Became

How to spell became

6 letters · 2 syllables

How to pronounce became

Say the part in capitals loudest.

What does became mean?

1. verbThe past tense of 'become': came to be, or grew into a particular state or role.

Became in a sentence

• She became a partner at the firm after ten years of steady work.

• The quiet street became noisy once the new bar opened.

Where does became come from?

Language of origin: Germanic

This is the past tense of 'become', which descends directly from the Old English verb becuman, formed from the prefix be- and the verb cuman, meaning 'to come'. In the earliest stages the word literally meant 'to come to a place' or 'to arrive', and only gradually shifted toward the modern sense of 'to come to be' or 'to grow into a certain state'. The past tense follows the same strong-verb pattern as 'come' and 'came', where the vowel changes rather than adding an -ed ending, which is why we write 'became' and never 'becomed'. The verb has close cousins across the Germanic languages, including the German bekommen, although that relative drifted to mean 'to receive' rather than 'to turn into'. The spelling trap for adults is purely the single c and the silent final e, both inherited unchanged from the Old English root.

How the word is built

• be- (intensive/about prefix)
• came (past tense of 'come', from Old English cuman 'to come')