Meanings
verbunbe (no third-person singular simple present, present participle unbeing, no simple past, past participle unbeen)
participle present unbeing · participle past unbeen
- no pastpoeticraretransitiveTo deprive (someone or something) of being; to make nonexistent.
- intransitiveno pastpoeticrareTo lack being; to be nonexistent.
There is a saying that unseen is as good as unbeen; but in this case it was otherwise—unseen, Master Malrubius was more palpably present than ever before.
1980, Gene Wolfe, chapter XXXIII, in The Shadow of the Torturer (The Book of the New Sun; 1), New York: Simon & Schuster, →ISBN, page 2801 more example
I cannot bear my fate as writ, / I'd have my life unbe; / Would turn my memory to a blot, / Make every relic of me rot, / My doings be as they were not, / And what they've brought to me!
1901, Thomas Hardy, Poems of the Past and the Present, Edinburgh & London: Ballantyne, Hanson & Co., page 234
Origin
Cite this entry
APA
unbe. (n.d.). In WatkinsX Dictionary. Retrieved November 3, 2026, from https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/unbe
MLA
“unbe.” WatkinsX Dictionary, https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/unbe. Accessed November 3, 2026.
Chicago
WatkinsX Dictionary, s.v. “unbe,” accessed November 3, 2026, https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/unbe.
Source: unbe on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.