Old English beon, beom, bion "be, exist, come to be, become, happen"
from Proto-Germanic biju- "I am, I will be"
this b-root is from PIE root bheue- "to be, exist, grow"
The modern verb to be in its entirety represents the merger of two once-distinct verbs, the "b-root" represented by be and the am/was verb, which was itself a conglomerate.
"'To be', or as the German handbooks sometimes call it, the Verbum substantivum, is not a single 'verb', but a collection of semantically related paradigm-fragments - in the rest of Germanic as well as Old English."
"Old English"
~☉~ | lucid definition; added layer of lucidity, or aethereal context |
⚜ | classic definition |
☣ | artificium definition; usually words which have undergone a warped evolution, or a complete perversion of the original sense |