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Etymology data from Wiktionary via Wiktextract (CC BY-SA 4.0). Chinese character data from the 說文解字, the Taiwan MOE 國語辭典簡編本 (CC BY-ND 3.0 TW) and HSK/TOCFL lists.

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English

been

/ˈbɪn/
remote past form of be.

    Etymology graph

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    • derived
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    • meaning component
    • sound component
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    Origin

    Etymology 1

    From Middle English been (past participle), from Old English (ġe)bēon. By surface analysis, be + -en.

    Etymology 2

    Either from Middle English been (“to be”, infinitive) (from Old English bēon, equivalent to be + -en (infinitive ending)), or from a dialectal use of the preceding past tense form as an infinitive form (compare dialectal use of (I)'s, (I) is in the first person, (he) am in the third person, etc).

    From Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.

    Lineage

    • inheritedMiddle Englishbeen “to be”
      • inheritedOld Englishġebēon
        • partOld Englishġe-
          • inheritedProto-West Germanic*ga-
            • inheritedProto-Germanic*ga- “with, together”
            • derivedProto-Germanic*ga- “with, together”
        • partOld Englishbēon
          • inheritedProto-West Germanic*beun
            • inheritedProto-Germanic*beuną
    • surface analysisEnglishbe “Used with past participles of verbs to form the passive voice.”
    • suffixEnglish-en “Denotes the past participle form when attached to a verb.”
      • inheritedMiddle English-n
      • inheritedMiddle English-en
        • inheritedOld English-an
        • derivedOld English-an
        • inheritedOld English-en
        • derivedOld English-on
        • derivedProto-Indo-European*pleḱ- “to fold, plait, weave”
      • inheritedMiddle English-enen
        • inheritedOld English-nian
      • inheritedMiddle English-ene
      • derivedFrench-ène

    Meanings

    verb
    1. remote past form of be.

    Sources

    • Wiktionary (via Wiktextract / kaikki.org) — CC BY-SA 4.0
    • Wiktionary: been