behave
Definition, pronunciation, etymology, and usage for the English word. Free spelling reference powered by Wiktionary.
Letters
6 characters
Language
English
word origin
Source
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Detailed reference entry for the English word "behave", 6-letters, with pronunciation in International Phonetic Alphabet notation, etymology traced through Germanic and Romance roots where applicable, common misspelling variants catalogued from Hunspell error dictionaries, and usage frequency ranked against the top 100,000 English words in the Wordfreq corpus. PlainSpell covers English, Spanish, Portuguese, French, and German spelling with confusable-pair detection that highlights visually and phonetically similar words. This entry for "behave" includes synonyms, antonyms, homophones, and cross-language translation pointers sourced from Wiktionary via the kaikki.org extract. Whether you are verifying the correct spelling of "behave" for academic writing, checking homophone confusion, or exploring etymological origins, this page provides a citation-backed, free reference that requires no sign-up.
behave is aEnglishverb. It means: To conduct (oneself) well, or in a given way; to conform. Pronounced /bɪˈheɪv/. It ranks #7,097 in English word frequency. Often confused with brave and beware.
| Property | Value |
|---|---|
| Headword | behave |
| Language | English |
| Part of speech | Verb |
| IPA | /bɪˈheɪv/ |
| Letters | 6 |
| Frequency rank | #7,097 |
| Misspellings tracked | 8 |
| Confusable pairs | 8 |
| Source | Wiktionary (kaikki.org) |
Frequency rank visualization
Spelling & Dictionary Insight
The English entry for behave is 6 letters long, classified as averb, and transcribed in the International Phonetic Alphabet as /bɪˈheɪv/. Corpus data places it at rank #7,097 in overall English word frequency, indicating it appears regularly in written and spoken text.Wiktionary records 4 distinct senses for this headword, so context determines which meaning a reader should apply.
Our Hunspell-derived misspelling index lists 8 documented wrong-spelling variants for behave, with forms such as "bbehave", "beahve", and "behaev". Each variant represents a distinct typo pattern that appears often enough in corpora to be worth flagging, typically a doubled-consonant error, a silent-letter drop, or a vowel substitution.It also participates in 8 confusable-pair relationships, "brave", "beware", "belive", and more, where similar look or sound leads writers to substitute one word for another in context.
Etymologically, the entry records: Etymology tree Proto-Indo-European *h₁ep-der. Proto-Indo-European *h₁epsder. Proto-Indo-European *h₁epider. Proto-Indo-European *h₁pi Proto-Germanic *bider. Proto-Germanic *bi- Proto-West Germanic *bi- Proto-Indo-European *kap-der. Proto-Germanic *habjaną P… Root origin matters for spelling because borrowed morphemes (Greek, Latin, Old French, Old English) carry their source-language orthographic conventions into modern English, which is why historical etymology is often the cleanest predictor of whether a cluster like "-ough", "-eau", or "-tion" will appear. For readers arriving here from a spelling check, the authoritative guidance is: the correct English form is behave, spelled B-E-H-A-V-E, and any other sequence of those letters, regardless of how natural it feels, is a misspelling in standard orthography.
Definition
- 1To conduct (oneself) well, or in a given way; to conform.
- 2To act, conduct oneself in a specific manner; used with an adverbial of manner.
- 3To conduct, manage, regulate (something).
- 4To act in a polite or proper way.
Etymology
Etymology tree Proto-Indo-European *h₁ep-der. Proto-Indo-European *h₁epsder. Proto-Indo-European *h₁epider. Proto-Indo-European *h₁pi Proto-Germanic *bider. Proto-Germanic *bi- Proto-West Germanic *bi- Proto-Indo-European *kap-der. Proto-Germanic *habjaną Proto-West Germanic *habbjan Proto-West Germanic *bihabbjan Old English behabban Middle English behaven English behave From Middle English behaven, bihabben (“to restrain, behave”), from Old English behabban (“to surround, embrace, hold, contain, hold back, withhold, restrain”), from Proto-West Germanic *bihabbjan, equivalent to be- + have. Cognate with Middle Low German behebben, behāven (“to receive, acquire, reach, keep”), Low German behebben (“to act, behave”), German behaben (“to behave”).
This word in other languages
Common misspellings
Also misspelled as: bbehave,beahve,behaev,behavve,behhave,behvae,bheave,ebhave
Misspelling Pattern Breakdown
Relative frequency of common misspelling types for behave
Misspelling Variants of "behave"
Frequency rank: #7,097 in English
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Nearby English words
Other entries that begin with the letter B in our English index: