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behave

[bih-heyv]

Example Sentences Origin

verb (used without object)

to act in a particular way; conduct or comport oneself or itself: The ship behaves well.

to act properly: Did the child behave?

to act or react under given circumstances: This plastic behaves strangely under extreme heat or cold.

verb (used with object)

to conduct or comport (oneself) in a proper manner: Sit quietly and behave yourself.

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Behave is one of our favorite verbs.

So is subtilize. Does it mean:

to introduce subtleties into or argue subtly about.

to chew (food) slowly and thoroughly.

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Origin:
1400–50; late Middle English behaven (reflexive). See be-, have

Related forms

un·be·hav·ing, adjective

well-be·haved, adjective

Synonyms
1. perform, acquit oneself, deport oneself.

Dictionary.com Unabridged
Based on the Random House Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2012.
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Link To behave

Example Sentences

Articles in this series are examining how a deluge of data can affect the way people think and behave.

They have an inability to control their emotions or to behave rationally.

Capture those similarities in a model and it should be possible to predict how a crowd will behave.

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Articles in this series are examining how a deluge of data can affect the way people think and behave.

They have an inability to control their emotions or to behave rationally.

Capture those similarities in a model and it should be possible to predict how a crowd will behave.

Volcanic plumes behave completely differently underwater.

Even a poster with eyes on it changes how people behave.

It has been the writer's job since ancient times to describe how people behave.

Blooms are produced all season long and plants behave as perennials where frosts are nonexistent or light.

The more one probes the universe at smaller and smaller scales, the weirder matter and energy seem to behave.

They wear no veils, often don sleeveless dresses and behave directly toward men, rather than.

When employers can demand that you behave according to their standards at work and at home.

What biological advantage accrues to those who behave in a trusting and co-operative way with.

Mostly, by training the owners to behave correctly.

Buying ecofriendly products might make you more likely to behave badly later on.

Some groups of young people who visit there forget to behave with respect for those who live, sleep and call this home.

Perhaps in another week it will behave as well as the vanilla.

Air resistance would not be enough to make it behave this way unless it was really light.

It is that genes may behave differently depending on whether they are inherited from the father or the mother.

People's senses of who they are shape their ideas about how they, and others, should behave.

The moral, then, is that people's sense of right and wrong influences the way they feel and behave.

Critics say the ball is too light and aerodynamic, and it may behave unpredictably and create problems for goalkeepers.

To be certain, the unique ways in which atoms behave in the.

Humphries as the notion that one is superior based on one's ability to hear or behave in the manner of one who hears.

The software works by creating a model of how players normally behave during a game.

She does not seem to have attempted to teach husbands how to behave as.

Librarians at small colleges with more limited budgets seem to behave no differently.

The idea is to see whether such smells can nevertheless change the way that people behave towards others.

The males, in particular, have become so accustomed to the researchers that they behave as if they weren't being observed.

In many of those animals, the malignancy will look and behave much as it would in humans, such as spreading.

Artificial organisms could behave in unexpected ways, or mutate out of control, critics say.

Seriously, yes, a lot of college kids can behave immaturely on occasion.

It made us wonder whether he knew how to behave professionally.

Sadly, evolution may have shaped men to behave this way.

Have students brainstorm different ways in which animals behave and interact with one another.

Quantum particles continue to behave in ways traditional particles do not.

It's up to the third-party app developers to embed these components in their apps so they behave these ways in the.

Rather, the problem with the film is in the way that the screenplay requires her to behave.

If you feel dressed up and awkward, it might make you behave less naturally.

Sometimes they will need to behave differently from one another.

They seek a world in which they are free to behave as they want, where no one will laugh at them-a place where they finally fit.

Other excerpts cover the roots of disease, why animals behave as they do, and how the brain operates and creates the mind.

It kicks out participants who don't behave in the manner the real-life room monitors deem appropriate.

Nothing makes large piles of data behave themselves.

But it is not all proprietary schools that behave this way.

