# behavior

Pronunciation: US say "bi-HAY-vyur" /bɪˈheɪ.vjɚ/; UK say "bi-HAY-vyuh" /bɪˈheɪ.vjə(ɹ)/

## Noun

1. The way a person or other living creature acts, especially toward others or measured against accepted standards of conduct.
   - Simple: The way a person or animal acts, especially whether their actions are thought good or bad.
   - _Researchers spent months recording the elephants' behavior at the watering hole._
   - _Cats display very different behavior from dogs in unfamiliar settings._
2. The way a device or system operates and responds under different conditions.
   - Simple: The way a machine or program works or reacts.
   - _The software's behavior changed after the latest update._
   - _We logged the network's behavior during peak traffic hours._

## Other meanings

- (noun) 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.

## 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.

Source: DictionaryAI, https://dictionaryai.com/define/behavior (written from Wiktionary data, CC BY-SA 4.0: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/).