DictionaryAI

behavior

noun
bi-HAY-vyur/bɪˈheɪ.vjɚ/UKbi-HAY-vyuh/bɪˈheɪ.vjə(ɹ)/

Pluralbehaviors

UK spellingbehaviour

3 meanings of behavior

Practice

  1. 1
    how creatures actnouncountable or uncountable
    The way a person or other living creature acts, especially toward others or measured against accepted standards of conduct.

    Researchers spent months recording the elephants' behavior at the watering hole.

    Cats display very different behavior from dogs in unfamiliar settings.

    UsageUsually without a: bad behavior, behavior toward others. Set phrase: be on your best behavior.

  2. 2
    working (machines)noununcountable
    The way a device or system operates and responds under different conditions.

    The software's behavior changed after the latest update.

    We logged the network's behavior during peak traffic hours.

    Similarperformance, operation, functioning

Less common meaning

  1. 3
    nouncolloquial
    The state of having to act well for a time because one's conduct is being watched or judged, chiefly in the phrase on one's best behavior.

Practice

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Origin

Middle English behavoure or behaver was formed on behaven (modern 'behave'), and its ending seems to copy havior, a corrupted form of Old French aveir and/or avoir ('a having') that goes back in the end to Latin habēre. The word took over from Old English ġebǣru.