See be- in All languages combined, or Wiktionary
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],
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],
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"About, regarding, concerning, over."
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[
"regarding",
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],
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{
"text": "bebreak, begladden, belabour, belove, behate, besmirch, bedazzle, besiege, befuddle"
}
],
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],
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{
"text": "belave, belick, bescatter, bekiss"
}
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"All around; about; abundantly; all over."
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[
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[
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[
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[
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"all over"
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"(rare or no longer productive) All around; about; abundantly; all over."
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],
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{
"text": "becalm, bedark, befree, befriend, bedim, beken, benight, benothing, bewet, besmooth, bestrange"
}
],
"glosses": [
"Forming verbs derived from nouns or adjectives, usually with the sense of \"to make, become, or cause to be\"."
],
"id": "en-be--en-prefix-en:doing",
"links": [
[
"verb",
"verb#English"
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[
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[
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"adjectives#English"
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"(rare or no longer productive) Forming verbs derived from nouns or adjectives, usually with the sense of \"to make, become, or cause to be\"."
],
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],
"examples": [
{
"text": "besequined, befeathered, beclawed, bewebbed, betasseled, beloved"
},
{
"bold_text_offsets": [
[
41,
44
]
],
"ref": "2010 October 17, Hadley Freeman, “Tattoos: what makes one spiritual and another Katona-esque?”, in The Guardian:",
"text": "Similarly, one could argue that if these be-tattooed yogic folk were really so spiritual, they wouldn't feel the need to inform everyone else of this or remind themselves of it, via the medium of the tattoo.",
"type": "quotation"
}
],
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"adorned#English"
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[
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"(archaic or informal) Used to intensify adjectives meaning \"adorned with something\", often those with the suffix -ed."
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"ipa": "/bɪ/"
},
{
"ipa": "/bi/"
},
{
"ipa": "/bə/",
"tags": [
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"General-American",
"General-Australian",
"New-Zealand",
"Received-Pronunciation"
]
},
{
"ipa": "/bɪ/",
"note": "Indic, always"
}
],
"word": "be-"
}
{
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"English intensifiers",
"English lemmas",
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"English terms derived from Middle English",
"English terms derived from Old English",
"English terms derived from Proto-Germanic",
"English terms derived from Proto-Indo-European",
"English terms derived from Proto-West Germanic",
"English terms derived from the Proto-Indo-European root *h₁ep-",
"English terms inherited from Middle English",
"English terms inherited from Old English",
"English terms inherited from Proto-Germanic",
"English terms inherited from Proto-Indo-European",
"English terms inherited from Proto-West Germanic",
"Pages using catfix",
"Pages using etymon with no ID",
"Pages with 23 entries",
"Pages with entries",
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{
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{
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{
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},
"expansion": "German Low German be- (“be-”)",
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{
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"2": "be-",
"3": "",
"4": "be-"
},
"expansion": "Swedish be- (“be-”)",
"name": "cog"
}
],
"etymology_text": "Etymology tree\nProto-Indo-European *h₁ep-der.\nProto-Indo-European *h₁epsder.\nProto-Indo-European *h₁epider.\nProto-Indo-European *h₁pi\nProto-Germanic *bider.\nProto-Germanic *bi-\nProto-West Germanic *bi-\nOld English be-\nMiddle English bi-\nEnglish be-\nFrom Middle English be-, bi-, from Old English be- (“be-”), from Proto-Germanic *bi- (“be-”), from Proto-Germanic *bi (“near, by”), ultimately from Proto-Indo-European *h₁epi (“at, near”). See by, by-.\nCognate with Saterland Frisian bi- (“be-”), West Frisian be- (“be-”), Dutch be- (“be-”), German Low German be- (“be-”), German be- (“be-”), Danish be- (“be-”), Swedish be- (“be-”).",
"head_templates": [
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{
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"English terms with rare senses"
],
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{
"text": "beleaguer, bestand, beset, besit"
}
],
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],
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[
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"by"
],
[
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"near"
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[
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"next to"
],
[
"around",
"around"
],
[
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"close to"
]
],
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"(rare or no longer productive) By, near, next to, around, close to."
],
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],
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},
{
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],
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{
"text": "begather, belay, belook, bestir, belive, besmell, bewrap"
}
],
"glosses": [
"Around; about."
],
"links": [
[
"Around",
"around"
],
[
"about",
"about"
]
],
"raw_glosses": [
"(rare or no longer productive) Around; about."
],
"senseid": [
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],
"tags": [
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"morpheme",
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]
},
{
"categories": [
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"English terms with rare senses"
],
"examples": [
{
"text": "bewrite, betalk, betell, belie, bemoan, bemourn, bewail, beknow, besing, bespeak"
}
],
"glosses": [
"About, regarding, concerning, over."
],
"links": [
[
"About",
"about"
],
[
"regarding",
"regarding"
],
[
"concerning",
"concerning"
],
[
"over",
"over"
]
],
"raw_glosses": [
"(rare or no longer productive) About, regarding, concerning, over."
],
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],
"tags": [
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"morpheme",
"rare"
]
},
{
"categories": [
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"English terms with rare senses"
],
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{
"text": "beclothe, becall, besee, behold, befall, bedo, beshine, besmile, betone"
}
],
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"On, upon, at, to, in contact with something."
