Etymology
1. O.E.
beon, beom, bion "be, exist, come to be, become," from P.Gmc.
*beo-, *beu-. Roger Lass ("Old English") describes the verb as "a collection of semantically related paradigm fragments," while Weekley calls it "an accidental conglomeration from the different Old English dial[ect]s." It is the most irregular verb in Mod.E. and the most common. Collective in all Gmc. languages, it has eight different forms in Mod.E.: BE (infinitive, subjunctive, imperative), AM (present 1st person singular), ARE (present 2nd person singular and all plural), IS (present 3rd person singular), WAS (past 1st and 3rd persons singular), WERE (past 2nd person singular, all plural; subjunctive), BEING (progressive & present participle; gerund), BEEN (perfect participle). The modern verb represents the merger of two once-distinct verbs, the "b-root" represented by
be and the
am/was verb, which was itself a conglomerate. The "b-root" is from PIE base
*bheu-, *bhu- "grow, come into being, become," and in addition to Eng. it yielded Ger. present first and second person sing. (
bin, bist, from O.H.G.
bim "I am,"
bist "thou art"), L. perf. tenses of
esse (
fui "I was," etc.), O.C.S.
byti "be," Gk.
phu- "become," O.Ir.
bi'u "I am," Lith.
bu'ti "to be," Rus.
byt' "to be," etc. It is also behind Skt.
bhavah "becoming,"
bhavati "becomes, happens,"
bhumih "earth, world." The paradigm in O.E. was:
| | SING. | PL. |
| 1st pres. | ic eom
ic beo | we sind(on)
we beoð |
| 2nd pres. | þu eart
þu bist | ge sind(on)
ge beoð |
| 3rd pres. | he is
he bið | hie sind(on)
hie beoð |
| 1st pret. | ic wæs | we wæron |
| 2nd pret. | þu wære | ge waeron |
| 3rd pret. | heo wæs | hie wæron |
| 1st pret. subj. | ic wære | we wæren |
| 2nd pret. subj. | þu wære | ge wæren |
| 3rd pret. subj. | Egcferð wære | hie wæren |
The "b-root" had no past tense in O.E., but often served as future tense of
am/was. In 13c. it took the place of the infinitive, participle and imperative forms of
am/was. Later its plural forms (
we beth, ye ben, they be) became standard in M.E. and it made inroads into the singular (
I be, thou beest, he beth), but forms of
are claimed this turf in the 1500s and replaced
be in the plural. For the origin and evolution of the
am/was branches of this tangle, see am and
was. The phrase
be-all and end all is from Shakespeare ("Macbeth" I.vii.5).
2. From Middle English been (“to be”). See below for more.
3. Further etymology of be and its conjugated forms
4. The various forms have three separate origins, which were mixed together at various times in the history of English.
5. * 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:
6. ** 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.
7. ** 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).
8. ** Use of been as a past participle is from Middle English been, ybeen, from Old English ġebēon.
9. * 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”).
10. * 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-. See: Middle English '
been', Proto-Germanic '
*beuną', Proto-Indo-European '
*bʰuHyéti', Middle English '
been', Middle English '
been', Middle English '
been', Proto-Germanic '
*wesaną', Old English '
wesan', Proto-Germanic '
*wesaną', Proto-Indo-European '
*h₁ésti'.
Verbs referencing "be"
Scots
be, Russian
быть, Old Church Slavonic
бꙑти, Lithuanian
būti, Sanskrit
भवति, Greek, Ancient
φύω, Plautdietsch
sennen.