Word.ws English Dictionary

be about

be about verb: to have (something) as a primary focus.

Verb

be about (third-person singular simple present is about, present participle being about, simple past was about, past participle been about)

  1. (transitive) To have (something) as a primary focus.
    • What is this book about?

Forms of be about

third-person singular presentis about
present participlebeing about
pastwas about
past participlebeen about

Questions about be about

What does be about mean?
Be about means to have (something) as a primary focus.
What part of speech is be about?
Be about is a verb.
What is the past tense of be about?
The past tense of be about is was about.

Words near be about in the dictionary

  1. be a man
  2. be a one
  3. be a poet and not know it
  4. be able to
  5. be able to count on one's fingers
  6. be about
  7. be aces with
  8. be ages with
  9. be all about
  10. be along
  11. be another thing

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: be about (page history and authors). Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws reformatted the entry and added links. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.

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Cite this entry: “be about.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/be_about. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.