besiege
to surround a place with armed forces in order to capture it, or to overwhelm someone with requests or questions
Word origin: From be- plus siege, ultimately from Latin sedere, to sit (a sitting-down before a fortress).
Besiege in a sentence
Here are example sentences showing besiege in a sentence.
Reporters besieged the senator with questions after the scandal broke.
After the announcement, reporters besieged the spokesperson with questions she was not authorized to answer.
Using “besiege” well
Besiege carries both a literal military sense and a figurative one of being overwhelmed by demands. The figurative use is what the GRE most often tests.
More GRE words starting with B
marked by riotous, unrestrained revelry and drunken festivity
to pester or harass someone persistently
light, playful, and witty banter
to confuse or perplex thoroughly
threatening harm or menacing in a sinister way
to hesitate or refuse to proceed with something
to swell or puff out, or to increase rapidly in amount or size
lacking originality and so dull or commonplace
Questions about “besiege”
See these words the way the GRE tests them.
Definitions in isolation do not stick. Sit a free, full-length GRE mock and meet this vocabulary inside real text completion and sentence equivalence questions, with your score and a worked solution for every answer.