besetting
/bɪsˈɛtɪŋ/
Word Rarity
Very rare
Frequency: 1.89 in modern English
12
Scrabble Score
9
Letters
3
Syllables
7
Unique Chars
Meaning
adj
adj
Example Sentences
- "I might also here tell you of the contests and battles that such are engaged in, wherein they find the besettings of Satan, above any other of the saints."
- "The first thing to bear in mind (especially if we ourselves belong to the clerico-academic-scientific type, the officially and conventionally “correct” type, “the deadly respectable” type, for which to ignore others is a besetting temptation) is that nothing can be more stupid than to bar out phenomena from our notice, merely because we are incapable of taking part in anything like them ourselves."
- "Rickie would not push himself. It was his besetting sin."
- "I did not then know the besetting sin of woman, the passion to discuss her private affairs with anyone who is willing to listen."
- "Neither were they connected with fear: he was conscious of no fear. Rather, they originated in a strange besetting desire to know what to do when the time came; a desire gigantically disproportionate to the few swift moments to which it referred; a wondering that was more like the wondering of some other spirit within his, than his own."