The only protein known to behave this way in animals is found in the outer membranes of certain nerve cells.

Substances behave magically at the nanoscale because that's where the essential properties of matter are determined.

It says that in complex systems, or systems that behave in complex ways, behaviors emerge in ways you could not have predicted.

Studying individual neurons has been possible in cell cultures, but brains in a dish behave different than real, living brains.

Behave badly end up jobless or in jail, behave well and have a decent job and buy yourself nice things.

But if they offer you the job and behave the same way, then that's another story.

In their economic lives, people behave as though they had no regard for the public good.

Their hope is that the drivers will encourage good behavior and teach tourists how to behave appropriately when viewing the art.

The methodology may allow researchers to see how young neurons behave in neurological disorders.

In other cases, new genes end up where they shouldn't, or behave unpredictably.

People who behave badly in some situations often behave well in others.

Or you can behave in a saintly fashion, far too serene to be bothered by gnats from the past.

Apparently identical cancers in two patients may behave so unlike as to appear utterly different diseases.

When real infestations occur, even sensible people often behave irrationally.

The first step to enhanced and improved education is for teachers themselves to take it upon themselves to behave professionally.

Living in one of these bacterial cities causes an individual bacterium to behave differently.

People behave as if in a state of permanent trance.

She's started to behave quite aggressively towards us when she comes home from daycare.

As a control, though, the maverick was sometimes programmed to behave in an unusually generous way.

Speculating on the colors of alien plants and how the plants might behave isn't simply about satisfying curiosity.

It could make light waves appear to flow backward and behave in many other counterintuitive ways.

Supercomputers allow scientists to predict how volatile materials in the warheads behave as they age and change.

Under identical conditions, they behave in different ways.

For those who behave in the way you describe, that would seem to be true.

Much has since been learnt about what makes magnets behave as they do, right down to the quantum details.

How the winds behave has profound implications for the amount of damage they will cause.

They behave morally not by choice but because they are forced.

Rotation of rigid objects can get crazy complicated, but in this case everything will behave.

Three twentysomethings learn the hard way about how to behave in a cemetery in this independent horror story.

In short, behave as if you already work there full time.

Guilt, then, seems to behave in the laboratory as theologians have long claimed it should.

We need to learn how to behave better when engaging the earth.

The manufacturers of automobiles behave originally.

When given a simple gambling task, they behave erratically and lose vast sums of money.

The little darlings are less than pleased that their widowed mother has remarried and behave as monstrously as possible.

Be aware that you are afraid for a reason, but then behave as if you were not afraid.

Both understood that irreducible uncertainty is the key factor in how people in economies behave.

We have moved on to an e collar to further help him remember how to behave.

So researchers took a closer look at how people who pop health pills actually behave.

Their hope is that young men and women on duty will behave better when watched by eemas.

It also wants to shake off its image among economists of being a prime example of how not to behave when joining the euro.

It tells you exactly how people around them behave and what the norm.

Arrow simply lacks confidence that doctors will behave in the best interest of their clients.

And in future, tracking the glow may help reveal how cancer cells behave when a tumour starts spreading cancer around the body.

COLLAPSE

Collins

World English Dictionary

behave (bɪˈheɪv)

—vb
1.	(intr) to act or function in a specified or usual way
2.	to conduct (oneself) in a specified way: he behaved badly towards her
3.	to conduct (oneself) properly or as desired: the child behaved himself all day

[C15: see be-, have]

Collins English Dictionary - Complete & Unabridged 10th Edition
2009 © William Collins Sons & Co. Ltd. 1979, 1986 © HarperCollins
Publishers 1998, 2000, 2003, 2005, 2006, 2007, 2009
Cite This Source

Etymonline

Word Origin & History

behave

early 15c., from be- intensive prefix + have; the sense is "to have or bear (oneself) in a particular way, comport" (cf. Ger. sich behaben, Fr. se porter). Cognate O.E. compound behabban meant "to contain," though the modern sense of behave could have

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evolved from behabban via a notion of "self-restraint."

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