be (bē)

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[Middle English ben, from Old English bēon, See am¹, is, etc. for links to other Indo-European roots.]

verb: First and third person singular past indicative, was (wŭz, wŏz; wəz when unstressed ) second person singular and plural and first and third person plural past indicative, were (wûr) past subjunctive, were past participle, been (bĭn) present participle, be·ing (bḗĭng) first person singular present indicative, am (ăm) second person singular and plural and first and third person plural present indicative, are (är) third person singular present indicative, is (ĭz) present subjunctive, be. 

intransitive verb 

1. To exist in actuality; have life or reality: I think, therefore I am.
2. 1. To occupy a specified position: The food is on the table.
   2. To remain in a certain state or situation undisturbed, untouched, or unmolested: Let the children be.
3. To take place; occur: The test was yesterday.
4. To go or come: Have you ever been to Italy? Have you been home recently?
5. Used as a copula in such senses as:
   1. To equal in identity: “To be a Christian was to be a Roman” (James Bryce)
   2. To have a specified significance: A is excellent, C is passing. Let be the unknown quantity.
   3. To belong to a specified class or group: The human being is a primate.
   4. To have or show a specified quality or characteristic: She is witty. All humans are mortal.
   5. To seem to consist or be made of: The yard is all snow. He is all bluff and no bite.
6. To belong; befall: Peace be unto you. Woe is me.

verb 

1. Used with the past participle of a transitive verb to form the passive voice: The mayoral election is held annually.
2. Used with the present participle of a verb to express a continuing action: We are working to improve housing conditions.
3. Used with the infinitive of a verb to express intention, obligation, or future action: She was to call before she left. You are to make the necessary changes.
4. Archaic Used with the past participle of certain intransitive verbs to form the perfect tense: “Where be those roses gone which sweetened so our eyes?” (Philip Sidney)

usage note

Usage Note: Traditional grammar requires the nominative form of the pronoun in the predicate of the verb be: It is I (not me ); That must be they (not them ), and so forth. Nearly every speaker of Modern English finds this rule difficult to follow. Even if everyone could follow it, in informal contexts the nominative pronoun often sounds pedantic and even ridiculous, especially when the verb is contracted, as in It's we. But constructions like It is me have been condemned in the classroom and in writing handbooks for so long that there seems little likelihood that they will ever be entirely acceptable in formal writing. · The traditional rule creates additional problems when the pronoun following be also functions as the object of a verb or preposition in a relative clause, as in It is not them/they that we have in mind when we talk about “crime in the streets” nowadays, where the plural pronoun serves as both the predicate of is and the object of have. In this example, 57 percent of the Usage Panel prefers the nominative form they, 33 percent prefer the objective them, and 10 percent accept both versions. Writers can usually revise their sentences to avoid this problem: They are not the ones we have in mind, We have someone else in mind, and so on. See Usage Note at: I See Usage Note at: we

The symbol for the element beryllium

abbreviation 

1. Bachelor of Education
2. Bachelor of Engineering
3. Board of Education

abbreviation 

Baumé scale

[After Baumé Antoine.]

noun 

A hydrometer scale used to measure the specific gravity of liquids.

be·ryl·li·um (bə-rĭĺē-əm)

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[From beryl.]

noun 

A high-melting, lightweight, corrosion-resistant, rigid, steel-gray metallic element used as an aerospace structural material, as a moderator and reflector in nuclear reactors, and in a copper alloy used for springs, electrical contacts, and nonsparking tools. Atomic number 4; atomic weight 9.0122; melting point 1,278°C; boiling point 2,970°C; specific gravity 1.848; valence 2.