Definitions
American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition
- v. To conduct oneself in a specified way: The child behaved badly at the party.
- v. To conduct oneself in a proper way: I told the child to behave.
- v. To act, react, function, or perform in a particular way: This fabric behaves well even in hot weather.
- v. To conduct (oneself) properly: Did you behave yourself at the party?
- v. To conduct (oneself) in a specified way: The witness behaved herself with great calmness.
Century Dictionary and Cyclopedia
- To govern; manage; conduct; regulate.
- With a reflexive pronoun, to conduct, comport, acquit, or demean. In some specified way.
- Absolutely, in a commendable or proper way; well or properly: as, behave yourself; they will not behave themselves.
- To employ or occupy.
- [The reflexive pronoun omitted.] To act in any relation; have or exhibit a mode of action or conduct: used of persons, and also of things having motion or operation.
- In a particular manner, as specified: as, to behave well or ill; the ship behaves well.
- Absolutely, in a proper manner: as, why do you not behave?
Wiktionary
- v. reflexive To conduct (oneself) well, or in a given way.
- v. intransitive To act, conduct oneself in a specific manner; used with an adverbial of manner.
- v. obsolete, transitive To conduct, manage, regulate (something).
- v. intransitive To act in a polite or proper way.
GNU Webster's 1913
- v. obsolete To manage or govern in point of behavior; to discipline; to handle; to restrain.
- v. To carry; to conduct; to comport; to manage; to bear; -- used reflexively.
- v. To act; to conduct; to bear or carry one's self.
WordNet 3.0
Etymologies
- From late Middle English behaven ("to restrain"), equivalent to be- + have. Compare Old English behabban ("to include, hold, surround, comprehend, contain, detain, withhold, restrain"), Middle High German behaben ("to hold, take possession of"). (Wiktionary)
- Middle English behaven : be-, be- + haven, to have; see have. (American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition)
Examples
“Some nonsense about the free market regulating and fixing itself and if we just leave it alone credit card companies will magically learn how not to behave is a usurious manner?”
“How we behave is up to us, but Nikolai believes that everything is predetermined by one's particular circumstances (galley page 293).”
“What they do and how they behave is irrelevant, when compared to the dues they believe are owed their innate sense of self-worth.”
“His basic ignorance about the way people behave is astonishing – talking in utterly implausible ways to one another.”
“While they are certainly varied and extremely colorful and cute, they all behave is very similar way.”
“Probably the easiest thing to do when proprietary players like this won't behave, is to download the video using one of the many sites or tools available then reupload it to YouTube or Vimeo. com (who has a really nice player i might add) if the owner of the video will allow.”
“Like it or not, the way a civilization decides to behave is as much a conscious decision as anything else.”
There Are No Superior Or Inferior Cultures « Unambiguously Ambidextrous
“Global warming did not create these big pockets of water — they lie beneath some 2,300 feet of compressed snow and ice, too deep to be affected by temperature changes on the surface — but knowing how they behave is important to understanding the impact of climate change on the Antarctic ice sheet, study author Helen Fricker said by telephone.”
“The way we believe others should behave is based on expectations from our own learned cultural norms.”
“We should, in short, behave normally with China ....”
Lists
These user-created lists contain the word ‘behave’.
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Words related to knowledge
Words that relate to learning, knowing, being enlightened...
revelation, eureka, awakening, idea, sapient, astute, canny, intelligent, wise, sharp, shrewd, informed and 467 more...
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Interesting words
A list of words that are odd or words that I have looked up.
concupiscence, brize, scree, scoria, forestaff, spanaemia, valetudinarianism, distasture, pyrethrum, laudanum, gentian, bicameral and 11184 more...
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Describing People
eye, hair, mouth, nose, tooth, head, face, arm, hand, finger, lip, leg and 212 more...
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bianca's list of humourous words
hullabaloo, pickle, albuquerque, winkle, plump, cumquat, succotash, guacamole, bulbous, bouffant, jub-jub, poquaque and 11 more...
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Belistful
Tubey or not tubey.
belittle, bedazzle, besiege, besmirch, bespeckle, beget, bemoan, befuddle, befriend, become, besot, becloud and 596 more...
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Best words in Beatles songs
kaleidoscope, plasticine, porters, tangerine, marmalade, cellophane, turnstile, marshmallow, lingers, slither, restless, limitless and 91 more...
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Basic English Vocabulary
Very basic words for ESL students.
contemplate, container, consumer, consultant, consensus, conscious, conscience, connection, confusion, confront, conflict, confident and 4334 more...
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Mollusque's miscellany
A mixture of words that I like or have commented on, along with ones parked here so they'd be listed somewhere or remind me of lists I want to make.
oranger, monographer, preoccupied, bu, bobization, coinventor, tetrapyloctomy, borgmannian, suspercollate, manhug, mancrush, obituarist and 604 more...
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Nana Words
My Nana, that is.
piazza, warsh, slim, listen here, dickens, chrisapoo, mine, young man, young lady, waste paper basket, behave, parlor and 15 more...
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catching words
wicker(whichwill)work
collate, percolate, key, quay, hedge, haggard, haw, hawthorn, hawfinch, colander, couloir, coulee and 54 more...
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to essay
good verbs for essays
incorporate, paint, project, present, utilize, enable, impact, influence, itemize, deduce, specify, list and 51 more...
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When I think about girls . . .
it's hard to come up with just one word . . .
suitable, sultry, emotional, bodacious, bewitching, lady, catty, baroness, blissful, trollop, vamp, obsession and 52 more...
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Belist
Be- verbs (or verbals).
Words bewet through becalm were gratefully cribbed from Wikipedia: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Be-bewitch, bedeck, bedaub, become, bewilder, beknight, bereave, believe, behead, besiege, bespeak, befriend and 53 more...
Tweets
Looking for tweets for behave.
fbharjo be have : an impossibilty Aug 10, 2008