],
"links": [
[
"On",
"on"
],
[
"upon",
"upon"
],
[
"at",
"at"
],
[
"to",
"to"
],
[
"contact",
"contact"
]
],
"raw_glosses": [
"(rare or no longer productive) On, upon, at, to, in contact with something."
],
"senseid": [
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],
"tags": [
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"morpheme",
"rare"
]
},
{
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"English terms with rare senses"
],
"examples": [
{
"text": "becut, bedeal, betake, bego, behead, belimb, benim, bereave, besleeve, betrunk"
}
],
"glosses": [
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],
"links": [
[
"Off",
"off"
],
[
"away",
"away"
],
[
"over",
"over"
],
[
"across",
"across"
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],
"raw_glosses": [
"(rare or no longer productive) Off, away, over, across"
],
"senseid": [
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],
"tags": [
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"morpheme",
"rare"
]
},
{
"categories": [
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"English terms with rare senses"
],
"examples": [
{
"text": "bebreak, begladden, belabour, belove, behate, besmirch, bedazzle, besiege, befuddle"
}
],
"glosses": [
"As an intensifier; i.e. thoroughly, excessively; completely; utterly."
],
"links": [
[
"intensifier",
"intensifier"
],
[
"thoroughly",
"thoroughly"
],
[
"excessively",
"excessively"
],
[
"completely",
"completely"
],
[
"utterly",
"utterly"
]
],
"raw_glosses": [
"(rare or no longer productive) As an intensifier; i.e. thoroughly, excessively; completely; utterly."
],
"senseid": [
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],
"tags": [
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"morpheme",
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]
},
{
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"English terms with rare senses"
],
"examples": [
{
"text": "belave, belick, bescatter, bekiss"
}
],
"glosses": [
"All around; about; abundantly; all over."
],
"links": [
[
"around",
"around"
],
[
"about",
"about"
],
[
"abundantly",
"abundantly"
],
[
"all over",
"all over"
]
],
"raw_glosses": [
"(rare or no longer productive) All around; about; abundantly; all over."
],
"senseid": [
"en:thoroughly"
],
"tags": [
"idiomatic",
"morpheme",
"rare"
]
},
{
"categories": [
"English links with redundant target parameters",
"English terms with rare senses"
],
"examples": [
{
"text": "becalm, bedark, befree, befriend, bedim, beken, benight, benothing, bewet, besmooth, bestrange"
}
],
"glosses": [
"Forming verbs derived from nouns or adjectives, usually with the sense of \"to make, become, or cause to be\"."
],
"links": [
[
"verb",
"verb#English"
],
[
"nouns",
"nouns#English"
],
[
"adjectives",
"adjectives#English"
]
],
"raw_glosses": [
"(rare or no longer productive) Forming verbs derived from nouns or adjectives, usually with the sense of \"to make, become, or cause to be\"."
],
"senseid": [
"en:doing"
],
"tags": [
"idiomatic",
"morpheme",
"rare"
]
},
{
"categories": [
"English informal terms",
"English links with redundant target parameters",
"English terms with archaic senses",
"English terms with quotations"
],
"examples": [
{
"text": "besequined, befeathered, beclawed, bewebbed, betasseled, beloved"
},
{
"bold_text_offsets": [
[
41,
44
]
],
"ref": "2010 October 17, Hadley Freeman, “Tattoos: what makes one spiritual and another Katona-esque?”, in The Guardian:",
"text": "Similarly, one could argue that if these be-tattooed yogic folk were really so spiritual, they wouldn't feel the need to inform everyone else of this or remind themselves of it, via the medium of the tattoo.",
"type": "quotation"
}
],
"glosses": [
"Used to intensify adjectives meaning \"adorned with something\", often those with the suffix -ed."
],
"links": [
[
"adorned",
"adorned#English"
],
[
"-ed",
"-ed#English"
]
],
"raw_glosses": [
"(archaic or informal) Used to intensify adjectives meaning \"adorned with something\", often those with the suffix -ed."
],
"senseid": [
"en:adorned"
],
"tags": [
"archaic",
"informal",
"morpheme"
]
}
],
"sounds": [
{
"ipa": "/bɪ/"
},
{
"ipa": "/bi/"
},
{
"ipa": "/bə/",
"tags": [
"Canada",
"General-American",
"General-Australian",
"New-Zealand",
"Received-Pronunciation"
]
},
{
"ipa": "/bɪ/",
"note": "Indic, always"
}
],
"word": "be-"
}
Download raw JSONL data for be- meaning in English (8.8kB)
This page is a part of the kaikki.org machine-readable English dictionary. This dictionary is based on structured data extracted on 2026-03-25 from the enwiktionary dump dated 2026-03-03 using wiktextract (05c257f and 9d9a410). The data shown on this site has been post-processed and various details (e.g., extra categories) removed, some information disambiguated, and additional data merged from other sources. See the raw data download page for the unprocessed wiktextract data.
If you use this data in academic research, please cite Tatu Ylonen: Wiktextract: Wiktionary as Machine-Readable Structured Data, Proceedings of the 13th Conference on Language Resources and Evaluation (LREC), pp. 1317-1325, Marseille, 20-25 June 2022. Linking to the relevant page(s) under https://kaikki.org would also be greatly appreciated.