bê

See also: Appendix:Variations of "be"

Kurdish

Etymology

Related to Persian بی‎ (bi).

Preposition

bê

1. without

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Portuguese

bê

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /be/
• Rhymes: -e

Noun

bê m (plural bês)

1. bee (name of the letter B, b)

Derived terms

• bê-á-bá

Related terms

• alfabeto, abecedário

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Vietnamese

Pronunciation

• (Hà Nội) IPA^(key): [ʔɓe˧˧]
• (Huế) IPA^(key): [ʔɓej˧˧]
• (Hồ Chí Minh City) IPA^(key): [ʔɓej˧˧]

Etymology 1

Onomatopoetic.

Noun

(classifier con) bê (𠶎)

1. calf; baby bull/cow

Related terms

• bò

Interjection

bê (𠶎)

1. (onomatopoeia) The cry of a calf

Etymology 2

Verb

bê

1. to carry with both hands
2. (colloquial) to interlard

Etymology 3

Borrowed from French bé

Noun

bê

1. The name of the Latin-script letter B.
2. The name of the Latin-script letter P.

Usage notes

The phoneme /p/ does not exist as an onset consonant in Vietnamese native phonology, and every word containing it is a loanword. Most Vietnamese people, especially those from the Southern proportion of the country, find difficulty in differentiating it from /ɓ/, as they cannot articulate the phoneme /p/; there are some ways to tell the two apart, or to tell the letters b and p apart, including using expressions like "bê bò" ("'b' as in 'bò'") or "bê phở" ("'p' as in 'phở'")

Synonyms

• bờ; bê bò (1)
• phê; bê phở (2)