Forms: 3–6 beinge, 4–6 beyng(e, 5 beenge, beying(e, byinge, 6–7 beeing, 5– being. [f. BE v. + -ING1.]

1

  1.  Existence, the fact of belonging to the universe of things material or immaterial.

2

c. 1325.  E. E. Allit. P., A. 446. Þe court of þe kyndom of god alyue, Hatz a property in hyt self beyng.

3

1340.  Ayenb., 103. Þet ne ziggeþ propreliche þe zoþe of þe byinge of God.

4

1413.  Lydg., Pylgr. Sowle, IV. xxviii. (1483), 74. The seed wherof they taken their beynge.

5

1506.  Ord. Crysten Men (W. de W.), I. vi. 50. I byleue in the holy chyrche catholyke … the beynge of all sayntes.

6

1534.  Tindale, Acts xvii. 28. In him we lyve, move & have oure beynge.

7

1647.  May, Hist. Parl., II. ii. 22. To subvert the very Rights and Beeings of Parliament.

8

1667.  Milton, P. L., II. 441. With utter loss of being Threatens him.

9

1712.  Addison, Spect., No. 381, ¶ 4. The great Author of our being.

10

1734.  Pope, Ess. Man, IV. 1. Oh happiness! our being’s end and aim.

11

1750.  Johnson, Rambl., No. 72, ¶ 2. Good humour … is the balm of being.

12

1868.  Freeman, Norm. Conq. (1876), II. App. 610. The house had no corporate being.

13

  b.  In being: existing, extant, alive.

14

1676.  Allen, Addr. Non-Conf., 48. The Church in being before, had thereby a new Illumination.

15

1702.  Addison, Chr. Relig. (1727), 278. Had he quoted a record not in being, or made a false statement.

16

1788.  J. Powell, Devises (1827), II. 91. A legacy, to a person in being at the time the will is made.

17

  c.  Life, physical existence.

18

1596.  Shaks., Tam. Shr., I. i. 10. Pisa … Gaue me my being.

19

1662.  Stillingfleet, Orig. Sacræ, III. ii. § 10. That a power infinite should raise an Insect into Being.

20

1676.  Dryden, Aureng-z., III. i. 1476. Our Prophet’s care Commands the Beings ev’n of Brutes to spare.

21

1713.  Guardian, No. 1, ¶ 2. In all the occurrences of a various being.

22

1754.  Sherlock, Disc. (1759), I. II. 76. To call Men from the Graue into Being.

23

1766.  C. Beatty, Two Months Tour (1768), 92. In this pleasurable manner they spent their beings.

24

1812.  J. Wilson, Isle of Palms, II. 155. Hopeless woe the spring of being feeds.

25

  † d.  Occurrence, happening. Obs.

26

1624.  Capt. Smith, Virginia (1629), 180, margin. A strange being of Rauens.

27

  2.  Existence in some relation of place or condition.

28

1526.  Tindale, Luke ix. 33. Master, it is goode beinge here for us.

29

1535.  Coverdale, ibid. Master here is good beynge for vs.

30

a. 1617.  Hieron, Wks., I. 3. Entrance in at the gate presupposeth a beeing without the gate.

31

1682.  Burnet, Rights Princes, iii. 81. What he has acquired during his being a Bishop.

32

1692.  Ray, Disc., II. v. (1732), 208. The Being of Wolves and Foxes … anciently in this Island.

33

Mod.  After being at home for some time. Through being so tired.

34

  † b.  Condition. Obs.

35

c. 1300.  K. Alis., 224. Heo asked his beinge, an hast.

36

c. 1440.  Lonelich, Grail, xlii. 232. Now have I ȝow told al in fere Of owre beenge & of owre manere.

37

1548.  Thomas, Ital. Gram., Freschezza, lustinesse or fresh beyng.

38

  † c.  Position, standing (in the world). Obs.

39

1627.  Feltham, Resolves, I. lxxvi. (1677), 116. Whosoever comes to place from a mean being, had need haue … Virtue.

40

1685.  Evelyn, Mem. (1857), II. 246. Colonel Norton, who though now in being … was formerly a very fierce commander in the first rebellion.

