misbehavior
Americannoun
-
misbehaviors
plural
Other Word Forms
Noun Inflected Forms
Etymology
Origin of misbehavior
Explanation
When you do something wrong or bad, that's misbehavior. If your little brother hides your homework, intentionally dumps his cereal on the floor, and draws on the walls with permanent marker, you might say he's an expert in misbehavior. Whether an activity is mere naughtiness or more significant misconduct, it all falls under the category of misbehavior. When a politician pays someone to stay quiet about his misbehavior, he's added additional misbehavior to the record. If you know that behavior means the way you act, it's easy to see what happens when you add the prefix mis-, meaning "bad".
Example Sentences
Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.
See Examples For:
Last week, the company said it had paused training on its most capable models again after finding new cases of agent misbehavior.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Sep. 28, 2026
Father Clement Thibault, Babs’s priest-mentor since childhood, is defrocked for publicly supporting the strikers after the church hierarchy forbade him from taking sides; the priest then begins a separate campaign to expose ecclesiastical misbehavior.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Aug. 5, 2026
Schools and districts need a standard for judging any discipline policy—one that asks what the misbehavior is accomplishing for the child, and whether the school’s response changes it.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Aug. 3, 2026
His misbehavior is minor — irritating but untenable when stacked together — like bouncing a ball against a wall, disappearing for fun or climbing on the roof.
From Los Angeles Times ● Apr. 24, 2026
It said what Jaden was talking about before, how current resident sentences would all go full term from now on, and in some cases they could even be extended for consistent misbehavior.
From "We Were Here" by Matt De La Peña
Tellingly, this is the only time you really see Tomas at work, but his personal and professional misbehaviors turn out to be very much of a piece.
From Los Angeles Times ● Aug. 2, 2023
In December, the principal ordered a disciplinary hearing, citing his "multiple misbehaviors."
From Salon ● Dec. 22, 2022
BlackRock Inc Chief Executive Larry Fink said on Wednesday that there appear to have been "misbehaviors" by the now-bankrupt FTX crypto exchange, but that the technology behind crypto is relevant for the future.
From Reuters ● Nov. 30, 2022
Sasha Sloan begins this song detailing a laundry list of misbehaviors and irritations, a knowing confession of failure to rise to the responsibilities of a relationship.
From New York Times ● Apr. 23, 2021
She concluded that instead of being punished out of their misbehaviors they were laughed out of them.
From Evolution Of The Japanese, Social And Psychic by Sidney Lewis Gulick
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Get a wordDefinitions and idiom definitions from Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023
Idioms from The American Heritage® Idioms Dictionary copyright © 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.
