Behight

Definitions

  • Webster's Revised Unabridged Dictionary
    • n Behight A vow; a promise. "The time is come that I should send it her, if I keep the behest that I have made."
    • Behight To adjudge; to assign by authority. "The second was to Triamond behight ."
    • Behight To call; to name; to address. "Whom . . . he knew and thus behight ."
    • Behight To command; to order. "He behight those gates to be unbarred."
    • Behight To consider or esteem to be; to declare to be. "All the lookers-on him dead behight ."
    • Behight To give in trust; to commit; to intrust. "The keys are to thy hand behight ."
    • Behight To mean, or intend. "More than heart behighteth ."
    • Behight To promise; to vow. "Behight by vow unto the chaste Minerve."
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Century Dictionary and Cyclopedia
    • behight To promise; vow.
    • behight To call; name.
    • behight To address.
    • behight To pronounce; declare to be.
    • behight To mean; intend.
    • behight To commit; intrust.
    • behight To adjudge.
    • behight To command; ordain.
    • behight To address one's self.
    • n behight A promise; vow; pledge.
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Chambers's Twentieth Century Dictionary
    • v.t Behight be-hīt′ (Spens.) to promise, to entrust, to speak to, to command, to reckon or esteem to be
    • pr.p Behight behīght′ing; pa.t. behōte′; pa.p. behīght
    • n Behight (obs.) a vow, a promise
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Etymology

Webster's Revised Unabridged Dictionary
OE. bihaten, AS. behātan, to vow, promise; pref. be-, + hātan, to call, command. See Hight (v.)

Usage

In literature:

Behight, x, 64, name, declare; x, 50, intrusted, delivered; xi, 38, behot, promised.
"Spenser's The Faerie Queene, Book I" by Edmund Spenser
She was behight then Youngling and gold-dight to the glad son of Froda.
"The Tale of Beowulf" by Anonymous
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In poetry:

To vs and vnto our posteritie
this land belongs of right,
To hold in honor and felicitie
as God it hath behight,
And we beleue it surely shall be so,
For from his promise God will neuer goe.
"A Tragedie of Abrahams Sacrifice" by Arthur Golding

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