behove

Verb

behove (third-person singular simple present behoves, present participle behoving, simple past behoved, past participle behoved or (archaic) behoven)

1. (formal, transitive) To befit, to suit.
   • [W]here therefore public diversions are tolerated, it behoves persons of distinction, with their power and example, to preside over them in such a manner as to check any thing that tends to the corruption of manners, or which is too mean or trivial for the entertainment of reasonable creatures.1711 December 26, “Devide et impera. Divide and Rule.”, in The Spectator, number 258; republished in A[lexander] Chalmers, The Spectator: With a Historical and Biographical Preface. … In Eight...
   • It behoves every man, who values liberty of conscience for himself, to resist invasions of it in the case of others; it behoves him too, in his own case, to give no example of concession, betraying the common right of independent opinion, by answering questions of faith, which laws have left...1803 April 21, “Crito” [pseudonym; Thomas Jefferson], “Letter, &c., on the Doctrine of Jesus, by an Eminent American Statesman [written to Benjamin Rush]”, in The Monthly Repository of Theology and...
2. (formal, transitive) To be necessary for (someone).
   • Accordingly, Mr. Stryver inaugurated the Long Vacation with a formal proposal to take Miss Manette to Vauxhall Gardens; that failing, to Ranelagh; that unaccountably failing too, it behoved him to present himself in Soho, and there declare his noble mind.1859, Charles Dickens, “The Fellow of Delicacy”, in A Tale of Two Cities, London: Chapman and Hall, […], →OCLC, book II (The Golden Thread), page 93
3. (formal, transitive) To be in the best interest of; to benefit.
   • Seeing by the late alliance termed the Rhenish Confederacy, that Louis, King of France, has the most cunning and diabolic intentions on the Imperial Crown, thereby behoving all Germans to unite in a band of brotherhood.1866, John W. Walton, Dora; or, The Baron’s Ward. A Drama, in Three Acts, London: Printed by Walter Brettell, 336A, Oxford Street, →OCLC, act I, scene iii, page 21
4. (formal, intransitive) To be needful, meet or becoming.
   • 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...