v. [f. BE- pref. 6 + MIRE sb.] Hence Bemired ppl. a., Bemiring vbl. sb.
1. trans. To cover or befoul with mire.
c. 1532. More, Answ. Frith, Wks. 833/2. If only they that are alredy bymired, were … myred on more and more.
1727. Swift, Gulliver, II. v. 144. I was filthily bemired.
1837. Hawthorne, Twice-told T. (1851), II. xvi. 237. His shoes were bemired, as if he had been travelling on foot.
b. fig.
1587. Golding, De Mornay, Pref. 1. Bemiring it [reason] in the filthy and beastly pleasures of the world.
1601. Cornwallyes, Ess., X. (1632). Good safe care to keep herself from bemiring.
1870. Spurgeon, Treas. Dav., Ps. xvii. 3. The purest innocence will be bemired by malice.
2. To plunge or roll in the mire; in pass. to sink in the mire, be bogged. lit. and fig.
1574. Hellowes, Gueuara’s Ep. (1577), 354. If we sinke not to the bottome, at the leaste we remaine all bemyred.
1654. Trapp, Comm. Ps. xl. 2, II. 690. As a bemired beast he was in a perishing condition.
1771. Wesley, Wks. (1872), VI. 36. Doubt … bemires the soul.
1883. Mary Hallock Foote, in Century Mag., Jan., 377/1. The freight-wagons, bemired in the deeply rutted roads.
