as in to treat
to behave toward in a stated way
you need to be nice to your brother
Synonyms & Similar Words
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Example Sentences
Recent Examples of Synonyms for be (to)
Verb
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Medics treated the victims at the scene, while responding officers continued to investigate.—
Alexa Ashwell,
Baltimore Sun,
1 May 2026 -
The American startup’s chatbots are banned in mainland China, and Goldman’s move suggests US AI firms could increasingly treat Hong Kong as off-limits as well, the Financial Times reported.—
Andrew Edgecliffe-Johnson,
semafor.com,
30 Apr. 2026
Verb
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The Santa Fe burrito is a genuine pleasure—more restrained, built on a smaller scale, with green chile doing the complex, vegetal, low-burning work that other versions might leave to salsa—though, again, the tortilla serves its contents, rather than the hosannas going the other way.—
Helen Rosner,
New Yorker,
3 May 2026
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The Iranian human rights activist Narges Mohammadi, a Nobel Peace Prize laureate who is currently serving an 18-year prison sentence in Iran, has been hospitalized in critical condition after collapsing and losing consciousness in jail.—
Anastasia Tsioulcas,
NPR,
2 May 2026
Verb
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The recruitment has been part of that — Leipzig bought well and sold the players who needed to leave — but Werner has handled a young squad particularly well, minimising the volatility that was such a feature of their football last season.—
Sebastian Stafford-Bloor,
New York Times,
27 Apr. 2026
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The lieutenant who handled his Skelly conference wrote that Webster accepted full responsibility for his actions and apologized.—
Kelly Davis,
San Diego Union-Tribune,
26 Apr. 2026
Verb
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First, locate the radiant to the left of the waning moon using a handy smartphone stargazing app.—
Anthony Wood,
Space.com,
2 May 2026
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For Love in the Time of Cholera, 1989, for instance, Pau uses early Picture-in-Picture (PiP) technology to frame clips from Zuni’s 1988 October/Decameron stage performance, which then float, rotate, and cascade across the screen.—
Pauline J. Yao,
Artforum,
2 May 2026
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Cite this Entry
“Be (to).” Merriam-Webster.com Thesaurus, Merriam-Webster, https://www.merriam-webster.com/thesaurus/be%20%28to%29. Accessed 3 May. 2026.
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