v. and ppl. a. Obs. Also 6 bestrought. [f. BE- intensive + STRAUGHT (found as early as 1520); cf. also astraught, distraught. The genesis of these forms seems to have been thus: L. distractus gave distract, and (on some Eng. analogies) DISTRAUGHT; thence astraught and STRAUGHT; hence be-straught and (with reference again to distract) be-stract; finally bestraughted. Found as pa. pple. and also as pa. t. of a vb., of which the present ought analogically to have been bestract. But this is app. not found; and the later inflexions bestraughted, -ing, imply that bestraught was itself assumed as the present.]
1. as pa. t. of a vb. Distracted, bereft (of wits).
1580. North, Plutarch (1676), 278. An Oracle … whose spirit possessed many Inhabitants thereabouts, and bestraught them of their wits.
2. pa. pple. and adj. Distracted, distraught.
a. 1547. Surrey, Æneid, IV. 360. Æneas with that vision striken down Well nere bestraught.
1586. Warner, Alb. Eng., I. ii. ’Till she, as one bestrought Did crie.
1603. Holland, Plutarch’s Mor., 459. His wits were bestraught.
1642. T. Taylor, God’s Judgem., I. I. vii. 14. Like a man bestraught he ranne after them.
1748. Richardson, Clarissa (1811), VIII. 248. I have been, to use an old word, quite bestraught.
