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
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
Nationwide data show Black students are four times more likely than their white peers to be suspended from school, despite multiple studies indicating Black children are not more likely to misbehave than white children.
—Rebecca Noel, Charlotte Observer, 18 June 2025
This may seem like a benign application, but the fear was that an LLM might misbehave under certain circumstances – even to the point of committing malicious behavior in violation of direct orders – despite just handling messages.
—David Szondy
june 28, New Atlas, 28 June 2025
These have almost exclusively been in carefully contrived experiments that almost beg the AI to misbehave—for example, by asking it to pursue its goal at all costs.
—Harry Booth, Time, 3 June 2025
See All Example Sentences for misbehave
Thomas Urbain, Fortune, 29 June 2025
Nationwide data show Black students are four times more likely than their white peers to be suspended from school, despite multiple studies indicating Black children are not more likely to misbehave than white children.
—Rebecca Noel, Charlotte Observer, 18 June 2025
This may seem like a benign application, but the fear was that an LLM might misbehave under certain circumstances – even to the point of committing malicious behavior in violation of direct orders – despite just handling messages.
—David Szondy
june 28, New Atlas, 28 June 2025
These have almost exclusively been in carefully contrived experiments that almost beg the AI to misbehave—for example, by asking it to pursue its goal at all costs.
—Harry Booth, Time, 3 June 2025
See All Example Sentences for misbehave
Recent Examples of Synonyms for misbehave
Verb
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Yet, shortly after the district court granted plaintiffs' emergency motion for a temporary restraining order, defendants appear to have disobeyed it.—
Peter Charalambous,
ABC News,
8 Aug. 2025
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That is not one, but two Cleons on the run, while the one remaining Cleon is already disobeying Demerzel and is way too close to the Foundation Ambassador (and there’s the whole thing of him being put down in a few days).—
Rafael Motamayor,
Vulture,
1 Aug. 2025
Verb
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Spark’s love of high style surely rebelled against the austerity of Protestantism, both in worship and creed.—
Judith Shulevitz,
The Atlantic,
10 Aug. 2025
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George Washington led troops in the American Revolution and stands for the birth of a representative democracy after rebelling against Britain’s monarchy.—
Lisa Meyers McClintick,
USA Today,
21 June 2025
Cite this Entry
“Misbehave.” Merriam-Webster.com Thesaurus, Merriam-Webster, https://www.merriam-webster.com/thesaurus/misbehave. Accessed 24 Aug. 2025.
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