Obs. exc. dial. Forms: 5 besil, 6 beizle, 7 beezel, bezel, bezzel, bizle, bizel, 8 bezil, bezzil, 7– bezzle. [Late ME. besil, a. OF. besiler, besillier, beziller, to lay waste, ravage, destroy; shortened form of embesillier: see EMBEZZLE.] General sense: To make away with wastefully.
† 1. trans. To plunder, spoil; to make away with (the property of others). Obs. Cf. EMBEZZLE.
c. 1430. Lydg., Bochas, V. xvi. (1554), 132 b. That he should haue besiled the Of Chartage.
1594. Carew, Tasso (1881), 94. Her sweet showes and faire lookes shall beizle harts.
1611. Beaum. & Fl., Knt. Burn. Pest., I. iii. I have laid up a little for my younger son Michael, and thou think’st to ’bezzle that.
c. 1612. Fletcher, Woman’s Prize, IV. i. 115/2. I must be shut up and my substance bezel’d.
1720. Stow’s Surv. (Strype, 1754), II. VI. iii. 626/2. To suffer no manner of person to bezil or purloin … out of the said park any timber.
2. intr. To make away with a large quantity of food or especially drink; to drink to excess, to guzzle, to revel.
1604. Dekker, Honest Wh., Wks. 1873, II. 113. I wonder how the inside of a Tauerne lookes now. Oh when shall I bizle, bizle?
1612. T. Taylor, Comm. Titus i. 7. (1619), 143. It is too much for a minister to lie bezelling in the delight of his tast.
1633. T. Adams, Exp. 2 Peter ii. 12 (1865), 453/1. He that will be sober when others bezzle … is branded with the name of puritan.
1721. Bailey, Bezzle (q.d. to Beastle), to guzzle, tipple, or drink hard.
1875. Whitby Gloss. (E. D. S.), Beb or Bezzle, to drink.
b. trans. To make away with or consume (drink), waste or squander (one’s money). Obs. or dial.
1617. J. Taylor (Water P.), Trav., Wks. (1630), 78/2. 13 or 14 brewings haue beene … stayed in the Towne, as not sufficient to be beezeled in the Country.
[1775. Collier (Tim Bobbin), Tummus & Meary, Wks. (1862), 54. I drank meh Pint o Ele … I cawd for another, on [= and] bezzilt tat too. Ibid., 55. In i’dd’n [= an ye had] bezzilt owey moor brass inney [= than ye] hadd’n.
1875. Lanc. Gloss., 37. Bezzle, to waste, to squander; generally applied to drinking].
