become; ‘I know not where my sonne is become’, i.e. what has become of him, Gascoigne, Supposes, v. 5 (Philogano); ed. Hazlitt, i. 251. Once very common.
bed, to pray. Spenser, F. Q., vi. 5. 35. Cp. ME. bede, a prayer. See [bead].
bed, to command, to bid; ‘Until his Captaine bed’, until his captain may command, Spenser, F. Q. i. 9. 41. 3 pr. sing. subj. of ME. beden; OE. bēodan, to command.
bedare, to dare, defy. Peele, David (Salomon); ed. Dyce, p. 484. From dare; see NED. (s.v. Be-, prefix, p. 720).
bed-fere, bed-fellow. Chapman, tr. Odyssey, iii. 542: spelt bedphere, B. Jonson, Silent Woman, ii. 5.
bedlam, a lunatic; one who had been in Bethlehem hospital; the half-cured patients were licensed to beg for alms for their support. Barnes, Works (1572) p. 294, col. 2; Gammer Gurton’s Needle has, for one of its characters, Diccon the Bedlam; Bunyan, Pilgr. i. 123 (NED.); ‘A bedlam, maniacus, insanus, furiosus’, Coles, Lat. Dict. See EDD. (sb.1 4).
bedrench, to soak, swamp. Richard II, iii. 3. 46; bedrent, pt. s. Sackville, Induction, st. 21.
bed-staff, ‘a staff or stick used in some way about a bed’ (NED.). The precise sense is uncertain. Often used as a weapon; B. Jonson, Every Man, i. 4 (Bobadil). ‘With throwing bed-staves at her’, Staple of News, v. 1 (Lickfinger).
bee, an armlet, ring. ‘A riche bee of gold’, Morte Arthur, leaf 135 (end); bk. vii, c. 35. The word is still in use in Ireland for a ferule (EDD.). ME. bee, an armlet (Paston Letters, iii. 464). OE. bēah.
beech-coal, charcoal made from beech wood. B. Jonson, Alchem. i. 1 (Face).