bee
/ˈbiː/
Word Rarity
Uncommon
Frequency: 4.09 in modern English
5
Scrabble Score
3
Letters
1
Syllables
2
Unique Chars
Meaning
noun
A flying insect, of the clade Anthophila within the hymenopteran superfamily Apoidea, known for its organised societies (though only a minority have them), for collecting pollen and (in some species) producing wax and honey.
noun
A contest, especially for spelling; see spelling bee.
noun
The name of the Latin script letter B/b.
Example Sentences
- "His face was belymmed as byes had him stounge[…]."
- "An angry Wasp th'one in a viall had, / Th'other in hers an hony-laden Bee."
- "Can there be a more formall, and better ordered policie, divided into so severall charges and offices, more constantly entertained, and better maintained, than that of Bees?"
- "Ariell: / Where the Bee ſucks, there ſuck I, / In a Cowslips bell, I lie, / There I cowch when Owles doe crie, / On the Batts backe I doe flie / after Sommer merrily. / Merrily, merrily, ſhall I liue now / Vnder the bloſſom that hangs on the Bow."
- "Bees are the moſt excellent of all Inſects vvhatſoever, and expreſſe both vvorth and vvonder in all their vvaies: […]"
- "He stood across in the other garden, beside a bush of pale Michaelmas daisies, watching the last bees crawl into the hive."
Etymology
Etymology tree Proto-Indo-European *bʰey-der. Proto-Germanic *bijǭ Proto-West Germanic *bijā Old English bēo Middle English be English bee From Middle English be, bee, beo, bey, from Old English bēo, bīo (“bee”), from Proto-West Germanic *bijā, from Proto-Germanic *bijǭ (“bee”), from Proto-Indo-European *bʰey- (“bee”). Cognates Cognate with Yola been (“bees”), North Frisian bi (“bee”), West Frisian bij (“bee”), Dutch bij, by (“bee”), German Biene (“bee”), Limburgish Bé, bie (“bee”), Luxembourgish Bei (“bee”), Vilamovian byn (“bee”), West Flemish bieë (“bee”), Yiddish בין (bin, “bee”), Danish and Swedish bi (“bee”), Faroese býfluga (“bee”), Icelandic bý, býfluga (“bee”), Norwegian Bokmål and Norwegian Nynorsk bie (“bee”); also Irish beach, meach (“bee”), Scottish Gaelic beach (“bee; beehive; wasp”), Latin fūcus (“bee”), Latvian bite (“bee”), Lithuanian bitė (“bee”), Belarusian пчала́ (pčalá, “bee”), Bulgarian, Macedonian, and Russian пчела́ (pčelá, “bee”), Czech včála, včela (“bee”), Polish pszczoła (“bee”), Serbo-Croatian пчѐла, bčela, pčèla (“bee”), Slovak včela (“bee”), Slovene čebela (“bee”), Ukrainian бджола́ (bdžolá, “bee”), Ossetian биндзӕ (binʒæ), бындз (bynʒ, “fly”), Pashto وينه (waynë́, wenë́, wuynë́, “termite; white ant”).
Origin
Word Breakdown
- Root: be, bēo, *bijā, *bijǭ, *bʰey-, *bʰeh₂-
Usage
Inflected Forms
Derived Forms
Phrases
Frequently Paired Words
Synonyms
king of insects
bee block