An archaic or dialectal form meaning to earn thoroughly or to gain something through effort.
From Old English 'beyrnan' or 'be-' combined with 'earn,' showing the medieval tendency to add the 'be-' prefix to verbs for emphasis. The word fell out of common use as English simplified its verb forms.
This word is a linguistic ghost—it shows us how English used to have much more flexible ways to modify verbs with prefixes, like many languages still do today (German's 'be-' prefix works exactly this way!). It's a remnant of when English was more like German.
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