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The Learning Kingdom's Cool Word of the Day for June 15, 1999
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besot [v. bih-SOT]
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If something besots you, then it has either inspired you with
overwhelming love or it has made you stupid and muddled, as if you are
drunk. Example: "How could I have known, on that glorious morning,
that the lovely Lorelei would so besot me?"
Someone who is besotted might be called "drunk with love," but
originally the sense was more of being just plain drunk. The word
comes from the obsolete English sot (a habitual drunkard), from Old
English sott (to stupify; a fool or a drunkard). The earlier source
was probably Old French sot (foolish).
The transitive prefix be- was added by the mid 1500s, by which time
the word had acquired the sense of love-drunkenness and the phrase
"besotted lovers" entered English literature.
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