41

1712.  Steele, Spect., No. 544, ¶ 2. Such … as want help towards getting into some being in the world.

42

1818.  Cobbett, Resid. U.S. (1822), 349. He has not kept house; he has had no being in any neighbourhood.

43

  † d.  Livelihood, living, subsistence. Obs.

44

1579.  Spenser, Sheph. Cal., Sept., 33. No being for those, that truly mene, But for such as of guile maken gayne.

45

1667.  Decay Chr. Piety, viii. § 44. 292. A bare being was all could be expected.

46

1722.  Steele, Consc. Lovers, III. i. (1755), 46. It will be nothing for them to give us a little Being of our own, some small Tenement, out of their large Possessions.

47

1731.  Medley, Kolben’s Cape G. Hope, II. 45. Several others … had likewise very good Beings there.

48

  3.  Existence viewed as a property possessed by anything; substance, constitution, nature.

49

c. 1340.  Richard Rolle of Hampole, Prick of Conscience, 17. Als God in a [= one] substance and beyng With outen any bygynnyng.

50

1398.  Trevisa, Barth. De P. R., II. ii. (1495), 28. The comparyson bitwene a poynte and a lyne in beynge.

51

1581.  Fulke, in Confer., III. (1584), Y. The proper substance of Christes body remaineth not, but a generall being thereof.

52

1659.  J. Arrowsmith, Armilla Catech., IV. iii. § 3. 187. Our very being is none of ours.

53

1855.  Prescott, Philip II., I. II. v. 192. The Romish faith may be said to have entered into the being of the Spaniard.

54

1860.  Hawthorne, Marble Faun, xiii. (1883), 147. Nature has made women especially prone to throw their whole being into what is technically called love.

55

  b.  Essential substance, essence.

56

1530.  Palsgr., 197/1. Beyng, essence.

57

1656.  H. More, Antid. Ath., I. iii. (1662), 13. I define God therefore an Essence or Being fully and absolutely perfect.

58

1860.  Emerson, Cond. Life, 187. We are one day to deal with real being—essences with essences.

59

  4.  That which exists or is conceived as existing; in philosophical language, the widest term applicable to all objects of sense or thought, material and immaterial.

60

a. 1628.  F. Greville, Celia, Sonn., vii. 46. No being was secure.

61

1690.  Locke, Hum. Und., III. v. § 5. Species of Actions which were only the Creatures of their own Understandings; Beings that had no other existence, but in their own Minds. Ibid. (a. 1704), Posth. Wks. (1706), 86. A word may be made use of, as if it stood for some real Being.

62

1714.  Fortescue-Aland, Fortescue’s Abs. & Lim. Mon., 6. In the Nature of Ideas, Legal Beings, as I may call them, are as capable of Demonstration, as Mathematical ones.

63

1843.  Mill, Logic, I. iii. § 2. 62. Being is … applied impartially to matter and to mind…. A Being is that which excites feelings, and which possesses attributes.

64

  b.  Applied with various qualifications, e.g., ‘the Supreme Being,’ to God.

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c. 1600.  J. Davies, in Farr’s S. P., I. 244. He that was, and is, and cannot fade, This Beeing infinite.

66

1688.  Cudworth, Immut. Mor., IV. iv. (1731), 250. There is a God, or an Omnipotent and Omniscient Being.

67

1712.  Addison, Spect., No. 381, ¶ 8. Atheism, by which I mean a disbelief of a Supreme Being.

68

1761.  Sterne, Tr. Shandy, III. xlix. That kind Being, who is a friend to the friendless, shall recompence thee for this.

69

1875.  Scrivener, Lect. Grk. Test., 6. That the Supreme Being should have thus far interfered with the course of his providential arrangements.

70

  c.  A human being, a person. (Sometimes contemptuous; sometimes idealistic.)

71

1751.  Johnson, Rambl., No. 141, ¶ 6. A wit … a species of beings only heard of at the university.

72

1802.  Mar. Edgeworth, Moral T. (1816), I. xii. 100. This mean, incorrigible being said to himself.

73

1816.  J. Wilson, City of Plague, I. iii. 33. There I saw A white-robed Being on her knees.

74

1852.  Miss Yonge, Cameos, II. xxix. 307. The veiled girlish being on whom Henry had set his vehement heart.

75