as in to disobey
to behave badly
scolded the children for misbehaving and sent them to bed early
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Recent Examples of misbehave
Over the course of two days, the teams identified 139 novel ways to get the systems to misbehave including by generating misinformation or leaking personal data.
—
Will Knight, Wired News, 6 Aug. 2025
Rational participants are thus economically deterred from misbehaving.
—Ali Faizan Rizvi, Forbes.com, 23 July 2025
Plus, both Kenzari and costar Luca Marinelli couldn't stop laughing at the bloody prosthetic thumb, which misbehaved.
—EW.com, 1 July 2025
The European Union’s AI legislation focuses primarily on how humans use AI models, not on preventing the models themselves from misbehaving.
—Thomas Urbain, Fortune, 29 June 2025
See All Example Sentences for misbehave
Will Knight, Wired News, 6 Aug. 2025
Rational participants are thus economically deterred from misbehaving.
—Ali Faizan Rizvi, Forbes.com, 23 July 2025
Plus, both Kenzari and costar Luca Marinelli couldn't stop laughing at the bloody prosthetic thumb, which misbehaved.
—EW.com, 1 July 2025
The European Union’s AI legislation focuses primarily on how humans use AI models, not on preventing the models themselves from misbehaving.
—Thomas Urbain, Fortune, 29 June 2025
See All Example Sentences for misbehave
Recent Examples of Synonyms for misbehave
Verb
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Hamas has called on residents of Gaza City to disobey the evacuation order.—
Brady Knox,
The Washington Examiner,
8 Sep. 2025
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Fischer faces charges of first-degree reckless endangerment, interfering with an officer, reckless driving, disobeying traffic control signals, failure to drive in the proper lane, disobeying the signal of an officer, failure to display plates and engaging police in a pursuit.—
Justin Muszynski,
Hartford Courant,
18 Aug. 2025
Verb
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Redford rebelled against his father’s cautiousness and indeed against all expectations, even after the family moved to the more upscale Van Nuys.—
Stephen Galloway,
HollywoodReporter,
16 Sep. 2025
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Ali—or Richard Durham channeling Ali—would write just months after the fight that some part of him had always rebelled against the primal allure of his sport.—
Vann R. Newkirk II,
The Atlantic,
16 Sep. 2025
Cite this Entry
“Misbehave.” Merriam-Webster.com Thesaurus, Merriam-Webster, https://www.merriam-webster.com/thesaurus/misbehave. Accessed 17 Sep. 2025.
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