began

• (Received Pronunciation, UK) IPA^(key): /bɪˈɡæn/
• (General American, US) IPA^(key): /bɪˈɡæn/

• Audio (US):

  (file)

• Rhymes: -æn
• Hyphenation: be‧gan

began

1. simple past of begin
2. (obsolete) past participle of begin
   • 1817 (date written), [Jane Austen], chapter XI, in Persuasion; published in Northanger Abbey: And Persuasion. […], volume IV, London: John Murray, […], 20 December 1817 (indicated as 1818), →OCLC, page 285:

     He had no sooner been free from the horror and remorse attending the first few days of Louisa’s accident, no sooner begun to feel himself alive again, than he had began to feel himself, though alive, not at liberty.

• beganst

• Bange, abeng, benga

began

1. first/third-person singular past indicative of beginnen

From Proto-West Germanic *bigān. Equivalent to be- +‎ gān. Cognate with Old High German bigān.

• IPA^(key): /beˈɡɑːn/

begān

1. to bego, go over, traverse; get to, come by, fall into
2. to go to, visit, care for, cultivate, affect
   • Se ðe æcer begǽþ. ― He who cultivates land (acre) … a farmer (Ælfc. Gr. 7; Som. 6, 44.)
3. to occupy, inhabit, dwell, surround, besiege, overrun
   • Homilies of the Anglo-Saxon Church, 1uoting "Circumdederunt me gemitus"

     Dēaþes ġeōmerunga mē beēodon, and helle sārnyssa mē beēodon, and iċ on mīnre ġedrefednysse Drihten clypode, and hē of his hālgan temple mīne stemne ġehyrde.

     The wailing of death surrounded me, and the pains of hell surrounded me, and in my distress I called out to the Lord, and from his holy temple he heard me.

   • Hí ðone búr útan beeódon. ― They surrounded the dwelling outside. (Chr. 755; Th. 83, 26, col. 1)
4. to practise, do, engage in, perform, commit, exercise, attend to, be diligent about, honor, serve, worship, profess; pledge, devote, train oneself
   • He begǽþ unmǽtas ― He commits gluttonies. (Deut. 21, 20)
   • Begá ðé sylfne to árfæstnysse ― Train thyself to godliness. (1 Tim. 4, 7)

• forebegān
• misbegān
• unbegān

• Middle English: bigon, begon
  • English: bego

• John R. Clark Hall (1916) “begān”, in A Concise Anglo-Saxon Dictionary‎^[1], 2nd edition, New York: Macmillan
• Joseph Bosworth, T. Northcote Toller (1898) “begān”, in An Anglo-Saxon Dictionary‎^[2], second edition, Oxford: Oxford University Press.