behighting

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

See all 8 meanings of behight