How to Use behave in a Sentence

behave

verb
Definition of behavenext
Synonyms for behavenext
  • If you can't behave in the store we'll have to leave.
  • He behaves like a child!
  • If you can't behave yourself in the store we'll have to leave.
  • I wish those children would behave themselves.
  • The experiment tested how various metals behave under heat and pressure.
  • In short, that means telling the chatbot to behave in a way it has been told not to.
    — Matt Burgess, WIRED, 29 Nov. 2023
  • And in the pre-hat era, a shape would invariably behave in one of two ways.
    — Craig S. Kaplan, Scientific American, 14 Dec. 2023
  • One of the reasons people behaved so badly, of course, was the color of their skin.
    — Scott Roxborough, The Hollywood Reporter, 28 Apr. 2023
  • The Bear League and wildlife department agreed that Hank could no longer be free in the wild because of the way the animal behaved.
    — Praveena Somasundaram, Anchorage Daily News, 8 Aug. 2023
  • How to dress, how to walk, how to apply makeup and wear my hair, how to behave, how to return love — his way.
    — Angelique Jackson, Variety, 3 Nov. 2023
  • Under the rules that the Court stands by, the Justices have behaved ethically all along.
    — Jeannie Suk Gersen, The New Yorker, 21 Nov. 2023
  • All this time on water has given him a ton of insight into how bass behave around the spawn.
    — Shaye Baker, Field & Stream, 21 Mar. 2024
  • People don’t know how to behave in the office anymore, bosses say.
    — Ryan Fonseca, Los Angeles Times, 17 Jan. 2024
  • The pigs also behaved normally, though pigs that took the pills were less active after meals.
    — Sarah Kuta, Smithsonian Magazine, 3 Jan. 2024
  • By no means are dogs the only family pets that behave this way either.
    — Sean Mowbray, Discover Magazine, 7 Sep. 2023
  • Law took this role seriously, making sure to look, speak, behave — and smell — like the monarch in his final years.
    — Liza Esquibias, Peoplemag, 24 May 2023
  • Then there’s the software, which governs how the phone behaves when signal strength is limited.
    — WIRED, 23 Sep. 2023
  • The kiosk, meanwhile, is a simple wheeled system that behaves in a highly predictable way.
    — IEEE Spectrum, 11 Feb. 2024
  • Iris—silent, hollow-eyed, skittish, and feral—does not behave like a normal girl.
    — Sarah Yang, Sunset Magazine, 23 Oct. 2023
  • But Leibovich didn’t get to write the next chapter, about how the GOP would behave in the 2024 presidential primary.
    — Jason Linkins, The New Republic, 29 Apr. 2023
  • So astronomers have tended to assume that stars in the Milky Way behave much like those seen in other galaxies.
    — Adam Mann, Scientific American, 11 Oct. 2023
  • Because she's shown she can't be trusted on her own to behave in a civilized manner.
    — Angela Andaloro, Peoplemag, 1 Mar. 2024
  • Many airline passengers still don’t know how to behave.
    — Alison Sider, WSJ, 22 Dec. 2023
  • The gallery’s centerpiece is a round table that looks like a record and behaves like an interactive display.
    — Justin Davidson, Curbed, 20 Sep. 2023
  • Together, Rogers and Beckham are the perfect duo to instruct how—and how not—to behave at a holiday party.
    — Lilah Ramzi, Vogue, 15 Dec. 2023
  • Most folks who behave this way do it out of insecurity.
    — Abigail Van Buren, oregonlive, 18 Aug. 2023
  • No two people grieve alike, and many of us behave within cultural norms that don’t teach us how to acknowledge others’ loss and grief.
    — Amy Dickinson, Washington Post, 18 Nov. 2023
  • There are people that actually behave badly and get away with it.
    — Nardine Saad, Los Angeles Times, 19 Dec. 2023
  • Our relationship was the norm then – not that my mom would’ve behaved any differently now.
    — Melanie Stetson Freeman, The Christian Science Monitor, 12 May 2023
  • If the wayward beast of a mass action cannot always be coaxed into behaving rationally, so much the better: That is the source of its chaos, but also the source of its force.
    — Becca Rothfeld, Washington Post, 1 Sep. 2023

Some of these examples are programmatically compiled from various online sources to illustrate current usage of the word 'behave.' Any opinions expressed in the examples do not represent those of Merriam-Webster or its editors. Send us feedback about these examples.

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