Behavioral

How to spell behavioral

10 letters · 4 syllables

How to pronounce behavioral

Say the part in capitals loudest.

What does behavioral mean?

1. adjectiveRelating to the way a person or animal acts, especially as a subject of observation or therapy.

Behavioral in a sentence

• The clinic offers behavioral therapy for anxiety and insomnia.

• Teachers tracked the behavioral changes in students after the new schedule began.

Where does behavioral come from?

Language of origin: French

This adjective is built on the noun 'behavior', which traces back to the late medieval English verb 'behave', formed from the intensive prefix 'be-' added to 'have' in its older sense of holding or bearing oneself in a particular way. The noun form was shaped by analogy with an old word 'havior' (manner of having or conducting oneself), which itself drew on the Old French 'avoir', meaning 'to have' and also 'property' or 'possession'. The adjective 'behavioral' is a much later development, emerging in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries as psychology became a formal science and needed a word for anything relating to observable conduct. The spelling without the 'u', as in 'behavioral', is the standard American form and follows the wider American pattern of dropping the 'u' from '-our' endings; British writers keep the 'u' and write 'behavioural'. The single 'l' before the suffix is the trap here, since the base 'behavior' already ends in 'r', not 'l'.

How the word is built

• behav- (from behave: to conduct or hold oneself)
• -ior (noun ending denoting manner)
• -al (adjective suffix)

British and American spelling

Behavioral is the American spelling. British English spells it behavioural.