misbehave

«misbehave» in Mova's school dictionary: to behave badly, to be naughty or not follow the rules — its meaning for a pupil, its sense in the lessons and examples, with 3 sentences of Mova's corpora that use it.

part of speech

verb (misbehave, misbehaves, misbehaved, misbehaving)

meaning for a pupil

1) To misbehave means to behave badly, to be naughty or not follow the rules. tree →

2) (informal) A machine that misbehaves does not work as it should: "the printer is misbehaving again". tree →

sense in the lessons

In school, pupils who misbehave may lose playtime or be sent to see the head. In stories, misbehaving children and pets cause trouble and fun. Phrases: misbehave in class, misbehaving pupils.

examples

• If you misbehave, you'll miss break time. tree →
• The puppy misbehaved and chewed my shoe. tree →
• Two boys misbehaved on the school trip. tree →
• My little brother always misbehaves when he's tired. tree →
• The computer is misbehaving again. tree →
• Nobody misbehaved during the assembly. tree →

note

Noun: misbehaviour (UK) or misbehavior (USA). The prefix mis- means "badly" or "wrongly". It is a slightly formal word; children say "be naughty" or "be bad".

In the corpora

• mis- means wrongly: misread, misspell, misbehave.
• "Made a bad choice" is teacher jargon for misbehaved.
• "Testing boundaries" means misbehaving on purpose to see what is allowed.

Trees and pragmatics

Every meaning and example of «misbehave» parsed by Mova, each sentence with its dependency tree and frames.