Definition of "besetment" [be•set•ment]

• The state of being beset. (noun)

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• "The man's abiding obsession -- if we may call his besetment thus -- changed in practically all essential regards the manners and the practices of his daily life."
• "In the mean time the wind had been driving the ice so fast off the land as to form for us a clear communication with the open water before seen to the eastward; and thus we were at length liberated from our confinement, after a close and tedious "besetment" of twenty-four days."
• ""besetment," for, in fact, it was now nothing more."