Behaviour

How to spell behaviour

9 letters · 3 syllables

How to pronounce behaviour

Say the part in capitals loudest.

What does behaviour mean?

1. nounThe way a person or thing acts or conducts itself.

Behaviour in a sentence

• The teacher praised the calm behaviour of the whole class.

• Managers monitored customer behaviour on the new website.

Where does behaviour come from?

Language of origin: French

This word grew out of the late medieval English verb 'behave', formed from the prefix 'be-' added to 'have', so it literally meant something like 'to have or hold oneself' in a particular way. By the fifteenth century writers wanted a noun for the result of behaving, and they fashioned 'behaviour', the spelling shaped partly by analogy with the older word 'havour' or 'aver', an Anglo-French term for possessions or property, which is why an unexpected 'i' slipped into the middle. The Latin influence on French is what eventually gave Britain the '-our' ending seen here, while American spelling later trimmed it to 'behavior'. The core sense, the manner in which a person or thing acts, has stayed remarkably stable for over five hundred years. The trickiest part of the spelling is invisible to the ear: the silent 'i' before the 'our', a relic of that old French-flavoured noun.

How the word is built

• be- (intensive prefix)
• have (root, from Old English habban: to have or hold)
• -iour (noun suffix, the British -our form)

British and American spelling

Behaviour is the British spelling. American English spells it behavior.