Word.ws English Dictionary

behooving

behooving is the present participle and gerund of behoove.

Meaning of behoove

Verb

behoove (third-person singular simple present behooves, present participle behooving, simple past behooved, past participle behooved or (rare) behooven)

  1. (US, transitive) To befit, be appropriate or necessary to somebody. Alternative form of behove.
    • It ill behooves my mother to complain.
  2. (intransitive) To be fitting.
    • It behooved that the Sonne of God suld descend unto us, and tak himselfe a bodie of our bodie, flesh of our flesh, and bone of our bones, and so become the Mediator betwixt God and man, giving power to so many as beleeve in him, to be the sonnes of God; […]1560, [John Knox et al.], “Confessio Fidei Scoticana I. The Scotch Confession of Faith. A.D. 1560.”, in The Creeds of Christendom, with a History and Critical Notes. … In Three Volumes, 4th revised...

Questions about behooving

What is behooving the present participle and gerund of?
Behooving is the present participle and gerund of behoove.

Words near behooving in the dictionary

  1. behooveful
  2. behooven
  3. behooves
  4. behoovest
  5. behooveth
  6. behooving
  7. behoovingly
  8. behope
  9. behorn
  10. behorsed
  11. behote

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: behooving (page history and authors); behoove (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: “behooving.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/behooving. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.