Etymology: northern Old English bý , probably < Old Norse bœ-r , bý-r (Swedish and Danish by ) habitation, village, town, < búa to dwell; compare big v.¹ Retained in place-names, as Whitby, Grimsby, Derby.

Etymology: Elliptical use of the adjective (or adverb), when by is contrasted with main , some such word as object , road , course , part , etc., or stake , throw , being understood; the earliest quots. suggest that the substantive use had its origin in dicing phraseology. Rarely used except with preposition preceding. Often also written bye n.¹

Etymology: Attributive use of by- comb. form by- in adverb, as in out patient , etc. Not separated by any clear line < by combinations: see by- comb. form 2c (In modern use the spelling bye seems to be preferred when the word is treated as an adjective.)

Etymology: Old English bí (big) accented; bĭ, be unaccented, = Old Frisian, Old Saxon, Middle Dutch, bî, be, (Dutch bij, be-), Old High German bî, bi, bĭ- (Middle High German bî, be-, German bei, be-), Gothic bi, bi- ‘about, by’ < Old Germanic *bi, probably cognate with Latin am-bi- prefix, Greek ἀμϕί, preposition and prefix ‘about’. (For the disappearance of am- in Germanic, compare Old Germanic bo-, with Latin am-bo-, Greek ἀμ-ϕο- both.) Originally an adverbial particle of place; when prefixed to a verb it generally coalesced with the latter, and was treated as a prefix; when construed with substantives (in the dative or accusative, according as the relation was that of being near, or moving near to), it became, like other adverbs, a preposition. Compare the series: ‘þæt folc bí stód (bi-stód)’, ‘þæt folc him bí stod (him bi-stód)’, ‘þæt folc stód him bí,’ ‘the folk stood by him’, and the modern English, ‘to stand by, stand by him, be a bystander’. The single form bi of Old Germanic was subsequently, under the influence of the stress, differentiated into the strong or accented bî, bī (by, bij, bei), and the weak or stressless bĭ, later bĕ. The strong form was used for the adverb, the accented prefix of nouns, and a stressed preposition; the weak form for the stressless prefix of verbs, and a stressless preposition. The influence of levelling, however, tended at length to make bî (by, etc.) the separate form in all cases, and to leave be- as the weak prefix; thus, while in Old English the preposition was both be and bi, in Middle English it was usually written bi, by, and modern English makes the preposition, like the adverb, by, in all positions and senses, and has be- only as a stressless prefix. The same is true of modern German bei, be-, and Dutch bij, be-. But in pronunciation there was a weak and a strong form in Middle English (compare forms like be-sides, be-times, bum troth, bum Lady, byrlady), as is still usual in the dialects. In modern Scots bĕ is the ordinary form of the preposition unaccented, or in a weakened sense, as in ‘sit be the fire’, ‘written be a clerk’, ‘ane be ane’, by the form of the adverb and strong preposition, as in ‘stand by’, ‘to pass by a place be the railway’. This use of be as preposition has been uniform in the northern dialect since the earliest preserved Middle English specimens.