behoove

present singular third person behooves · participle present behooving · past behooved · participle past behooved · participle past rare behooven · alternative UK behove

1. formaltransitiveTo befit, to suit.

   It ill behooves my mother to complain.

   5 more examples

   [W]here therefore public diversions are tolerated, it behoves persons of distinction, with their power and example, to preside over them in such a manner as to check any thing that tends to the corruption of manners, or which is too mean or trivial for the entertainment of reasonable creatures.

   1711 December 26, “Devide et impera. Divide and Rule.”, in The Spectator, number 258; republished in A[lexander] Chalmers, The Spectator: With a Historical and Biographical Preface. … In Eight Volumes, volume IV, Boston, Mass.: Little, Brown and Company, 1856, →OCLC, pages 140–141

   It behoves every man, who values liberty of conscience for himself, to resist invasions of it in the case of others; it behoves him too, in his own case, to give no example of concession, betraying the common right of independent opinion, by answering questions of faith, which laws have left between God and himself.

   1803 April 21, “Crito” [pseudonym; Thomas Jefferson], “Letter, &c., on the Doctrine of Jesus, by an Eminent American Statesman [written to Benjamin Rush]”, in The Monthly Repository of Theology and General Literature, volume XI, number CXXX, Hackney, London: Printed for the editor, by Ann Stower, published by Sherwood, Neely and Jones, Paternoster Row, published October 1816, →OCLC, letter II, page 574, column 2

   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

   I never over Horeb heard / The blast of advent blow; / No fire-faced prophet brought me word / Which way behoved me go.

   1936 October, A. E. Housman, Laurence Housman, compiler, “[Poem] II”, in More Poems, London: Jonathan Cape, […], →OCLC, stanza 3, page 16, lines 9–12

   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

2. formaltransitiveTo be necessary for (someone).

   Accordingly, Mr. Stryver inaugurated the Long Vacation with a formal proposal to take Miss Manette to Vauxhall Gardens; that failing, to Ranelagh; that unaccountably failing too, it behoved him to present himself in Soho, and there declare his noble mind.

   1859, Charles Dickens, “The Fellow of Delicacy”, in A Tale of Two Cities, London: Chapman and Hall, […], →OCLC, book II (The Golden Thread), page 93

3. formaltransitiveTo be in the best interest of; to benefit.

   Seeing by the late alliance termed the Rhenish Confederacy, that Louis, King of France, has the most cunning and diabolic intentions on the Imperial Crown, thereby behoving all Germans to unite in a band of brotherhood.

   1866, John W. Walton, Dora; or, The Baron’s Ward. A Drama, in Three Acts, London: Printed by Walter Brettell, 336A, Oxford Street, →OCLC, act I, scene iii, page 21

4. formalintransitiveTo be needful, meet or becoming.

   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)

   1 more example

   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