bequeath \bih-KWEETH\,
verb:
1. to dispose of (personal property, especially money) by last will: She bequeathed her half of the company to her niece.
2. to hand down; pass on.
3. Obsolete. to commit; entrust.
No matter that my father's then intention in making this will could only have been to bequeath virtually all that he had to leave to his firstborn son, one Heathcliff Earnshaw, twenty-one years deceased.
-- John Wheatcroft, "Catherine, Her Book," 1983
And because he had nothing to bequeath to them that should survive him but his crutches, and his good wishes, therefore thus he said, These crutches I bequeath to my son, that shall tread in my steps, with a hundred warm wishes that he may do better than I have done.
-- John Bunyan, "Pilgrim's Progress," 1678
Bequeath came to English from the Old English cweðan meaning "to say," ultimately finding its root in the Proto-Indo-European term gwet-.
Dictionary.com
