behoove

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“
` ` It's outrageous and insulting for you to suggest it would 'behoove' us to adopt another name, to give up our birthright and a part of our own identity, in order to exercise our right to vote, '' he said.

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Definitions (11)

Toggle American Heritage definitions American Heritage Dictionary (2)

  1. transitive verb To be necessary or proper for: It behooves you at least to try.
  2. intransitive verb To be necessary or proper.

Toggle Century definitions Century Dictionary (5)

Toggle GNU Webster definitions GNU Webster's 1913 (3)

Toggle WordNet definitions WordNet (1)

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Examples (50)

  • Therefore, Vakil says, it would behoove the Obama team to reach out to Khamenei's office and not to conflicting levers of power. —  LJWorld.com stories: News
  • Perhaps it would behoove us fans of Bobby Brown to, um, see it before we believe it. —  Sactown Royalty
  • And it would behoove elected officials to note that steamrolling falls in the sport of football, where tackling people to the ground to win only teaches them to respond in kind. —  WHEELIE CATHOLIC
  • Given the controversy that continues to surround white spaces, it wouldn't behoove this new FCC to continue its engineering tests so it can give broadcasters and others some stronger evidence that white-space devices won't interfere with the operations of broadcasters and others. —  Urgent Communications RSS
  • It would behoove every society well to make sure that every member is always informed as of what this mainstream is and whether he / she is holding a majority or a minority position. —  Adrian Monck
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Roget's II Roget's II: The New Thesaurus

Allen's Allen's Synonyms and Antonyms

Roget's II: The New Thesaurus, Third Edition by the Editors of the American Heritage® Dictionary. Copyright © 2003, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. All rights reserved.

Etymologies (2)

Toggle American Heritage etymologies American Heritage Dictionary (1)

  1. Middle English behoven, from Old English behōfian; see kap- in Indo-European roots.

Toggle Century etymologies Century Dictionary (1)

  1. Also spelled, against analogy, behove; from Middle English behoven, behofen, Anglo-Saxon behōfian, need, be necessary (= OFries. bihōvia = Dutch behoeven = Middle Low German behoven, Low German behoben, behöben = German behufen (obsolete) = Swedish behöfva = Danish behöve); from the noun: see behoof. Cf. Icelandic hæfa, aim at, hit, behoove, = Swedish höfvas, beseem. The preterit behooved is worn down in Scots to bud, bid: see bid.
 

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/bəˈhuv/
by American Heritage

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