Began

How to spell began

5 letters · 2 syllables

How to pronounce began

Say the part in capitals loudest.

What does began mean?

1. verbThe simple past tense of begin: to have started or set out to do something at an earlier time.

Began in a sentence

• The meeting began ten minutes late because of the traffic.

• She began her career as a junior clerk before moving into management.

Where does began come from?

Language of origin: Germanic

This is the simple past tense of the verb 'begin', which comes from the Old English beginnan, meaning 'to start' or 'to attempt'. The verb was formed from the prefix be-, used here as an intensifier, joined to a root -ginnan that on its own meant 'to open up' or 'to undertake', and it has close cousins in the German beginnen and the Dutch beginnen. English verbs of this kind change their vowel rather than adding -ed to mark the past, so 'begin' becomes 'began' (and the past participle 'begun'), much as 'swim' becomes 'swam' and 'ring' becomes 'rang'. That vowel-swap pattern, called ablaut, dates back to the earliest Germanic roots of English and is why the spelling shifts from i to a. The chief trap for adults is mixing up the three forms, writing 'begun' where 'began' belongs, or doubling the final n by analogy with the present tense.

How the word is built

• be- (intensive/about prefix)
• gan (from Old English -ginnan, to begin); the past-tense vowel change a replaces the present i