ppl. a. [f. prec. + -ED.]
1. Possessed with, or as with, a devil.
1574. Hellowes, Gueuara’s Ep. (1577), 310. He commeth from abroade so furious … and so beediveld, that none may abide him.
1668. R. L’Estrange, Vis. Quev. (1708), 2. You are to say, this is a Devil Catchpol’d, and not a Catchpole bedevil’d.
1785–95. Wolcott (P. Pindar), Lousiad, Wks. IV. I. 296. No sheep, like sheep be-devill’d, ran about.
1879. R. Stevenson, Trav. Cevennes, 180. Those who took to the hills … had all gloomy and bedevilled thoughts.
2. Driven frantic, as if by satanic agency; worried, ‘bothered.’
1828. Southey, Lett. (1856), IV. 92. This be-duped and bedevil’d nation.
1852. Hawthorne, Blithed. Rom., II. iii. 61. Bedevilled with one grief or another.
3. Mischievously or bewilderingly transformed, utterly confused, or muddled.
1755. Smollett, Quix. (1803), I. 47. The unintelligible and bedeviled discourses of his author.
1809. Windham, Lett., in Speeches (1812), I. 114. The whole is so bedevilled, that there is no restoring things to their original state.
4. Cookery. Grilled or broiled, with the addition of hot spice; = DEVILLED.
1814. Southey, in Q. Rev., XII. 223. The gizzard was … sent from the table to be broiled and seasoned, and … returned thus bedevilled.
1862. Sat. Rev., 13 Sept., 309. Whitebait simple and whitebait bedevilled.
