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Behest is an ancient word: it is almost a thousand years old. It was formed from the prefix be- and the verb hātan ("to command" or "to promise"), and its Old English ancestor was used exclusively in the sense of "promise," a now-obsolete meaning that continued on in Middle English especially in the phrase "the land of behest." The "command" meaning of behest is also ancient but it's still in good use, typically referring to an authoritative order. Behest is now also used with a less weighty meaning; it can refer to an urgent prompting, as in "a repeat performance at the behest of the troupe's fans."
Synonyms
Examples of behest in a Sentence
Dan Walters, The Mercury News, 16 Apr. 2024
At the behest of Congress, the federal government set out to simplify this year's Free Application for Federal Student Aid, or FAFSA.
—USA TODAY, 11 Apr. 2024
When that bill was scaled back at the behest of Republicans and Sen. Joe Manchin III (D-W.Va.), the housing pieces were left on the cutting room floor.
—Benjamin Oreskes, Los Angeles Times, 9 Apr. 2024
Also present was Dmitri Shostakovich, who had come to New York at Stalin’s behest, in order to mouth propaganda at the Cultural and Scientific Conference for World Peace.
—Alex Ross, The New Yorker, 25 Mar. 2024
Universal is distributing Monkey Man at the behest of Jordan Peele, who was so impressed with Patel’s film that Peele’s Monkey Paw Productions boarded the project and brought it to Universal, his home studio on the movie side.
—Pamela McClintock, The Hollywood Reporter, 5 Apr. 2024
Stockton’s purpose this week was to testify about the 2016 prison killing of 53-year-old Douglas Maynard, a homicide that prosecutors contend was done at the behest of higher-ups in the Aryan Brotherhood.
—Nate Gartrell, The Mercury News, 2 Apr. 2024
Instead, customers have had to redirect to a web browser at the behest of the streaming platform.
—Byryan Hogg, Fortune Europe, 27 Mar. 2024
Cotton committed the killing at the behest of Braylin Brown, a notorious Crips street gang member in Fort Worth.
—Emerson Clarridge, Fort Worth Star-Telegram, 27 Mar. 2024
These examples are programmatically compiled from various online sources to illustrate current usage of the word 'behest.' Any opinions expressed in the examples do not represent those of Merriam-Webster or its editors. Send us feedback about these examples.
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Cite this Entry
“Behest.” Merriam-Webster.com Dictionary, Merriam-Webster, https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/behest. Accessed 23 Apr. 2024.
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behest
noun
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