be
Meanings
- As an auxiliary verb:
- Used with past participles of verbs to form the passive voice.
- Used with present participles of verbs to form the continuous aspect.
- Used with to-infinitives of verbs to express intent, obligation, appropriateness, or relative future occurrence.
- Used with past participles of certain intransitive verbs to form the perfect aspect.
- To tend to do, often do; marks the habitual aspect.
- As a copulative verb:
- To exist.
- Used to declare the subject and object identical or equivalent.
- Used to indicate that a predicate nominal applies to the subject.
- Used to indicate that the subject has the qualities described by an adjective or prepositional phrase.
- Used to indicate that the subject has the qualities described by a noun or noun phrase.
- Alternative form of by. Also found in compounds, especially oaths, e.g. begorra.
- The name of the Cyrillic script letter Б / б
- Initialism of Bachelor of Engineering.
- Initialism of breast expansion.
- Abbreviation of Berlin: a state of Germany.
- Abbreviation of Bengkulu: a province of Indonesia.
- Initialism of Black English.
- Initialism of Buddhist Era.
- Initialism of board-eligible.
Pronunciation
Word forms
Etymology
From Middle English been (“to be”). See below for more. Further etymology of be and its conjugated forms The various forms have three separate origins, which were mixed together at various times in the history of English. * The forms beginning with b- come from Old English bēon (“to be, become”), from Proto-Germanic *beuną (“to be, exist, come to be, become”), from Proto-Indo-European *bʰuH-yé-ti (“to grow, become, come into being, appear”), from the root *bʰuH-. In particular: ** Now-dialectal use of been as an infinitive of be is either from Middle English been (“to be”) or an extension of the past participle. ** Now-obsolete use of been as a plural present tense (meaning "are") is from Middle English been, be (present plural of been (“to be”), with the -n leveled in from the past and subjunctive; compare competing forms aren/are). ** Use of been as a past participle is from Middle English been, ybeen, from Old English ġebēon. * The forms beginning with w- come from the aforementioned Old English bēon, which shared its past tense with the verb wesan, from Proto-West Germanic *wesan, from Proto-Germanic *wesaną, from Proto-Indo-European *h₂wes- (“to reside”). * The remaining forms (am, are, is) are also from Old English wesan (“to be”), Proto-West Germanic *wesan, from Proto-Germanic *wesaną, the present tense of which comes from Proto-Indo-European *h₁és-ti, from the root *h₁es-.