Meaning

2 senses
  1. Remote past form of be.

    He been had that job.

    We been knew they was doing this.

  2. (rare)Synonym of be (infinitival sense).

    It useta been five foot long.

Origin

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

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

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).

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Forms

beens, beening, beened, beened
Base formbeen · to been
3rd person singularbeens
Present participlebeening
Past simplebeened
Past participlebeened

regular

Present simpleLesson

I, you, we, theybeen
he, she, itbeens

Past simpleLesson

all personsbeened

Present perfectLesson

I, you, we, theyhave beened
he, she, ithas beened

Future simple (will)Lesson

all personswill been

Synonyms

1 synonyms

See also

neighbours in the dictionary
been — meaning, examples, forms, synonyms | Krumeto