Other forms: besetting
To beset is to trouble from every side at once. Beset by problems, beset with difficulties, beset on all sides.
It is nearly always passive and nearly always followed by by or with. The sense of surrounding is literal in origin, since to beset first meant to besiege, and the modern use keeps that image of no way out.
1verbbesetTo trouble from every side at once.
“The travellers were beset by storms, illness and bandits on their long journey.”
beset is a troubling.
Old English besettan means to surround or besiege, from be- plus settan, to set.
Proto-Indo-European
*sed-
Proto-Indo-European
*h₁epi — at; near; on
Proto-Germanic
*bisatjaną — to fill, occupy
Proto-West Germanic
*bisattjan
Old English
besettan
Middle English
besetten
English, today
beset
Built from
From Middle English besetten, bisetten (“to besiege, blockade; to fill, occupy; to harass, beset; to allot, bestow; to arrange, manage; to place, set; to provide for; to treat in a certain way”), from Old English besettan, bisettan (“to surround, beset; to set near; etc.”), from Proto-West Germanic bisattjan, from Proto-Germanic bisatjaną (“to fill, occupy”), from bi- (ultimately from Proto-Indo-European h₁epi (“at; near; on”)) + satjaną (“to place down, set”) (ultimately from Proto-Indo-European sed- (“to sit”)). by surface analysis, be- + set. 2
Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA