Word.ws English Dictionary

behaving

behaving is the present participle and gerund of behave.

Meaning of behave

Verb

behave (third-person singular simple present behaves, present participle behaving, simple past and past participle behaved)

  1. (reflexive) To conduct (oneself) well, or in a given way; to conform.
    • You need to behave yourself, young lady.
  2. (intransitive) To act, conduct oneself in a specific manner; used with an adverbial of manner.
    • He behaves like a child whenever she's around.
    Synonyms:
    deport, tread, acquit
  3. (obsolete, transitive) To conduct, manage, regulate (something).
    • He did behave his anger ere 'twas spent.c. 1605–1608 (date written), William Shakespeare, “The Life of Tymon of Athens”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies […] (First Folio), London: […] Isaac Iaggard, and...
  4. (intransitive) To act in a polite or proper way.
    • His mother threatened to spank him if he didn't behave.

Noun

behaving (plural behavings)

  1. Behaviour.
    • After that, he watched the semichivalrous behavings of the three English with quiet amusement; he thought Fielding had been incredibly silly and weak, and he was amazed by the younger people's want of proper pride.1924, E. M. Forster, A Passage to India
    • For any such thing can play the role in an individual life which philosophers have thought could, or at least should, be played only by things which were universal, common to us all. It can symbolise the blind impress all our behavings bear.1998, Daniel W. Conway, Peter S. Groff, Nietzsche: The world as will to power, page 315

Forms of behaving

pluralbehavings

Words formed from behaving

Questions about behaving

What does behaving mean?
Behaving means behaviour.
What is behaving the present participle and gerund of?
Behaving is the present participle and gerund of behave.
What part of speech is behaving?
Behaving is a noun.
What is the plural of behaving?
The plural of behaving is behavings.

Words near behaving in the dictionary

  1. behavest
  2. behaveth
  3. behavier
  4. behaviers
  5. behavin'
  6. behaving
  7. behavings
  8. behavior
  9. behavioral
  10. behavioral contagion
  11. behavioral crises

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: behaving (page history and authors); behave (page history and authors). Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws reformatted the entry and added links. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.

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Cite this entry: “behaving.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/behaving. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.