# Word for the day  behoove



## Josiah (Mar 14, 2015)

behoove


biˈho͞ov


verb formal


it is a duty or responsibility for someone to do something; it is incumbent on. 


"it behooves any coach to study his predecessors"


synonyms:	be incumbent on, be obligatory for, be required of, be expected of, be appropriate for,
it is appropriate or suitable; it befits.


"it ill behooves the opposition constantly to decry the sale of arms to friendly countries"

This word appears in a comment today elsewhere on SF.


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## Shirley (Mar 14, 2015)

That reminds me of a quote that my eighth grade teacher had on the wall of her classroom. 

There is so much good in the worst of us
And so much bad in the best of us
That it hardly behooves any of us
To talk about the rest of us.


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## Josiah (Mar 14, 2015)

Should be in every eighth grade classroom, Thanks Shirley


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## Shirley (Mar 14, 2015)

I agree.


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## Vivjen (Mar 14, 2015)

That is interesting; because in UK it is almost always behove.....pronounced as in elope; behoove is just an add on...


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## 911 (Mar 14, 2015)

I don't like this word. I wrote this word in a report years ago and actually misused it, which changed the meaning of the sentence. The report was an arrest report and the Prosecutor called me and gave me the third degree. After that, I kept a dictionary on my desk and used it quite frequently.


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## Josiah (Mar 14, 2015)

Vivjen said:


> That is interesting; because in UK it is almost always behove.....pronounced as in elope; behoove is just an add on...




Behove and behoove


Pronounced /bɪˈhuːv/Help with pronunciation


A columnist in my daily paper recently wrote, “My dear Britain, it behoves me to inform you that first, I don’t exactly know what the word “behoves” means, but I do enjoy using it.” It behoves me to make good this deficiency by explaining that it expresses a duty and may be translated as “is required of” or “is incumbent upon”.
When James Murray wrote the definition for the word in what was then The New English Dictionary on Historical Principles (only much later the Oxford English Dictionary) he described it as “mainly a literary word”. Some modern stylists have called it archaic or a fossil, but it’s some way from that, though almost always in writing and very rarely in the spoken language. It is a little better known in the US, where the behoove spelling is standard. British pundits and politicians feel that the occasional behove adds a statesmanlike and elevated air to their utterances, though they risk sounding old-fashioned and pompous.
The origin is Old English behōfian, from bihōf, utility, whose adjective is bihóflíc, useful or necessary. The main sense of the verb was need or necessity.
It’s one of those few expressions in modern English that is almost always impersonal. You or I, or even they, do not generally behove. The empty agent it is usually in charge of the verb. Behove can also appear with negative sense, for which a common marker word in the UK is ill. Ill behoves implies acting inappropriately or improperly, as in this editorial pronouncement from a Sunday newspaper:
In an age of genuine austerity, it ill behoves those who have enough cash to eat as they wish to stand in judgment on those who do not.
The Observer, 10 Feb. 2013.


Americans use this form only rarely, but use behoove with a wider range of modifying words, such as would, might and certainly.


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## Vivjen (Mar 14, 2015)

Thanks....there we are!


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## RadishRose (Mar 14, 2015)

It behooves me to say..
Have a very nice day!


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## Josiah (Mar 14, 2015)

RadishRose said:


> It behooves me to say..
> Have a very nice day!



Thanks to your kind wishes, it has been.


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## ronaldj (Mar 14, 2015)

when I was in boot camp the di used that word all the time


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