FreeScrabbleDictionary

be

Valid in Scrabble

Scrabble points
4
Words With Friends
5
Letters
2
Pronunciation
/biː/
See all 8 pronunciations
/biː/ · [biː] · [bi(ː)] (US) · [bɪj] · /bi/ · /bɪ/ · /bə/ · /beɪ/

Definition of be

34 senses · 5 parts of speech · etymology included

verb

  1. (auxiliary, irregular)As an auxiliary verb:
    “The dog was saved by the boy.”
    “Study courses of Esperanto and Ido have been broadcast.”
See all 34 definitions

verb

  1. (auxiliary, irregular)As an auxiliary verb:
    “The dog was saved by the boy.”
    “Study courses of Esperanto and Ido have been broadcast.”
  2. (irregular)As an auxiliary verb:
    “The woman is walking.”
    “I shall be writing to you soon.”
    “We liked to chat while we were eating.”
    “In the possibility of radio uses of a constructed language — and such experiments are proving successful—vast sums of money and untold social forces may be involved.”
  3. (formal, irregular)As an auxiliary verb:
    “I am to leave tomorrow.”
    “They are to stay here until I return.”
    “I'd been to've been ambassador, but fell seriously ill.”
    “How were they to know the whole exercise was a ruse?”
    “They were to have been married overseas but COVID forced a change of plans.”
  4. (irregular)As an auxiliary verb:
    “He is finished.”
    “He is gone.”
    “He is come.”
    “They are not yet come back.”
    “And he cryed mightily with a strõg voyce, saying, Babylon the great is fallen, is fallen, and is become the habitation of deuils[…]”
  5. (Caribbean, Ireland, auxiliary, irregular)As an auxiliary verb:
    “1996, David Sheffield, Barry W. Blaustein, Tom Shadyac and Steve Oedekerk, screenplay of The Nutty Professor Women be shoppin’! You cannot stop a woman from shoppin’!”
    “Niggas be tellin' these bitches 'bout business”
  6. (irregular, with-dummy-subject)As a copulative verb:
    “There is just one woman in town who can help us.”
    “(or, dialectally:) It is just one woman in town who can help us.”
    “Some men there are loue not a gaping Pigge: / Some that are mad, if they behold a Cat: / And others, when the bag-pipe sings i’th nose, / Cannot containe their Vrine for affection.”
    “"There is a sort of domestic enjoyment to be known even in a crowd, and this you had."”
    “"There has been lots of commentary on who is staying and who is staying out and this weekend will be the real test," said one senior media buying agency executive who has pulled the advertising for one major client.”
  7. (irregular)As a copulative verb:
    “Hi, I’m Jim.”
    “3 times 5 is fifteen.”
    “These four are the ones going to the quarter-finals.”
    “François Mitterrand was president of France from 1981 to 1995.”
    “This is how we do it.”
  8. (irregular)As a copulative verb:
    “Rex is a dog.”
    “A dog is an animal.”
    “Dogs are animals.”
  9. (irregular)As a copulative verb:
    “The sky is blue.”
    “Saying, Father, if thou be willing, remooue this cup from me: neuerthelesse, not my will, but thine be done.”
  10. (irregular)As a copulative verb:
    “The sky is a deep blue today.”
  11. (colloquial, humorous, irregular)As a copulative verb:
    “He’s a little autism.”
  12. (irregular)As a copulative verb:
    “This building is three hundred years old.”
    “I am 75 kilograms.”
    “He’s about 6 feet tall.”
  13. (irregular)As a copulative verb:
    “I’m 20 (years old).”
  14. (irregular)As a copulative verb:
    “It is almost eight (o’clock).”
    “It’s 8:30 [read eight-thirty] in Tokyo.”
    “What time is it there? It’s night.”
  15. (irregular)As a copulative verb:
    “It has been three years since my grandmother died. (similar to "My grandmother died three years ago", but emphasizes the intervening period)”
    “It had been six days since his departure, when I received a letter from him.”
  16. (irregular, past, rare, regional)As a copulative verb:
    “I saw her Monday was a week: I saw her a week ago last Monday (a week before last Monday).”
    “On the morning of Sunday was fortnight before Christmas: on the morning of the Sunday that was two weeks before the Sunday prior to Christmas.”
    “Miss Lardner (whom you have seen at her cousin Biddulph's) saw you at St James's church on Sunday was fortnight.”
    “And so, without as much as to return home to furnish myself for such a journey, volens, nolens, they prevailed, or rather forced me to come to Dublin to confer with those colonels, and that was the last August was twelvemonth.”
    “That they were present at the Election in August was Twelvemonth, at which there was the strictest Scrutiny that ever they saw in their Lives, by all the Four Candidates.”
  17. (irregular)As a copulative verb:
    “and when he compares both sides, he will be some time at a loss to fix any determination.”
    “The bag was crisp with ice, and with my fingerless gloves I was a bit of time unholing the buttons. But I got the flap turned back at last, and there was Ryan grey-faced and stark.”
  18. (irregular)As a copulative verb:
    “Dinner will be ten minutes.”
    “It was an hour before he returned.”
  19. (impersonal, irregular, often)As a copulative verb:
    “It is hot in Arizona, but it is not usually humid.”
    “Why is it so dark in here?”
  20. (especially, irregular)As a copulative verb:
    “When I get sad, I stop being sad and be awesome instead.”
    “"What do we do?" "We be ourselves."”
    “Just be yourself.”
    “Why is he being nice to me?”
    “Dad is taking a nap, so we're all being quiet.”
  21. (irregular, literary, usually)As an intransitive lexical verb:
    “The Universe has no explanation: it just is.”
    “That was the week that was.”
    “This is something that was meant to be.”
    “Rachel wepynge ffor her chyldren / and wolde nott be comforted becauſe they were not.”
    “To be, or not to be: that is the question: / Whether 'tis nobler in the mind to suffer / The slings and arrows of outrageous fortune, / Or to take arms against a sea of troubles, / And by opposing end them?”
  22. (irregular)As an intransitive lexical verb:
    “Let them be for a few hours.”
    “Leave us be until the guests arrive.”
  23. (irregular)As an intransitive lexical verb:
    “The cup is on the table.”
  24. (irregular)As an intransitive lexical verb:
    “When will the meeting be?”
  25. (irregular)As an intransitive lexical verb:
    “The postman has been today, but my tickets have still not yet come.”
    “I have been to Spain many times.”
    “We've been about twenty miles.”
    “I have terrible constipation – I haven't been for several days.”
    “I’ve been into town this morning.”

