to mock, ridicule, or treat with scorn and contempt; to make a fool of someone.
From the prefix 'be-' combined with 'geck' (from Middle High German 'geck' meaning fool or jester). The verb form means to make someone into a geck or to treat them as foolish.
The word 'geck' survives mainly in historical or literary contexts, but 'begeck' reveals that in earlier English, people had specific words for the action of mocking someone in particular ways—a richer vocabulary for social cruelty.
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