To step or walk over something thoroughly, or to trample down by stepping on repeatedly.
From 'be-' plus 'tread,' from Old English 'tredan' meaning to step or walk. The combination suggests thorough or repeated stepping action.
The verb 'tread' is one of English's oldest words, going back to Proto-Germanic, and 'betread' shows how we've been using the 'be-' prefix to intensify verbs for over a thousand years.
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