Definitions

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.

  • noun The way a living creature behaves or acts.
  • noun The way a device or system operates.

from WordNet 3.0 Copyright 2006 by Princeton University. All rights reserved.

  • noun the action or reaction of something (as a machine or substance) under specified circumstances
  • noun (behavioral attributes) the way a person behaves toward other people
  • noun (psychology) the aggregate of the responses or reactions or movements made by an organism in any situation
  • noun manner of acting or controlling yourself

Etymologies

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License

From behave +‎ -iour, apparently in simulation of haviour, havior, havour. Compare Scots havings ("behaviour"), from have ("to behave").

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Examples

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  • “This above all: To thine own self be true, and it must follow, as the night to day, thou canst not then be false to any man.�? - Shakespeare

    July 30, 2008