Definitions

from The Century Dictionary.

  • To suit ill; misbecome.

from the GNU version of the Collaborative International Dictionary of English.

  • transitive verb To suit ill.

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

  • verb archaic, transitive To be unseemly on or from; to fail to suit.

Etymologies

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License

mis- +‎ beseem

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Examples

  • Every law or institution which would misbeseem this imaginary being under these ideal circumstances is to be condemned as having lapsed from an original perfection; every transformation of society which would give it a closer resemblance to the world over which the creature of Nature reigned, is admirable and worthy to be effected at any apparent cost.

    Ancient Law Its Connection to the History of Early Society Henry Sumner Maine 1855

  • The wearer would be naught indeed who should misbeseem such a wedding garment.

    Maid Marian Thomas Love Peacock 1825

  • The wearer would be naught indeed who should misbeseem such a wedding garment.

    Maid Marian 1822

  • The dead, it is true, can make no resistance, they may be attacked with great security; but since they can neither feel nor mend, the safety of mauling them seems greater than the pleasure; nor perhaps would it much misbeseem us to remember, amidst our triumphs over the _nonsensical_ and the _senseless_, that we likewise are men; that _debemur morti_, and, as Swift observed to Burnet, shall soon be among the dead ourselves.

    Notes to Shakespeare, Volume III: The Tragedies Samuel Johnson 1746

  • I would even now fain trust that, by your mediation, the king may be persuaded to make such concessions and excuses as in truth would not misbeseem him, to the father of Lady Anne, and his own kinsman; and that yet, ere it be too late, I may be spared the bitter choice between the ties of blood and my allegiance to the king. "

    The Last of the Barons — Complete Edward Bulwer Lytton Lytton 1838

  • I would even now fain trust that, by your mediation, the king may be persuaded to make such concessions and excuses as in truth would not misbeseem him, to the father of Lady Anne, and his own kinsman; and that yet, ere it be too late, I may be spared the bitter choice between the ties of blood and my allegiance to the king. "

    The Last of the Barons — Volume 09 Edward Bulwer Lytton Lytton 1838

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