beta

1. 1.

   second in order of importance

   “the candidate, considered a beta male, was perceived to be unable to lead his party to victory”

   Similarimportant
2. 2.

   preliminary or testing stage of a software or hardware product

   “a beta version”

   “beta software”

   Similarexploratory

Other forms of beta

plural

betas·

Forms marked · are formed by the regular rule rather than recorded in the source data. English keeps a few hundred irregulars and the rest follow the pattern, so the rule is right far more often than not — but it is a rule, and the mark says so.

Questions about beta

What does beta mean?

beta means "the 2nd letter of the Greek alphabet". That is the primary sense; the word has 4 in total, listed in full on this page.

How many syllables are in beta?

beta has 2 syllables: be-ta. The stress falls on "be". In IPA it is /ˈbeɪtə/.

What is another word for beta?

Close synonyms include genus Beta. Each sense on this page lists its own synonyms, because a word with several meanings rarely has one substitute that works for all of them.

Is beta a common word?

beta is banded "Familiar" — widely understood, used when the subject calls for it. The band comes from how often the word appears in a large corpus of everyday English, not from an editor's impression.