The verb is derived from Middle Englishbestowen, bistouen, bistowen(“to give, bestow; to apply (something to something else); to arrange or have control over (something); to place (someone) in a position; to use (for some purpose); (reflexive) to find (oneself) a place to live or shelter”)[and other forms],[1] from bi-(prefix forming verbs, often with a completive, figurative, or intensive meaning)[2] + stouen, stowen(“to pack (cargo) in a ship, stow; to place (someone) in a certain position; to provide quarters for, lodge; etc.”)[3][4][5] (ultimately from Proto-Indo-European*steh₂-(“to place; to stand (up)”)). The English word is analysable as be-(intensifying prefix forming verbs) + stow(“to put (something) away in a suitable place; etc.”).
Richmond, thy purling ſtreams and pleaſing ſhades, / Might claim the chorus of Aonian maids; / VVhere e’en Apollo might his hours beſtovv, / By turns employ his lyre, by turns his bovv, / VVhere all the pleaſures dvvell, vvhich poets feign / On fair Arcadia’s fields or Tempe’s plain.
O if I had had time to haue made nevv liueries: I vvoulde haue beſtovved the thouſand pound I borrovved of you, but tis no matter, this poore ſhevv doth better, this doth inferre the zeale I had to ſee him.
And thou ſhalt beſtow that money for whatſoeuer thy ſoule lutſeth after, for oxen, or for ſheepe, or for wine, or for ſtrong drinke, or for whatſoeuer thy ſoule deſireth: and thou ſhalt eat there before the Lord thy God, and thou ſhalt reioyce, thou and thine houſhold.
Harke yee Lords, you ſee I haue giuen her Phiſicke, / And you muſt needs beſtovv her Funerall, […]
1614, Walter Ralegh [i.e., Walter Raleigh], “Of the Time of the Birth of Abraham: And of the Use of This Question, for the Ordering of the Storie of the Assyrian Empire”, in The Historie of the World[…], London: […]William Stansby for Walter Burre,[…], →OCLC, 2nd book, §. III (The Answere to One of the Obiections Proposed, Shewing that Abraham Made but One Iourney out of Mesopotamia into Canaan: And It, after His Fathers Death), page 222:
[H]e [Moses] beſtovveth on the ſtory of Abraham fourteene chapters, beginning vvith his birth in the eleuenth, and ending vvith his death in the fiue and tvventieth; and this time endured but 175. yeares.
Lord, I have heard that thou art a merciful God, and haſt ordained that thy Son Jeſus Chriſt ſhould be the Saviour of the VVorld, and moreover, that thou art vvilling to beſtovv him upon ſuch a poor ſinner as I am, […]
1750 August 8, Samuel Johnson, “No. [38]. Saturday, July 28. 1750 [Julian calendar].”, in The Rambler, volume II, Edinburgh: [[…] Sands, Murray, and Cochran]; sold by W. Gordon, C. Wright, J. Yair,[…], published 1750, →OCLC, page 94:
I am come to offer you gifts, vvhich only your ovvn folly can make vain. You here pray for vvater, and vvater vvill I beſtovv.
He stopped at the outer door to bestow the greetings of the season on the clerk, who, cold as he was, was warmer than Scrooge; for he returned them cordially.
Sometimes I am caught by a delightful fragment in a magazine, and blaze up into the fiercest interest, bestow maledictions on the delay which the intervening month creates, but am burnt out by the time it expires, and so lose the thread.
Do they [parents] not sneakingly bestow on me their crass inability to do anything with their own misbegotten progeny, a subterfuge which I scornfully fub off on text-books?
2008 September 28, Illiad [pseudonym; J. D. Frazer], “The Large Hadron Collider Game: Or ‘Why Science is Hard and Getting People to Fund It is Harder’”, in User Friendly[1] (webcomic), archived from the original on 2022-02-25:
CERN bestows slush fund on the LHC. Take all pennies from the CERN space.
The diuell take the one partie, / And his dam the other, / And theyle be both beſtovved. / I haue endured more for their ſakes, / Then man is able to endure.
That is, the two wives will be placed in hell by the Devil and his wife.
