different between annoy vs beset

English

Etymology

From Middle English annoien, anoien, enoien, a borrowing from Anglo-Norman anuier, Old French enuier (“to molest, harm, tire”), from Late Latin inodi? (“cause aversion, make hateful”, verb), from the phrase in odi? (“hated”), from Latin odium (“hatred”). Doublet of ennui. Displaced native Middle English grillen (“to annoy, irritate”), from Old English grillan (see grill).

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /??n??/
• Rhymes: -??

Verb

annoy (third-person singular simple present annoys, present participle annoying, simple past and past participle annoyed)

1. (transitive) To disturb or irritate, especially by continued or repeated acts; to bother with unpleasant deeds.
   • 1691, Matthew Prior, Pastoral to Dr. Turner, Bishop of Ely

     Say, what can more our tortured souls annoy / Than to behold, admire, and lose our joy?

2. (intransitive) To do something to upset or anger someone; to be troublesome.
3. (transitive) To molest; to harm; to injure.

   to annoy an army by impeding its march, or by a cannonade

   • tapers put into lanterns or sconces of several-coloured, oiled paper, that the wind might not annoy them

Synonyms

• (to disturb or irritate) bother, bug, hassle, irritate, pester, nag, irk
• See also Thesaurus:annoy

Antonyms

• please
• See also Thesaurus:annoy

Related terms

Translations

Noun

annoy (plural annoys)

1. (now rare, literary) A feeling of discomfort or vexation caused by what one dislikes.
   • 1532 (first printing), Geoffrey Chaucer, The Romaunt of the Rose:

     I merveyle me wonder faste / How ony man may lyve or laste / In such peyne and such brennyng, / [...] In such annoy contynuely.

   • c. 1610, John Fletcher, “Sleep”:

     We that suffer long annoy / Are contented with a thought / Through an idle fancy wrought: / O let my joys have some abiding!
2. (now rare, literary) That which causes such a feeling.
   • 1594, William Shakespeare, King Rchard III, IV.2:

     Sleepe in Peace, and wake in Ioy, / Good Angels guard thee from the Boares annoy [...].

   • 1872, Robert Browning, "Fifine at the Fair, V:

     The home far and away, the distance where lives joy, / The cure, at once and ever, of world and world's annoy [...].

Synonyms

• (both senses) annoyance

Translations

References

• annoy in The Century Dictionary, New York, N.Y.: The Century Co., 1911.
• annoy in Webster’s Revised Unabridged Dictionary, G. & C. Merriam, 1913.

Anagrams

• Yonan, anyon, noyan, yanno

English

Etymology

From Middle English besetten, bisetten, from Old English besettan (“to beset; set beside; set near; appoint; place; own; possess”), from Proto-Germanic *bisatjan? (“to set near; set around”), equivalent to be- +? set. Cognate with Saterland Frisian besätte (“to occupy”), West Frisian besette (“to occupy”), Dutch bezetten (“to sit in; occupy; fill”), German Low German besetten (“to occupy”), German besetzen (“to seize; occupy; garrison”), Danish besætte (“to occupy; obsess”), Swedish besätta (“to fill; occupy; beset”).

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /b??s?t/
• Rhymes: -?t

Verb

beset (third-person singular simple present besets, present participle besetting, simple past and past participle beset)

1. (transitive) To surround or hem in.
2. (transitive, sometimes figuratively) To attack or assail, especially from all sides.

   • “Nay, for matter o’ that, he never doth any mischief,” said the woman; “but to be sure it is necessary he should keep some arms for his own safety; for his house hath been beset more than once; and it is not many nights ago that we thought we heard thieves about it […]

3. (transitive) To decorate something with jewels etc.
4. (nautical) Of a ship, to get trapped by ice.

Derived terms

• besetting

Translations

Anagrams

• Beets, Beste, beest, beets, tsebe

Afrikaans

Etymology

From Dutch bezetten, from Middle Dutch besetten, from Old Dutch *bisetten, from Proto-Germanic *bisatjan?.

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /b??s?t/
• Rhymes: -?t

Verb

beset (present beset, present participle besettende, past participle beset)

1. (transitive) to occupy, to fill
2. (transitive, military) to occupy militarily

Derived terms

• besetting