prep

  1. (alt-of, alternative, dated, dialectal, possibly)Alternative form of by. Also found in compounds, especially oaths, e.g. begorra.
    “O ful tru un pertikler akeawnt o... th' greyt Eggshibishun. Be o felley fro Rachde.”
    “Go thy way vorth be tha vootsteps uv tha vlock.”
    “Aw teuk me seat be day an' neet.”
    “Fetchin' it yan... be a round about rooad.”
    “Like a leeaf be firm decree / Mun fade an' fall.”

noun

  1. The name of the Cyrillic script letter Б / б
  2. (abbreviation, alt-of, countable, initialism, uncountable)Initialism of Bachelor of Engineering.
  3. (abbreviation, alt-of, countable, initialism, uncountable)Initialism of breast expansion.

name

  1. (abbreviation, alt-of)Abbreviation of Berlin: a state of Germany.
  2. (abbreviation, alt-of)Abbreviation of Bengkulu: a province of Indonesia.
  3. (abbreviation, alt-of, initialism)Initialism of Black English.
  4. (abbreviation, alt-of, initialism)Initialism of Buddhist Era.
    “For quotations using this term, see Citations:BE.”

adj

  1. (abbreviation, alt-of, initialism, not-comparable)Initialism of board-eligible.

Definitions from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA.

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…

See full 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-.

Anagrams of be

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Hooks

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