See be in All languages combined, or Wiktionary
{
"forms": [
{
"form": "be",
"tags": [
"canonical"
]
},
{
"form": "am, is, are",
"tags": [
"present"
]
},
{
"form": "was, were",
"tags": [
"past"
]
},
{
"form": "been",
"tags": [
"past",
"participle"
]
},
{
"form": "being",
"tags": [
"present",
"participle"
]
}
],
"head_templates": [
{
"args": {
"1": "be",
"2": "am",
"3": "is",
"4": "are",
"5": "was",
"6": "were",
"7": "been",
"8": "being"
},
"expansion": "[POS TABLE]",
"name": "verb3"
}
],
"lang": "English",
"lang_code": "en",
"pos": "verb",
"senses": [
{
"categories": [],
"examples": [
{
"text": "The book is on the table."
},
{
"text": "There was someone in the room."
},
{
"text": "Were you at the party?"
}
],
"glosses": [
"This verb tells us that a thing is present, or in a place."
],
"id": "simple-be-en-verb-9P1m9sWy",
"raw_tags": [
"auxiliary",
"linking"
]
},
{
"categories": [],
"examples": [
{
"text": "The party was on Saturday."
},
{
"text": "The next meeting will be here."
}
],
"glosses": [
"Happen."
],
"id": "simple-be-en-verb-Vb2W7p8G",
"raw_tags": [
"auxiliary",
"linking"
]
},
{
"examples": [
{
"text": "I've never been to Disneyland."
}
],
"glosses": [
"Go somewhere; visit someone (only in the perfect tense)."
],
"id": "simple-be-en-verb-lCB4vcb7"
},
{
"categories": [],
"examples": [
{
"text": "The book is blue."
},
{
"text": "They were sad about losing the match."
},
{
"text": "John is 35 years old this year."
},
{
"text": "I'm fine."
},
{
"text": "He'd like to be a doctor."
},
{
"text": "The film was terrible!"
},
{
"text": "The book is 5 euro."
}
],
"glosses": [
"A verb we use when describing."
],
"id": "simple-be-en-verb-x9vby0fz",
"raw_tags": [
"auxiliary",
"linking"
]
},
{
"categories": [],
"examples": [
{
"text": "Look, Mummy! I'm being a dog! Woof, woof!"
}
],
"glosses": [
"Act like someone or something."
],
"id": "simple-be-en-verb-W-fp6awt",
"raw_tags": [
"auxiliary",
"linking"
]
},
{
"categories": [],
"examples": [
{
"text": "He is sitting on the chair."
},
{
"text": "I've been waiting for half an hour."
},
{
"text": "They will be leaving on Tuesday."
}
],
"glosses": [
"We use a form of be and a gerund-participle to make progressive aspect."
],
"id": "simple-be-en-verb-yfb4l820",
"raw_tags": [
"auxiliary"
]
}
],
"sounds": [
{
"ipa": "/biː/"
},
{
"sampa": "/bi:/"
},
{
"audio": "en-us-be.ogg",
"tags": [
"US"
]
},
{
"audio": "en-uk-to be.ogg",
"tags": [
"UK"
]
},
{
"homophones": [
"bee"
]
}
],
"word": "be"
}
{
"forms": [
{
"form": "be",
"tags": [
"canonical"
]
},
{
"form": "am, is, are",
"tags": [
"present"
]
},
{
"form": "was, were",
"tags": [
"past"
]
},
{
"form": "been",
"tags": [
"past",
"participle"
]
},
{
"form": "being",
"tags": [
"present",
"participle"
]
}
],
"head_templates": [
{
"args": {
"1": "be",
"2": "am",
"3": "is",
"4": "are",
"5": "was",
"6": "were",
"7": "been",
"8": "being"
},
"expansion": "[POS TABLE]",
"name": "verb3"
}
],
"lang": "English",
"lang_code": "en",
"pos": "verb",
"senses": [
{
"categories": [
"Auxiliary verbs",
"Linking verbs"
],
"examples": [
{
"text": "The book is on the table."
},
{
"text": "There was someone in the room."
},
{
"text": "Were you at the party?"
}
],
"glosses": [
"This verb tells us that a thing is present, or in a place."
],
"raw_tags": [
"auxiliary",
"linking"
]
},
{
"categories": [
"Auxiliary verbs",
"Linking verbs"
],
"examples": [
{
"text": "The party was on Saturday."
},
{
"text": "The next meeting will be here."
}
],
"glosses": [
"Happen."
],
"raw_tags": [
"auxiliary",
"linking"
]
},
{
"examples": [
{
"text": "I've never been to Disneyland."
}
],
"glosses": [
"Go somewhere; visit someone (only in the perfect tense)."
]
},
{
"categories": [
"Auxiliary verbs",
"Linking verbs"
],
"examples": [
{
"text": "The book is blue."
},
{
"text": "They were sad about losing the match."
},
{
"text": "John is 35 years old this year."
},
{
"text": "I'm fine."
},
{
"text": "He'd like to be a doctor."
},
{
"text": "The film was terrible!"
},
{
"text": "The book is 5 euro."
}
],
"glosses": [
"A verb we use when describing."
],
"raw_tags": [
"auxiliary",
"linking"
]
},
{
"categories": [
"Auxiliary verbs",
"Linking verbs"
],
"examples": [
{
"text": "Look, Mummy! I'm being a dog! Woof, woof!"
}
],
"glosses": [
"Act like someone or something."
],
"raw_tags": [
"auxiliary",
"linking"
]
},
{
"categories": [
"Auxiliary verbs"
],
"examples": [
{
"text": "He is sitting on the chair."
},
{
"text": "I've been waiting for half an hour."
},
{
"text": "They will be leaving on Tuesday."
}
],
"glosses": [
"We use a form of be and a gerund-participle to make progressive aspect."
],
"raw_tags": [
"auxiliary"
]
}
],
"sounds": [
{
"ipa": "/biː/"
},
{
"sampa": "/bi:/"
},
{
"audio": "en-us-be.ogg",
"tags": [
"US"
]
},
{
"audio": "en-uk-to be.ogg",
"tags": [
"UK"
]
},
{
"homophones": [
"bee"
]
}
],
"word": "be"
}
Download raw JSONL data for be meaning in English (2.2kB)
This page is a part of the kaikki.org machine-readable English dictionary. This dictionary is based on structured data extracted on 2025-01-13 from the simplewiktionary dump dated 2025-01-01 using wiktextract (4ba5975 and 4ed51a5). 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.