Definition of "beset" []

• To attack from all sides. (verb-transitive)
• To trouble persistently; harass. See Synonyms at attack. (verb-transitive)
• To hem in; surround: "the mountains which beset it round” ( Nathaniel Hawthorne). (verb-transitive)
• To stud, as with jewels. (verb-transitive)

American Heritage(R) Dictionary of the English Language, Fifth Edition. Copyright (c) 2011 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. All rights reserved.

• "But the project is beset from the start by a fiendish enemy, and also that weird phantom of outer space, Zero Gravity."
• "But there's an I-told-you-so attitude in the West Wing — a rare feel-good moment in a second term beset by a succession of crises."
• "For Brown, appreciated by some but widely unloved, election day could mark the ignominious end of a three-year term beset by division within his party, relentless media sniping and the near-collapse of the British economy."