Moreover I haue […]beſtovved the chiefe grounds, Principles, Rules, and Obſeruations [of heraldry] vnder their proper heads, and manifeſted their vſe by examples of ſpeciall choice, […]
c.1615–1617 (date written; published 1652), Thomas Middleton, “The Widow”, in A[rthur] H[enry] Bullen, editor, The Works of Thomas Middleton[…] (The English Dramatists), volume V, London: John C. Nimmo[…], published 1885, →OCLC, Act I, scene i, page 128, lines 65–68:
Here are blank warrants of all dispositions; give me but the name and nature of your malefactor, and I'll bestow him according to his merits.
The white domestic pigeon pairs secure, / Nay, does mere duty by bestowing egg / In authorized compartment, warm and safe, / Boarding about, and gilded spire above, / Hoisted on pole, to dogs' and cats' despair!
The londes of a certayne man brought forth frutes plenteouſly⸝ and he thought in hym ſilfe ſayinge: whatt ſhall I do⸝ becauſe I have noo roume where to beſtowe my frutes?
Novv as I am a Chriſtian anſvver me, / In vvhat ſafe place you haue beſtovv'd my monie; / Or I ſhall breake that merrie ſconce of yours / That ſtands on tricks, vvhen I am vndiſpos'd: / VVhere is the thouſand Markes thou hadſt of me?
Near unto Aſſos, a citie in Troas, there is found in the quarries a certaine ſtone called Sarcophagus, […] The reaſon of the name is this, becauſe that vvithin the ſpace of fortie daies it is knovvne for certain to conſume the bodies of the dead vvhich are beſtovved therein, skin, fleſh, and bone, all ſave the teeth.
But as ſome of the Oxen in driving, miſſed their fellovvs behind and honing after them, bellovved as their nature is: Hercules chanced to heare them lovv again, and anſvver from out of the cave vvherein they had been beſtovved: vvhereat he turned back, and made haſte thither.
Of the Three Rings that the Elves had preserved unsullied no open word was ever spoken among the Wise, and few even of the Eldar knew where they were bestowed.
VVell my Maſters, I'le leaue him with you; novv I ſee him beſtovv'd, I'le goe looke for my goods, and Numps.
1821, Lord Byron, “Sardanapalus”, in Sardanapalus, a Tragedy; The Two Foscari, a Tragedy; Cain, a Mystery, London: John Murray,[…], →OCLC, Act III, scene i, page 87:
See that the women are bestow'd in safety / In the remote apartments: let a guard / Be set before them, with strict charge to quit / The post but with their lives— […]
Novv therefore vvould I haue thee to my Tutor / (For long agone I haue forgot to court, / Beſides the faſhion of the time is chang'd) / Hovv, and vvhich vvay I may beſtovv my ſelfe / To be regarded in her ſun-bright eye.
Hovv might vve ſee Falſtaffebeſtovv himſelf to night in his true colours, and not our ſelues be ſeene?
1608, [Guillaume de Salluste] Du Bartas, “[Du Bartas His Second VVeeke,[…]. Abraham.[…].] The Vocation. The I. Part of the III. Day of the II. Week.”, in Josuah Sylvester, transl., Du Bartas His Deuine Weekes and Workes[…], 3rd edition, London: […] Humfrey Lownes [and are to be sold by Arthur Iohnson[…]], published 1611, →OCLC, page 401:
He all aſſayls, and him ſo braue beſtovves, / That in his Fight he deals more deaths than blovves.
1638, Democritus Junior [pseudonym; Robert Burton], “Exercise Rectified of Body and Minde”, in The Anatomy of Melancholy.[…], 5th edition, Oxford, Oxfordshire: […][Robert Young, Miles Flesher, and Leonard Lichfield and William Turner] for Henry Cripps, →OCLC, partition 2, section 2, member 4, page 263:
They knovv not […] vvhat to do, or othervviſe hovv to beſtovv themſelves: like our moderne Frenchmen, that had rather loſe a pound of bloud in a ſingle combate, then a drop of ſvveat in any honeſt labour.
1602, William Warner, “The Fifth Booke. Chapter XXVII.”, in Albions England. A Continued Historie of the Same Kingdome, from the Originals of the First Inhabitants thereof:[…], 5th edition, London: […] Edm[und] Bollifant for George Potter,[…], →OCLC, page 134:
The Muſes bacely begge, or bibbe, or both, and muſt, for vvhy? / They finde as bad Beſtoe as is their Portage beggerly: / Yea novv by melancholie vvalkes and thred-bare coates vve geſſe / At Clyents and at Poetes: none vvorke more and profit leſſe, […]