Word.ws English Dictionary

bey

/beɪ/

More pronunciations (1)Fewer pronunciations

Australia/bæɪ/

bey noun: a governor of a province or district in the Turkish (e.g. Ottoman) dominions.

Noun

bey (plural beys)

  1. (historical) A governor of a province or district in the Turkish (e.g. Ottoman) dominions.
    • She was chaperoned by the widow of a Bey whose son had been at Oxford with him, and this gave him the excuse to exchange a few words with her, and then to be presented to the Princess.1978, Lawrence Durrell, Livia (Avignon Quintet), Faber & Faber, published 1992, page 512
    • Whether his position with the Third Circle made the difference or the fact that he ranked as a bey, life in El Iskandryia was proving easier than he'd ever dreamed possible when he stepped off the plane.2005, Jon Courtenay Grimwood, Pashazade, page 15
  2. In various other places, a prince or nobleman.

Proper noun capitalized: Bey

Bey (plural Beys)

  1. A surname.
  2. Beyoncé.

bey meaning in Hindi, Urdu, Bengali and Arabic

bey in Hindi

governor of a Turkish dominion
बेग beg

bey in Urdu

bey, beg
بیگ beg

bey in Bengali

governor of a Turkish dominion
বেগ beg

bey in Arabic

governor of a Turkish dominion
بِيه bīh, بِيك bīk, بِك bik
More languagesFewer languages
bey in Indonesian
bey
bey in Persian
بگ beg

Forms of bey

Noun
pluralbeys
Proper noun
pluralBeys

Plural of bey: beys

Origin of bey

Borrowed from Ottoman Turkish بك (bey, “gentleman, chief”), from Old Anatolian Turkish بك (beg, “ruler”), from Proto-Turkic *bēg (“lord”). See there for more.

* As a north German and Dutch surname, variant of Beye, Baye, vowel variants of the Danish surname Boye. * Also as a German surname, Germanized from Lower Sorbian baj (“storyteller”), from Proto-Slavic *bajь, related to *bajati (“to tell”). Compare Bay. * As a French surname, from several placenames in France, from a regional variant of bief (“mill-race”). * As an Islamic surname (generally Algeria), from Turkish bey (see Beg). See also Pasha, Agha.

Words formed from bey

Phrases with bey

Words that rhyme with bey

48 more rhymesFewer rhymes

Questions about bey

What does bey mean?
Bey means a governor of a province or district in the Turkish (e.g. Ottoman) dominions.
What is bey in Hindi?
Bey in Hindi is बेग (beg). See Bey meaning in Hindi.
What part of speech is bey?
Bey can be a noun or a proper noun.
How do you pronounce bey?
Bey is pronounced /beɪ/ (UK).
What is the plural of bey?
The plural of bey is beys.

Words near bey in the dictionary

  1. Bexleyheath
  2. bexosomal
  3. bexosome
  4. bexosomes
  5. Bexton
  6. bey
  7. beya
  8. beyant
  9. Beyblade
  10. Beyblader
  11. Beybladers

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: bey (page history and authors); Bey (page history and authors); بیگ (Urdu) (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: LL-Q1860 (eng)-Vealhurl-bey.wav.

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