Beleaguer

 WORD OF THE DAY

beleaguer / verb / bih-LEE-gur

Definition
1: besiege
2: trouble, harass

Examples
"Pharmacists, some of whom already are financially beleaguered, say they can't afford an additional, unexpected hit that takes away as much as 50% of their annual profit."
— Darrel Rowland, The Akron (Ohio) Beacon Journal, 31 Oct. 2021

Many Indians obeyed the rules, wary of catching the virus and not trusting India’s beleaguered health care system to save them.
— New York Times, 6 May 2020

Did You Know
English speakers created "beleaguer" from the Dutch word belegeren in the 16th century.
"[Military men] will not vouchsafe . . . to use our ancient terms belonging to matters of war, but do call a camp by the Dutch name," commented the English soldier and diplomat Sir John Smyth in 1590.
The word for "camp" that he was referring to is "leaguer."
That term in turn comes from Dutch "leger," which is one of the building blocks of "belegeren" (literally, "to camp around").
But neither "leaguer" nor "beleaguer" were in fact utterly foreign. Old English "leger," the source of our modern "lair," is related to the Dutch word.
And the Old English "be-" ("about, around"), as seen in "besiege" and "beset," is related to the Dutch prefix be- in "belegeren."