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• beleaguer •

Pronunciation: bê-lee-gêr • Hear it!

Part of Speech: Verb, transitive

Meaning: 1. Besiege, blockade, surround on all sides so as to prevent escape. 2. Inescapably beset by problems, harass, trouble.

Notes: Remember that today's Good Word incorporates the irrelevant word league and you should have no trouble spelling this word. The problem is, since it is totally irrelevant, you may have trouble recalling this league. Today's word comes with a personal and action noun, beleaguerer and beleaguerment, respectively. The adjective is beleaguering.

In Play: You might question whether the first sense of today's Good Word is relevant today. Well, it is: "I can't mow the lawn while the house is beleaguered by Girl Scouts!" However, the figurative sense is more often encountered. The wife's response to the assertion in the first example might be: "I am beleaguered by all the preparations for your office party tonight; can't you relieve me of this one problem?"

Word History: Today's Good Word comes from another Germanic language, Dutch belegeren "to besiege," from be- "around" + legeren "to camp". Legeren is derived from leger "bed, camp", related to German Lager "camp" and English lair. Dutch inherited this word from Proto-Germanic leg-raz-, based on the Proto-Indo-European word legh- "lie (down), lay". In fact legh- went into the making of these two English words. It crops up in several members of the Indo-European language family. In Russian it appears as lezhat' "to lie" and in German, as legen "to lay" and liegen "to lie". A camp in the past was seen as a safe place to lie down and rest. (Today I would like to offer the same gratitude as I showed yesterday to our major editors to Jeremy Busch, Slava as he is known in the Alpha Agora, for sending me corrections to my postings in the Agora.)

Richer and more fascinating word history than most. Calls for a chart with lines running here and there. Any relation to lager as in beer?

Let's get the obvious pun over. Players not eligible for the highest league become B-leaguers. Since I would like to keep Slava as my virtual friend, I shall not refer to him as a Busch leaguer.

Beeleaguered: (adj) Beeset by bees.

Ex: Ben found himself beeleaguered when he stumbled upon a colony of angry African Killer Bees while foraging for honey.

Yes, thank you slava. It is appreciated.


Beleaguer,
reminds me of movies where folks are traveling
a "league": what is a 'league'?
or the enemy is up the road a 'click': what is a click?

"Half a league, half a league, half a league onward..." one dictionary is certain it is 5.55... Kilometers. Others vary between 2.4 & 4.6 miles. Another said it was the distance one could walk in an hour, which would explain the variation.

Reminds me of the cubit, the distance from the tip of the middle finger to the elbow, which also would vary widely. Rule of thumb estimate 18".

"Clicks" also spelled Klicks, I've found in military writing and assumed it was short for kilometer. From four syllables to one saves a lot of breath.

Yep, I agree on click being a kilometer. At least that's how all my Canadian friends use it.

As to the meaning of league, it depends on which league you are talking about, as there are two.

League, as in League of Nations, and league as in a measure of distance.

PS: Thank you for acknowledging my existence, Dr. Goodword. I hope my "watchdoggery" is not overly offensive to you or my fellow Agorans.

Thanks on Clicks/Klicks and Leagues.