bestead (besteads, present participle besteading; past besteaded, past participle bestead)

1. (transitive) To help, assist.
   • 1603, Michel de Montaigne, chapter 40, in John Florio, transl., The Essayes, […], book I, printed at London: By Val[entine] Simmes for Edward Blount […], OCLC 946730821 ↗:

     even errours and dreames, doe profitably bestead her, as a loyall matter, to bring us unto safetie and contentment.

   • 1611, The Holy Bible, […] (King James Version), imprinted at London: By Robert Barker, […], OCLC 964384981 ↗, Isaiah 8:21 ↗:

     And they shall pass through it, hardly bestead and hungry: and it shall come to pass, that when they shall be hungry, they shall fret themselves, and curse their king and their God, and look upward.

2. (transitive) To profit; benefit; serve; avail.
   • 1859, Southern literary messenger: Volume 28:

     With forty sous which remained, he went to a low gambling house, where fortune, or something surer to the skilful practitioner, so well besteaded him that he was able to clothe himself decently preparatory to entering Frascati's, the fashionable hell of Paris—a den of abomination early suppressed on the accession of Louis Philippe to the French throne.

• (help; assist) aid, lend a hand; See also Thesaurus:help
• (profit; benefit; serve; avail) bestand; See also Thesaurus:serve

bestead (besteads, present participle besteading; past and past participle besteaded)

1. (transitive) To take the place of; replace.

bestead (not comparable)

1. (archaic) Placed (in a given situation); beset.
2. (obsolete) Disposed mentally; affected.

   sorrowfully bested

3. (obsolete) Provided; furnished.