Word.ws English Dictionary

behight

behight verb: to vow, promise (someone).

Verb

behight (third-person singular simple present behights, present participle behighting, simple past and past participle behight or behighted)

  1. (obsolete, transitive) To vow, promise (someone).
    • Thenne I behote yow sayd Balyn parte of his blood to hele youre sone with alle.1485, Sir Thomas Malory, Le Morte Darthur, Book II
  2. (Northern England, dialectal) To be designated.
    • Wheea behight thee? = What is your name/to whom do you belong?
  3. (obsolete, transitive) To give in trust; to commit; to entrust.
    • The keys are to thy hand behight.1590, Edmund Spenser, “Book I, Canto X”, in The Faerie Queene. […], London: […] [John Wolfe] for William Ponsonbie, →OCLC, stanza 50
  4. (obsolete) To mean, or intend.
    • More than heart behighteth.1559, unknown author, Mirror for Magistrates
  5. (obsolete) To consider or esteem to be; to declare to be.
    • But nathelesse whilst all the lookers on / Him dead behight, as he to all appeard, / All vnawares he started vp anon,1596, Edmund Spenser, “Book IV, Canto III”, in The Faerie Queene. […], London: […] [John Wolfe] for William Ponsonbie, →OCLC, stanza 31
  6. (obsolete) To call; to name; to address.
    • Whom […] he knew and thus behight.1596, Edmund Spenser, “Book V, Canto IV”, in The Faerie Queene. […], London: […] [John Wolfe] for William Ponsonbie, →OCLC, stanza 25
  7. (obsolete) To command; to order.
    • And his well proued weapons to him hent; / So taking courteous conge he behight, / Those gates to be vnbar'd, and forth he went.1590, Edmund Spenser, “Book II, Canto XI”, in The Faerie Queene. […], London: […] [John Wolfe] for William Ponsonbie, →OCLC, stanza 17

Noun

behight (plural behights)

  1. (obsolete) A vow; a promise.

Forms of behight

Verb
third-person singular presentbehights
present participlebehighting
past participlebehight
pastbehight
past participlebehighted
pastbehighted
alternative formbehote
Noun
pluralbehights

Origin of behight

From Middle English beheten, bihaten, behoten (preterite behighte), from Old English behātan (“to promise, vow, pledge oneself, threaten”) (preterite behēhte), corresponding to be- + hight. Cognate with Scots beheit, behecht (“to promise, vow”), Middle High German beheizen (“to promise”).

Questions about behight

What does behight mean?
Behight means to vow, promise (someone).
What part of speech is behight?
Behight can be a verb or a noun.
What is the past tense of behight?
The past tense of behight is behight.

Words near behight in the dictionary

  1. behesting
  2. behests
  3. behew
  4. behews
  5. behierite
  6. behight
  7. behighted
  8. behighting
  9. behights
  10. behind
  11. behind bars

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: behight (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.

Last updated:

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