begem

English

Etymology

From be- +‎ gem.

Verb

begem (third-person singular simple present begems, present participle begemming, simple past and past participle begemmed)

1. To adorn (as if) with gems.
   • 1748, Laetitia Pilkington, “Queen Mab to Pollio”, in Memoirs‎, Dublin, page 151:

     Our Grove we illuminate, glorious to see,
     With glittering Glow-worms begemming each Tree;

   • 1821, Percy B[ysshe] Shelley, Adonais: An Elegy on the Death of John Keats, […], Pisa, Italy: […] Didot; reprinted London: Noel Douglas […], 1927, →OCLC, stanza 11:

     One […] threw
     The wreath upon him, like an anadem,
     Which frozen tears instead of pearls begem;

   • 1929, Marcel Proust, translated by C. K. Scott Moncrieff, The Captive‎, New York: Modern Library, Part I, Chapter 1, p. 3:

     Time was, when a stage manager would spend hundreds of thousands of francs to begem with real emeralds the throne upon which a great actress would play the part of an empress.