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To make destitute; to deprive; to strip; -- with of before the person or thing taken away. Madam, you have bereft me of all words. Shak. Bereft of him who taught me how to sing. Tickell.

To speak or arrange for beforehand; to order or engage against a future 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.

o think; to consider; -- generally followed by a reflexive pronoun, often with of or that before the subject of thought. I have bethought me of another fault. Shak. The rest . . . may . . . bethink themselves, and recover. Milton. We bethink a means to break it off. Shak.

In good season or time; before it is late; seasonably; early. To measure life learn thou betimes. Milton. To rise betimes is often harder than to do all the day's work. Barrow.

To be on one's guard; to be cautious; to take care; -- commonly followed by of or lest before the thing that is to be avoided. Beware of all, but most beware of man ! Pope. Beware the awful avalanche. Longfellow.

At a place or time not yet reached; before. A thing beyond us, even before our death. Pope.

The prayer for the souls of benefactors, said before the sermon.

Before. [Obs.]

ue. The person who draws the bil is called the drawer, the person on whom it is drawn is, before acceptance, called the drawee, -- after acceptance, the acceptor; the person to whom the money is directed to be paid is called the payee. The person making the order may himself be the payee. The bill itself is frequently…

A form of Bi-, sometimes used before s, c, or a vowel.

Earthen ware or porcelain which has undergone the first baking, before it is subjected to the glazing.

nabob Suraja Dowla on the night of June 20, 17656, and in which 123 of the prisoners died before morning from lack of air. A discipline of unlimited autocracy, upheld by rods, and ferules, and the black hole. H. Spencer.

erity of that day in 1360, which was so unusual that many of Edward III.'s soldiers, then before Paris, died from the cold. Stow. Then it was not for nothing that may nose fell a bleeding on Black Monday last. Shak.

ving of censure or disapprobation; culpability; fault; crime; sin. Holy and without blame before him in love. Eph. i. 4.

A kind of linen cloth made in Normandy, the thread of which is partly blanches before it is woven.

To give a white luster to (silver, before stamping, in the process of coining.).

To draw back from; to deny from fear. [Obs.] He now blenched what before he affirmed. Evelyn.

hak. It hath pleased thee to bless the house of thy servant, that it may continue forever before thee. 1 Chron. xvii. 27 (R. V. )

ns are so run by the guidance of electric signals that no train enters a section or block before the preceding train has left it.

blow a trumpet; to blow an organ. Hath she no husband That will take pains to blow a horn before her Shak. Boy, blow the pipe until the bubble rise, Then cast it off to float upon the skies. Parnell.