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A signal fire to notify of the approach of an enemy, or to give any notice, commonly of warning. No flaming beacons cast their blaze afar. Gay.

To beatify. [Obs.] Fuller.

The act of beatifying, or the state of being beatified; esp., in the R. C. Church, the act or process of ascertaining and declaring that a deceased person is one of "the blessed," or has attained the second degree of sanctity, -- usually a stage in the process of canonization. "The beatification of his spirit." Jer. Ta…

To notify or call by a nod, or a motion of the head or hand; to intimate a command to. [Archaic] When gold and silver becks me to come on. Shak.

on or in, as a quantity of hay, straw, leaves, or twigs. And made for him [a horse] a leafy bed. Byron. I wash, wring, brew, bake, . . . make the beds. Shak. In bed he slept not for my urging it. Shak.

Hence: To confuse; to mystify.

To exalt to the dignity of a god; to deify. [Obs.] "Begodded saints." South.

One whose great pleasure it is to gratify his appetite; a glutton; an epicure.

To muddle; to stupefy or bewilder; to confuse.

To muddle, daze, or partially stupefy, as with liquor. A parson much bemused in beer. Pope.

To make torpid; to deprive of sensation or sensibility; to stupefy; as, a hand or foot benumbed by cold. The creeping death benumbed her senses first. Dryden.

To make sottish; to make dull or stupid; to stupefy; to infatuate. Fools besotted with their crimes. Hudibras.

ture time; as, to bespeak goods, a right, or a favor. Concluding, naturally, that to gratify his avarice was to bespeak his favor. Sir W. Scott.

abet, B, b. See B, and cf. etymology of Alphabet. Beta (B, b) is used variously for classifying, as:

To signify by some visible object; to show by signs or tokens. A dewy cloud, and in the cloud a bow . . . Betokening peace from God, and covenant new. Milton.

oman Catholics; to distinguish each bead by a prayer. [Obs.] -- To bid defiance to , to defy openly; to brave. -- To bid fair, to offer a good prospect; to make fair promise; to seem likely.

Command; order; a proclamation or notifying. "Do thou thy master's bidding." Shak.

the thumb at (any one), formerly a mark of contempt, designed to provoke a quarrel; to defy. "Do you bite your thumb at us " Shak. -- To bite the tongue, to keep silence. Shak.

To avoid, as from fear; to evade; to leave unnoticed. [Obs.] Ifs and ands to qualify the words of treason, whereby every man might express his malice and blanch his danger. Bacon. I suppose you will not blanch Paris in your way. Reliq. Wot.

A suffix or terminal formative, used principally in biological terms, and signifying growth, formation; as, bioblast, epiblast, mesoblast, etc.