English

Alternative forms

• befo'

Preposition

befo

1. (chiefly in representations of African American Vernacular) Eye dialect spelling of before.
   • 1941, Work Projects Administration, “Arkansas Narratives: Volume 7”, in Slave Narratives: A Folk History of Slavery in the United States:

     She carried me to a young woman to nurse for her what she nursed at Mostor Wilks befo freedom.

   • 1993 October 8, Jonathan Rosenbaum, “Bunuel's Neglected Masterpiece”, in Chicago Reader:

     I use t'know when Mom was alive, befo Gramps brot me out here," Meersman replies in a delivery so flat as to make her seem not so much a bad actress as a nonactress.

Lojban

Etymology

be +‎ fo

Cmavo

befo, be fo

1. Connects the following sumti to the previous sumti as an internal sumti (subordinate (relative) clause) which is the previous sumti's x₄argument.