Word.ws English Dictionary

begun

/bɪˈɡʌn/

More pronunciations (1)Fewer pronunciations

Ireland/bɪˈɡʊn/

begun is the past participle of begin.

begun is the simple past 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

Adjective

begun

  1. Having begun.

Proper noun capitalized: Begun

Begun (plural Beguns)

  1. A surname.

Forms of begun

pluralBeguns

Origin of begun

Two possible origins: * Borrowed from Russian бегу́н (begún, “runner”), a nickname used in the local Jewish community. Doublet of Biegun and Bihun, from Polish and Ukrainian respectively. * A variant of Begum, an Indian surname found in the Muslim community.

Words formed from begun

Phrases with begun

Words that rhyme with begun

48 more rhymesFewer rhymes

Questions about begun

What does begun mean?
Begun means having begun.
What is begun the past participle of?
Begun is the past participle of begin.
What part of speech is begun?
Begun can be an adjective or a proper noun.
How do you pronounce begun?
Begun is pronounced /bɪˈɡʌn/.

Words near begun in the dictionary

  1. begum
  2. begummed
  3. begumming
  4. Begumpet
  5. begums
  6. begun
  7. begun at the wrong end
  8. begun with the chucky
  9. begunk
  10. begunked
  11. begunking

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: begun (page history and authors); Begun (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.

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

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