Beswican

Part of speech: verb

Definitions

1. To mislead someone by trickery or deceit, a meaning drawn from an Old English verb used in older writing
2. Archaic term meaning to lead another person astray through cunning, falsehood or the use of enticement
3. To cheat or beguile someone, an obsolete English verb once used to describe deliberate deception

Etymology: Beswican is an Old English verb meaning "to deceive" or "to beguile," built from the prefix "be-" and "wican," meaning "to yield, give way, or bend." The prefix intensifies the sense: to bend someone thoroughly from the truth, or to lead them aside by trickery. The root "wican" also gave Old English "wīcian," to dwell or stay, and the two are related to Old Norse and Gothic forms that share the idea of giving way or yielding. The verb is attested only in Old English texts, so its survival in the language is a matter of the records that happen to exist rather than a long line of continuous use. Modern English has no direct descendant of it, and it passed out of use after the medieval period, leaving the prefixed form as a fossil of a once-productive pattern in which "be-" made new verbs of deception and enchantment from simple verbs of motion or yielding.