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beset

Verb
Pronunciation

Understanding ARPABET Pronunciation

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The pronunciation guide uses the ARPABET phonetic system—the same system used in speech recognition and text-to-speech applications.

Vowel Examples:
AE1 = cat, bat
EH1 = bed, head
IY1 = see, me
OW1 = go, boat
UW1 = boot, do
Stress Numbers:
0 = no stress (unstressed)
1 = primary stress (loud)
2 = secondary stress (medium)
Example:
AH0 TH IY1 N AH0
= a-THEE-na (Athena)

The stressed syllable (marked with 1) is pronounced louder and clearer than others.

Quick Definition

Surrounded by difficulties or troubles. It often suggests being pressed on all sides by hardship.

Detailed Definition
Beset is a somewhat literary verb meaning to trouble, harass, or hem in. In this poem, it describes the speaker’s condition as one of continual pressure and difficulty, reinforcing the poem’s hard, unsentimental tone. The word is common in older or elevated writing but less so in everyday speech.
Example
Example in poetry:
“I am, being woman, hard beset,” means troubled, surrounded, or pressed by difficulties; in Miltonic and biblical diction, people may be beset by enemies, doubts, or temptations; “beset by bills and sleeplessness, she kept walking” gives the verb a contemporary social context; the passive construction emphasizes pressure acting upon the speaker
Additional Notes
In "hard beset," the verb is a literary way of saying troubled or hemmed in, which many readers may need to look up.; Found in the poem, Now Let No Charitable Hope by Elinor Wylie
Also Known As
surrounded encircled besieged Ridden
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