He testified that the wire-tapping was carried out at the behest of his superiors.
Source: tatoeba (1518888)
Behest
//bɪˈhɛst//
Synonyms for "behest" (25 found)
Ranked by relevance and common usage.
Closest matches (5)
Strong matches (8)
Related words (12)
Related word relations
OpenGloss and ConceptNet supply richer edges like generalizations, collocations, and derivations.
Translations
41 translations across 19 languages.
Ancient Greek
1 entries- κέλευσμα noun (command, bidding)
Bulgarian
2 entries- заповед noun (command, bidding)
- нареждане noun (command, bidding)
Czech
3 entries- příkaz noun (command, bidding)
- rozkaz noun (command, bidding)
- žádost noun (command, bidding)
Dutch
2 entries- bevel noun (command, bidding)
- opdracht noun (command, bidding)
Finnish
2 entries- käsky noun (command, bidding)
- määräys noun (command, bidding)
French
1 entries- demande noun (command, bidding)
German
2 entries- Befehl noun (command, bidding)
- Geheiß noun (command, bidding)
Hungarian
3 entries- felszólítás noun (command, bidding)
- rendelkezés noun (command, bidding)
- utasítás noun (command, bidding)
Italian
2 entries- comando noun (command, bidding)
- ordine noun (command, bidding)
Kazakh
3 entries- жарлық noun (command, bidding)
- қаулы noun (command, bidding)
- өкім noun (command, bidding)
Malay
1 entries- arahan noun (command, bidding)
Middle English
1 entries- heste noun (command, bidding)
Polish
2 entries- rozkaz noun (command, bidding)
- żądanie noun (command, bidding)
Portuguese
2 entries- comando noun (command, bidding)
- ordem noun (command, bidding)
Russian
4 entries- директи́ва noun (command, bidding)
- кома́нда noun (command, bidding)
- распоряже́ние noun (command, bidding)
- указа́ние noun (command, bidding)
Serbo-Croatian
4 entries- direktiva noun (command, bidding)
- komanda noun (command, bidding)
- naredba noun (command, bidding)
- zapovjed noun (command, bidding)
Slovene
1 entries- ukaz noun (command, bidding)
Spanish
3 entries- [a] instancia noun (command, bidding)
- orden noun (command, bidding)
- solicitud noun (command, bidding)
Swedish
2 entries- befallning noun (command, bidding)
- order noun (command, bidding)
Sample sentences
16 total sentences available.
'Twas night; on earth all creatures were asleep, / when lo! the figures of our gods, the same / whom erst from falling Ilion o'er the deep / I brought, scarce rescued from the midmost flame, / before me, sleepless for my country's shame, / stood plain, in plenteousness of light confessed, / where streaming through the sunken lattice came / the moon's full splendour, and their speech addressed, / and I in heart took comfort, hearing their behest.
Source: tatoeba (7004035)
Tom says he did it at John's behest.
Source: tatoeba (10322421)
Some journalists are still in jail; victims of a politicized justice at the behest of the government.
Source: tatoeba (10570056)
Showing 4 of 16 available sentences.
Keep exploring
Data sourced from Wiktionary, WordNet, CMU, and other open linguistic databases. Updated March 2026.