behoove

English

Etymology

See behove.

Pronunciation

• (Received Pronunciation) IPA^(key): /bɪˈhuːv/

• Audio (Southern England):

  (file)

• (General American) IPA^(key): /bɪˈhuːv/
• Rhymes: -uːv
• Hyphenation: be‧hoove

Verb

behoove (third-person singular simple present behooves, present participle behooving, simple past behooved, past participle behooved or (rare) behooven)

1. (transitive, chiefly US) To befit, be appropriate or necessary to somebody. Alternative form of behove.

   It ill behooves my mother to complain.

   • 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:

     Straighter he stood, and had achieved some praise / In other exercise, much more behooving / A soldier's taste than merely dirt removing.

   • 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)‎^[1], archived from the original on 6 April 2018:

     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.

   • 2007, Gary D. Schmidt, “May”, in The Wednesday Wars, New York, N.Y.: Clarion Books, Houghton Mifflin Company, →ISBN, page 208:

     “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?”

   • 2015, Dan Casey, “Avengers Mansion”, in 100 Things Avengers Fans Should Know & Do before They Die, Chicago, Ill.: Triumph Books, →ISBN, page 185:

     […] 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.

2. (intransitive) To be fitting.
   • 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:

     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; […]

   • 1851, Herman Melville, “XCIV A Squeeze of the Hand”, in Moby-Dick‎^[2]:

     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.

Derived terms

• behoovable

 

Middle English

Noun

behoove (uncountable)

1. Alternative form of behove