A rare or obsolete verb meaning to infest with worms or to make wormy, or to cause worms to affect something.
From 'be-' (causative prefix) + 'worm' (from Old English 'wyrm'). The structure suggests 'to cause to be wormy' or 'to fill with worms.' This follows the standard pattern of Old and Middle English verb formation, though it never became common enough to survive into modern standard English.
The idea of 'beworm' makes sense—if you can 'bejewel' something (cover it with jewels) then logically you could 'beworm' it, but only one of these felt natural enough to speakers to survive. This shows that even with productive patterns, language is democratic—words survive if enough people keep using them, and obscure ones like 'beworm' simply fell out of fashion.
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