Dictionary

behoove en · VERB

Pronunciation

• /bɪˈhuːv/ (General-American)
• (Southern-England) audio
• /bɪˈhuːv/ (Received-Pronunciation)

Etymology

See behove.

Meanings

1. (US, transitive) To befit, be appropriate or necessary to somebody. Alternative form of behove.
   • It ill behooves my mother to complain.
   • “Behooves”? said Danny. / “Becomes necessary, Mr. Hupfer,” said Mrs. Baker, “as in ‘It behooves us to raise our hands before we ask a question’. Now, can anyone tell me what the adjectival form would be?” 2007, Gary D. Schmidt, “May”, in The Wednesday Wars, New York, N.Y.: Clarion Books, Houghton Mifflin Company, →ISBN, page 208:
   • I think it ill behooves the Government of Canada, let alone all the people like us in Canada, to pretend that there are not these distinctions in how each of us approaches questions of security. 2002 May 9, Douglas Roche, “Standing Committee on Foreign Affairs and International Trade: Evidence [37th Parliament, 1st session, meeting 82]”, in standing committee proceedings (House of Commons of Canada), archived from the original on 06 Apr 2018:
   • Straighter he stood, and had achieved some praise / In other exercise, much more behooving / A soldier's taste than merely dirt removing. 1874, Bret Harte, “Cadet Grey”, in The Poetical Works of Bret Harte, complete edition, Boston, Mass.: Houghton, Mifflin and Company; The Riverside Press, Cambridge [Mass.], →OCLC, canto II, stanza XX, page 369:
   • […] Thor and Iron Man pushed the [Avengers] Mansion back roughly 35 feet from Fifth Avenue in order to give the Mansion a front yard (and the privacy that comes along with it). Let's face it—it wouldn't behoove Earth's Mightiest Heroes to have to put those ugly wrought-iron bars on their ground-floor windows in order to prevent petty theft. 2015, Dan Casey, “Avengers Mansion”, in 100 Things Avengers Fans Should Know & Do before They Die, Chicago, Ill.: Triumph Books, →ISBN, page 185:
2. (intransitive) To be fitting.
   • Now, while discoursing of sperm, it behooves to speak of other things akin to it, in the business of preparing the sperm whale for the try-works. 1851, Herman Melville, “XCIV A Squeeze of the Hand”, in Moby-Dick^(https://en.wikisource.org/wiki/Moby-Dick_(1851)_US_edition/Chapter_94):
   • It behooved that the Sonne of God suld descend unto us, and tak himselfe a bodie of our bodie, flesh of our flesh, and bone of our bones, and so become the Mediator betwixt God and man, giving power to so many as beleeve in him, to be the sonnes of God; […] 1560, [John Knox et al.], “Confessio Fidei Scoticana I. The Scotch Confession of Faith. A.D. 1560.”, in The Creeds of Christendom, with a History and Critical Notes. … In Three Volumes, 4th revised and enlarged edition, volume III (The Evangelical Protestant Creeds, with Translations), New York, N.Y.: Harper & Brothers, Franklin Square, published 1877, →OCLC, Art. VIII (Of Election), page 445, column 1:

Forms

Deriveds

behooveful · behoovable