behight
English
Alternative forms
- behote (13th-16th centuries)
Etymology
From Middle English beheten, bihaten, behoten (preterite behighte), from Old English behātan (“to promise, vow, pledge oneself, threaten”) (preterite behēhte), corresponding to be- + hight. Cognate with Scots beheit, behecht (“to promise, vow”), Middle High German beheizen (“to promise”).
Verb
behight (third-person singular simple present behights, present participle behighting, simple past and past participle behight or behighted)
- (obsolete, transitive) To vow, promise (someone).
- 1485, Sir Thomas Malory, Le Morte Darthur, Book II:
- Thenne I behote yow sayd Balyn parte of his blood to hele youre sone with alle.
- (dialectal, Northern England) To be designated.
- Wheea behight thee? = What is your name/to whom do you belong?
- (obsolete, transitive) To give in trust; to commit; to entrust.
- 1590, Edmund Spenser, “Book I, Canto X”, in The Faerie Queene. […], London: […] [John Wolfe] for William Ponsonbie, →OCLC, stanza 50:
- The keys are to thy hand behight.
- (obsolete) To mean, or intend.
- 1559, unknown author, Mirror for Magistrates:
- More than heart behighteth.
- (obsolete) To consider or esteem to be; to declare to be.
- 1596, Edmund Spenser, “Book IV, Canto III”, in The Faerie Queene. […], London: […] [John Wolfe] for William Ponsonbie, →OCLC, stanza 31:
- But nathelesse whilst all the lookers on / Him dead behight, as he to all appeard, / All vnawares he started vp anon,
- (obsolete) To call; to name; to address.
- 1596, Edmund Spenser, “Book V, Canto IV”, in The Faerie Queene. […], London: […] [John Wolfe] for William Ponsonbie, →OCLC, stanza 25:
- Whom […] he knew and thus behight.
- (obsolete) To command; to order.
- 1590, Edmund Spenser, “Book II, Canto XI”, in The Faerie Queene. […], London: […] [John Wolfe] for William Ponsonbie, →OCLC, stanza 17:
- And his well proued weapons to him hent; / So taking courteous conge he behight, / Those gates to be vnbar'd, and forth he went.
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