Behavioural

How to spell behavioural

11 letters · 4 syllables

12 of the 88 people asked to spell behavioural in Spelling Garden got it wrong the first time.

How to pronounce behavioural

Say the part in capitals loudest.

What does behavioural mean?

1. adjectiveRelating to the way a person or animal acts or conducts itself.

Behavioural in a sentence

• The clinic offers behavioural therapy for anxiety and insomnia.

• The teacher noted several behavioural changes after the new routine began.

Where does behavioural come from?

Language of origin: Germanic

This word is built on 'behaviour', which itself grew from the verb 'behave', a late Middle English coinage joining the intensifying prefix 'be-' to 'have' in the sense of 'to have or bear oneself' in a particular way. The noun was originally spelled 'havour' or 'haviour', meaning bearing or demeanour, and was reshaped by association with the obsolete word 'haviour' (linked to French 'avoir', meaning 'to have' or 'possession'); that extra '-iour' chunk is exactly what makes the British spelling look so top-heavy. The adjective form 'behavioural' adds the ordinary '-al' ending and rose to prominence in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries alongside the new science of psychology, where 'behavioural' described conduct that could be observed and measured. The British and Canadian spelling keeps the '-our-' just as in 'colour' and 'favour', so the trap is remembering both the 'i' before 'our' and the silent shape of 'behaviour' underneath. American writers, by contrast, drop that 'u' entirely and write 'behavioral', which is why UK and Canadian spellers, surrounded by American media, so often second-guess the spelling.

How the word is built

• behav- (from behave: to conduct oneself)
• -iour (noun suffix, from older haviour 'possession, bearing')
• -al (adjective suffix)

British and American spelling

Behavioural is the British spelling. American English spells it behavioral.

People who misspell behavioural also struggle with

Of the Spelling Garden players who got behavioural wrong the first time, this is how many also got each of these wrong.

• connoisseur 100% of them got it wrong