be🔊

(Used with past participles of verbs to form the passive voice.)

(Used with present participles of verbs to form the continuous aspect.)

(formal) (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.)

(African-American Vernacular, Caribbean, Ireland) To tend to do, often do; (marks the habitual aspect).

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.)

(colloquial, humorous) To have (a condition, especially a mental or physical disability).

(Used to link a subject to a measurement.)

(with a cardinal numeral) (Used to state the age of a subject in years.)

(Used to indicate the time of day.)

(Used to indicate passage of time since the occurrence of an event.)

(rare, regional) (Used to link two noun clauses: a day of the week, recurring date, month, or other specific time (on which the event of the main clause took place) and a period of time indicating how long ago that day was.)

To pass or spend (time).

To take a period of time.

(Used to indicate ambient conditions such as weather, light, noise or air quality.)

To exist or behave in a certain way.

(now usually literary) To exist; to have real existence, to be alive. +

To remain undisturbed in a certain state or situation.

To occupy a place.

To occur, to take place.

(Elliptical form of "be here", "go to and return from" or similar, also extending to certain other senses of "go".)

(dialectal, possibly dated) (Alternative form of by. Also found in compounds, especially oaths, e.g. begorra.)

The name of the Cyrillic script letter Б / б.