besiege
part of speech
verb (besiege, besieges, besieged, besieging)
meaning for a pupil
1) To surround a castle, town or city with an army so that nobody can get in or out, to make it give up. tree →
2) To crowd around someone or something, as in «fans besieged the singer». tree →
3) To send someone very many questions, letters or requests. tree →
sense in the lessons
In history lessons it is used for sieges of castles and walled towns, with soldiers, catapults and hunger inside the walls. In stories and news, «besieged by reporters» tells the reader someone is surrounded by a crowd. Phrases: «besieged by», «besiege a castle».
examples
- The army besieged the castle for six months. tree →
- The town was besieged and food ran out. tree →
- Fans besieged the footballer outside the stadium. tree →
- The teacher was besieged with questions about the trip. tree →
- Reporters besieged the house after the news broke. tree →
- The Vikings besieged Paris in 885. tree →
- Our shop was besieged by shoppers on sale day. tree →
- Having collected a large army Heracles set out for Euboea in order to besiege Oechalia, its capital. tree →
note
Regular verb: besieged, besieging. Spelling trap: «ie» in besiege, like siege (i before e). Noun: siege, as in «the siege lasted a year». Often used in the passive: «was besieged by».
In the corpora
- The Mongols used Chinese and Persian engineers to besiege walled cities, and cities that resisted were often destroyed and many people died.
- And if it will make no peace with thee, but will make war against thee, then thou shalt besiege it.
- And Saul summoned all the people to war, to go down to Keilah, to besiege David and his men.
- And Omri went up from Gibbethon, and all Israel with him, and they besieged Tirzah.
- Then the king of Assyria came up throughout all the land, and went up to Samaria, and besieged it three years.
Trees and pragmatics
Every meaning and example of «besiege» parsed by Mova, each sentence with its dependency tree and frames.