be

American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition

1. v. To exist in actuality; have life or reality: I think, therefore I am.
2. v. To occupy a specified position: The food is on the table.
3. v. To remain in a certain state or situation undisturbed, untouched, or unmolested: Let the children be.
4. v. To take place; occur: The test was yesterday.
5. v. To go or come: Have you ever been to Italy? Have you been home recently?
6. v. Used as a copula in such senses as:
7. v. To equal in identity: "To be a Christian was to be a Roman” ( James Bryce).
8. v. To have a specified significance: A is excellent, C is passing. Let n be the unknown quantity.
9. v. To belong to a specified class or group: The human being is a primate.
10. v. To have or show a specified quality or characteristic: She is witty. All humans are mortal.
11. v. To seem to consist or be made of: The yard is all snow. He is all bluff and no bite.
12. v. To belong; befall: Peace be unto you. Woe is me.
13. v. Used with the past participle of a transitive verb to form the passive voice: The mayoral election is held annually.
14. v. Used with the present participle of a verb to express a continuing action: We are working to improve housing conditions.
15. v. 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.
16. v. 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).

Century Dictionary and Cyclopedia

1. To exist; have existence or being; possess reality; be the case; be true or real.
2. To take place; occur; happen; come about: as, the wedding will be to-morrow; his birthday was last week; it was to be.
3. Usually, be is a mere copula, or sign of predication, a link between a subject and a predicate. As such it asserts, or expresses as fact, the inclusion of the subject among the things denoted by the predicate, or the possession by the subject of the characters signified by the predicate; and this it does with temporal and modal modifications, while the whole substance of the predication, or all that is predicated, is expressed separately, in noun or adjective form, or the equivalent of such: thus, I am good, he was a hero, they will be there, we should have been beloved. Hence, every other predicating word or verb may be analyzed into a form of be, expressing the predication, and an adjective or noun expressing what is predicated: thus, he loves into he is loving, or he is a lover, and so on. Such a copula is possessed by many languages, being, as in English, reduced to that value by gradual attenuation of an originally substantial meaning; as in modern French, était, ‘was,’ from Latin stabat, or nearly as exist, literally ‘stand forth.’
4. In metaphysics, to subsist in a state not necessarily amounting to actual existence; have the rudiments of existence. See being.
5. An auxiliary verb denoting subsistence in or subjection to the mode of action or being expressed by the principal verb. Joined with a present participle, it has the grammatical construction of a predicate adjective qualifying the subject, to make a continuous or progressive or imperfect present: thus, I am loving, etc., beside I love, etc.—to match which the language has rather recently acquired a corresponding passive, I am being loved, beside I am loved.
6. An infinitive with to after be forms a sort of future, often with a certain implication of obligation: thus, he is to come, they were to appear, she would have been to blame or to be blamed.
7. n. The name of the second letter of the alphabet, usually written simply b or B. See B.
8. Obsolete form of by. Chaucer.
9. In chem., the symbol for beryllium (the same as glucinum).
10. An inseparable prefix of verbs, and of nouns thence derived. It means primarily ‘about,’ ‘around,’ as in beset, begird, whence the more general sense ‘around,’ ‘all over,’ leading to a merely intensive use, as in besmear, bespatter, besprinkle, etc. It is also used to form transitive verbs from nouns, as begem, bedew, befog, bemire, etc., or from intransitive verbs, as belie, behowl, besing, etc., verbs of either class often conveying slight contempt, as bepraise, beplaster, bepowder, etc., and are hence often made for the nonce. In a few verbs, all obsolete except behead, be- assumed a privative force; while in many verbs this prefix, through loss of the simple verb, or a deflection of its sense, or by mere dilution, has now no assignable force, as in begin, bequeath, become, behold, etc.
11. An inseparable prefix of adverbs, which may also be used as prepositions or conjunctions. It is properly the preposition by, Middle English be, bi, used adverbially, as in before, behind, between, betwixt, below, etc., contracted in above, about; or merged with the governed noun, as in because, beside, that is, ‘by cause,’ ‘by side’: so also in behalf, originally a prepositional phrase, now taken as a noun. See the words cited.

Wiktionary

1. v. intransitive, now literary To exist; to have real existence.
2. v. With there as dummy subject: to exist.
3. v. intransitive To occupy a place.
4. v. intransitive To occur, to take place.
5. v. intransitive, without predicate elliptical form of "be here", "go to and return from" or similar.
6. v. transitive, copulative Used to indicate that the subject and object are the same.
7. v. transitive, copulative, mathematics Used to indicate that the values on either side of an equation are the same.
8. v. transitive, copulative Used to indicate that the subject plays the role of the predicate nominal.
9. v. transitive, copulative Used to connect a noun to an adjective that describes it.
10. v. transitive, copulative Used to indicate that the subject has the qualities described by a noun or noun phrase.
11. v. transitive, auxiliary Used to form the passive voice.
12. v. transitive, auxiliary Used to form the continuous forms of various tenses.
13. v. archaic Used to form the perfect aspect with certain intransitive verbs, most of which indicate motion. Often still used for "to go"
14. v. transitive, auxiliary Used to form future tenses, especially the future periphrastic.
15. v. Used to link a subject to a count or measurement.
16. v. used to indicate passage of time since the occurrence of an event.
17. v. Used to indicate weather, air quality, or the like.

GNU Webster's 1913

1. v. To exist actually, or in the world of fact; to have existence.
2. v. To exist in a certain manner or relation, -- whether as a reality or as a product of thought; to exist as the subject of a certain predicate, that is, as having a certain attribute, or as belonging to a certain sort, or as identical with what is specified, -- a word or words for the predicate being annexed.
3. v. To take place; to happen.
4. v. To signify; to represent or symbolize; to answer to.

WordNet 3.0

1. v. happen, occur, take place
2. v. to remain unmolested, undisturbed, or uninterrupted -- used only in infinitive form
3. v. have the quality of being; (copula, used with an adjective or a predicate noun)
4. v. be identical or equivalent to
5. v. work in a specific place, with a specific subject, or in a specific function
6. v. have life, be alive
7. v. spend or use time
8. v. occupy a certain position or area; be somewhere
9. v. form or compose
10. v. represent, as of a character on stage
11. n. a light strong brittle grey toxic bivalent metallic element
12. v. be priced at
13. v. be identical to; be someone or something
14. v. have an existence, be extant