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say it: bi-HAF
behalf is a noun meaning "as the agent of or on someone's part (usually expressed as `on behalf of' rather than `in behalf of')". It is pronounced /bɪˈhæf/ — bi-HAF. It carries 2 recorded senses.
as the agent of or on someone's part (usually expressed as `on behalf of' rather than `in behalf of')
“the guardian signed the contract on behalf of the minor child”
“this letter is written on behalf of my client”
for someone's benefit (usually expressed as `in behalf' rather than `on behalf' and usually with a possessive)
“in your behalf”
“campaigning in his own behalf”
“spoke a good word in his friend's behalf”
Forms marked · are formed by the regular rule rather than recorded in the source data. English keeps a few hundred irregulars and the rest follow the pattern, so the rule is right far more often than not — but it is a rule, and the mark says so.
Definitions, synonyms and semantic relations for behalf come from Princeton University’s WordNet. The pronunciation comes from the CMU Pronouncing Dictionary. Commonness is measured against a corpus of everyday English. Full sources and licences.