Word.ws English Dictionary

behest

/bɪˈhɛst/US/bɪˈhɛst/

behest noun: a command, bidding; sometimes also, an authoritative request; now usually in the phrase at the behest of and at one's behest.

Noun

behest (plural behests)

  1. A command, bidding; sometimes also, an authoritative request; now usually in the phrase at the behest of and at one's behest.
    • Moſt great and puiſant Monarke of the earth,
      Your Baſſoe wil accompliſh your beheſt: […]c. 1587–1588 (date written), [Christopher Marlowe], Tamburlaine the Great. […] The First Part […], 2nd edition, part 1, London: […] [R. Robinson for] Richard Iones, […], published 1592, →OCLC...
    • to do his master's high behest1805, Walter Scott, “(please specify the page)”, in The Lay of the Last Minstrel: A Poem, London: […] [James Ballantyne] for Longman, Hurst, Rees, and Orme, […], and A[rchibald] Constable and Co....
  2. (obsolete) A vow; a promise.
    • The time is come that I should send it her, if I keep the behest that I have made.c. 1440, Markaryte Paston, letter to John Paston

Verb

behest (third-person singular simple present behests, present participle behesting, simple past and past participle behested)

  1. (obsolete) To promise; vow.

behest meaning in Tamil, Urdu, Bengali and Malayalam

behest in Tamil

கட்டளை, விருப்பம், வேண்டுகோள்

behest in Urdu

حکم, قول, وعدہ

behest in Bengali

আদেশ, নির্দেশ

behest in Malayalam

instruction, requirement, demand
ആദേശം, നിർദ്ദേശം, ആമന്ത്രണം, ആവശ്യപ്പെടൽ, ആവശ്യം, അഭ്യർത്ഥന
More languagesFewer languages
behest in Kannada
ಸೆಲವು, ಕೋರಿಕೆ
behest in Malay
arahan

Examples of behest in a sentence

  • I have spells for the north, I have charms for the west, / And the south and the east must obey my behest.1886, Peter Christen Asbjø￵rnsen, translated by H.L. Brækstad, Folk and Fairy Tales, page 302:
  • Paul did not dare pronounce, let matters rest, / His master having given him no behest.1951, Geoffrey Chaucer, translated by Nevill Coghill, The Canterbury Tales: Translated into Modern English (Penguin Classics), Penguin...
  • Sophie felt she should sit on too though she knew it to be an irrational fantasy of hers that these little services were held at his behest.2005, Patrick Gale, Friendly Fire, London; New York: Fourth Estate, page 150:
  • Fleetwood Vibe was here at the behest of his father, Wall Street eminence Scarsdale Vibe, who was effectively bankrolling the Expedition.2007, Thomas Pynchon, Against the Day:

All 11 example sentences with behest

Forms of behest

Noun
pluralbehests
Verb
third-person singular presentbehests
present participlebehesting
past participlebehested
pastbehested

Origin of behest

From Middle English biheste, from Old English behǣs (“vow, promise”), from Proto-West Germanic *bihaisi, from *bi- (“be-”) + *haisi (“command”), from Proto-Germanic *haisiz, from *haitaną (“to command”). Final -t by analogy with other similar words in -t. Related to Old English behātan (“to command, promise”), Middle Low German beheit, behēt (“a promise”). Compare also hest (“command”), hight.

Words formed from behest

Words that rhyme with behest

48 more rhymesFewer rhymes

Questions about behest

What does behest mean?
Behest means a command, bidding; sometimes also, an authoritative request; now usually in the phrase at the behest of and at one's behest.
What is behest in Tamil?
Behest in Tamil is கட்டளை, விருப்பம், வேண்டுகோள். See Behest meaning in Tamil.
How do you use behest in a sentence?
I have spells for the north, I have charms for the west, / And the south and the east must obey my behest.
What part of speech is behest?
Behest can be a noun or a verb.
How do you pronounce behest?
Behest is pronounced /bɪˈhɛst/ (UK).
What is the plural of behest?
The plural of behest is behests.

Words near behest in the dictionary

  1. behenic acid
  2. behenji
  3. behenjis
  4. behenoyl
  5. behentrimonium chloride
  6. behest
  7. behest loan
  8. behested
  9. behesting
  10. behests
  11. behew

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: behest (page history and authors); behest (Tamil Wiktionary) (page history and authors); behest (Urdu Wiktionary) (page history and authors); behest (Bengali Wiktionary) (page history and authors); behest (Olam, E.K. Kurup corpus) (dataset and license); behest (Kannada Wiktionary) (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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Pronunciation audio from Wikimedia Commons, each file under its own free license: LL-Q1860 (eng)-Vealhurl-behest.wav.

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