or be's—used in the uninflected form be or sometimes the form bes or be's in African American English and to varying degrees in some other varieties of English to indicate that an action or state is habitual or frequent
I be singing in the shower.
… they be bothering you while you try and do your work. …—unidentified African American English speaker, quoted in The Corpus of Regional African American Language
It bes that way.
We learned to slide out of one language and into another without being conscious of the effort. At school, in a given situation, we might respond with "That's not unusual." But in the street, meeting the same situation, we easily said "It be's like that sometimes."—Maya Angelou
Note:
This feature of African American English often occurs between the subject and predicate of a sentence, and can precede noun phrases, prepositional phrases, adverbial phrases, adjectives, passive verbs, -ing verbs, and the African American English feature perfective done. In linguistics, this use is referred to as aspectual be, habitual be, or invariant be. It usually occurs in the uninflected form be, as in the first two examples above; however, in African American English in particular, it sometimes takes the form bes or be's.
or be's—used in the uninflected form be or sometimes the form bes or be's in African American English and to varying degrees in some other varieties of English to indicate that an action or state is habitual or frequent
I be singing in the shower.
… they be bothering you while you try and do your work. …—unidentified African American English speaker, quoted in The Corpus of Regional African American Language
It bes that way.
We learned to slide out of one language and into another without being conscious of the effort. At school, in a given situation, we might respond with "That's not unusual." But in the street, meeting the same situation, we easily said "It be's like that sometimes."—Maya Angelou
Note:
This feature of African American English often occurs between the subject and predicate of a sentence, and can precede noun phrases, prepositional phrases, adverbial phrases, adjectives, passive verbs, -ing verbs, and the African American English feature perfective done. In linguistics, this use is referred to as aspectual be, habitual be, or invariant be. It usually occurs in the uninflected form be, as in the first two examples above; however, in African American English in particular, it sometimes takes the form bes or be's.
Verb (1)
stories that begin with the familiar line “once upon a time there was a beautiful maiden”
we'll be there waiting for you
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Verb
And then there are designers who show independently around the same time, such as Gaurav Gupta, Jade by Monica & Karishma, and Manish Malhotra this year.—CNN Money,
30 July 2026 There are more than 400 original contemporary artworks throughout Ibiza Gran Hotel, with many created by Mediterranean artists whose work reflects the culture and spirit of the region.—
Condé Nast,
Condé Nast Traveler,
30 July 2026 There are few places where contradictions between the president's boasts and the economic reality of his tariffs are more likely to collide ahead of November's midterm elections than in battleground Michigan, which holds its primary on Tuesday.—ABC News,
30 July 2026 But still, there were some observations to pull from Wednesday’s first training camp practice under new defensive coordinator Christian Parker.—
Nick Harris,
Fort Worth Star-Telegram,
30 July 2026 See All Example Sentences for be
Word History
Etymology
Verb (1)
Middle English, from Old English bēon; akin to Old High German bim am, Latin fui I have been, futurus about to be, fieri to become, be done, Greek phynai to be born, be by nature, phyein to produce
Prefix
Middle English, from Old English bi-, be-; akin to Old English bī by, near — more at by
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