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to cause to endure excessive burdens or anxieties; -- sometimes followed by out. [Troops] harassed with a long and wearisome march. Bacon. Nature oppressed and harass'd out with care. Addison. Vext with lawyers and harass'd with debt. Tennyson.

One who harasses.

The act of harassing, or state of being harassed; worry; annoyance; anxiety. Little harassments which I am led to suspect do occasionally molest the most fortunate. Ld. Lytton.

To provoke and harass; esp., to harass or torment for sport; as, to bait a bear with dogs; to bait a bull.

To set upon on all sides; to perplex; to harass; -- said of dangers, obstacles, etc. "Adam, sore beset, replied." Milton. "Beset with ills." Addison. "Incommodities which beset old age." Burke.

Habitually attacking, harassing, or pressing upon or about; as, a besetting sin.

guerrilla; a marauding assassin; one who pretends to be a peaceful citizen, but secretly harasses a hostile force or its sympathizers. [U.S.] Farrow.

Fitted to harass, perplex, or insnare; insidious; troublesome. Captious restraints on navigation. Bancroft.

nish with that which will be a cause of deep trouble; to afflict or injure grievously; to harass or torment. On impious realms and barbarous kings impose Thy plagues, and curse 'em with such sons as those. Pope. To curse by bell, book, and candle. See under Bell.

To strike with confused or clanging sound; to stun with loud and continued noise; to harass with clamor; as, to din the ears with cries.

State of being disquieted; uneasiness; harassment. [R.] Hopkins.

agitate by conflicting passions, or by a variety of motives or of cares; to confound; to harass. Horror and doubt distract His troubled thoughts. Milton.

To cause pain or anguish to; to pain; to oppress with calamity; to afflict; to harass; to make miserable. We are troubled on every side, yet not distressed. 2 Cor. iv. 8.

To harass or reduce to subjection by dragoons; to persecute by abandoning a place to the rage of soldiers.

he attention and effort of; to task; to tax, especially in a painful or vexatious manner; harass; to vex; to worry or make anxious; to affect; to discipline; as, exercised with pain. Where pain of unextinguishable fire Must exercise us without hope of end. Milton.

ke that of Fabius Maximus, who, by carefully avoiding decisive contests, foiled Hannibal, harassing his army by marches, countermarches, and ambuscades; a policy of delays and cautions.

To weary with labor or any bodily or mental exertion; to harass with toil; to exhaust the strength or endurance of; to tire.

To beat; to chastise; also, to humble; to harass; to worry. [Obs.] insworth.

To harass; to torment; to distress. [Obs.] Spenser.

To injure; to harass; to annoy; as, the troops were galled by the shot of the enemy. In our wars against the French of old, we used to gall them with our longbows, at a greater distance than they could shoot their arrows. Addison.