Word.ws English Dictionary

began

Syllables: be·ganUK/bɪˈɡæn//bɪˈɡæn/

began is the simple past of begin.

began is the past participle of begin.

Meaning of begin

Verb

begin (third-person singular simple present begins, present participle beginning, simple past began, past participle begun)

  1. (ergative) To start, to initiate or take the first step into something.
    • I began playing the piano at the age of five.
  2. (intransitive) To come into existence.
    • Vast chain of being! which from God began.1733, [Alexander Pope], An Essay on Man. […], (please specify |epistle=I to IV), London: […] J[ohn] Wilford, […], →OCLC

See all 3 meanings of begin

Words formed from began

Phrases with began

Words that rhyme with began

48 more rhymesFewer rhymes

Questions about began

What is began the simple past of?
Began is the simple past of begin.
How do you pronounce began?
Began is pronounced /bɪˈɡæn/ (UK).

Words near began in the dictionary

  1. begall
  2. begalled
  3. begalling
  4. begalls
  5. begamovirus
  6. began
  7. began at the wrong end
  8. began with the chucky
  9. begane
  10. beganest
  11. Begang

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: began (page history and authors); begin (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.

Last updated:

Pronunciation audio from Wikimedia Commons, each file under its own free license: en-us-began.ogg.

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