Osbert Sitwell
Did you know?
Bedizen doesn't have the flashy history you might expect—its roots lie in the rather quiet art of spinning thread. In times past, the spinning process began with the placement of fibers (such as flax) on an implement called a distaff; the fibers were then drawn out from the distaff and twisted into thread. Bedizen descends from the older, now obsolete, verb disen, which means "to dress a distaff with flax" and which came to English by way of Middle Dutch. The spelling of disen eventually became dizen, and its meaning expanded to cover the "dressing up" of things other than distaffs. In the mid-17th century, English speakers began using bedizen with the same meaning.
Cite this Entry
“Bedizen.” Merriam-Webster.com Dictionary, Merriam-Webster, https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/bedizen. Accessed 18 Jun. 2026.
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bedizen
verb
