; his wife was a Briggs.

    Remarks At World War Ii Memorial Breakfast Reception ITY National Archives 2000

  • For years, Elizabeth Barrett had been an invalid, bedfast in her room.

    Swan’s Soup & Salad DR. DENNIS SWANBERG 1999

  • For years, Elizabeth Barrett had been an invalid, bedfast in her room.

    Swan’s Soup & Salad DR. DENNIS SWANBERG 1999

  • "MAKE SURE he stays bedfast for a while," Dr. Goodfellow told them at the door.

    Moon Shadow Stewardson, Dawn 1991

  • The style here is more emotive than Swift's, but in his deadpan explanatory notes ( "This is a rural English custom designed to eliminate aged and bedfast dependents") there is a Swiftian factuality.

    Déjeuner sur l'Herbe McCarthy, Mary 1963

  • Grandmother Krausa, although bedfast, occasionally insisted on being carried on inspection tours; somebody always suffered.

    Citizen Of The Galaxy Heinlein, Robert A. 1957

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