[f. as prec. + -ING2.]
1. Befitting, suitable, having graceful fitness.
1565. Sc. Metr. Ps. cxxxiii. 1. How good a thing it is and how becoming well.
1588. Shaks., L. L. L., II. i. 67. Within the limits of becoming mirth.
1686. W. de Britaine, Hum. Prud., § 4. 19. Let your Behaviour, like your Garment, be … fit and becoming.
1713. Guardian, No. 1, ¶ 1. Coming up to town in a very becoming periwig.
1833. Ht. Martineau, Cinnamon & Pearls, i. 4. He spoke with becoming indifference of all meaner accomplishments.
2. The becoming: a. that which is befitting or proper; decorum.
1842. Realities of Life, 207. Some of whom … study the becoming in their own persons.
1848. Macaulay, Hist. Eng., II. 540. Selfcommand and a fine sense of the becoming.
b. that which is coming into existence.
1856. Ferrier, Inst. Metaph., XVII. xvii. 349. The usual synonym for this was the Becoming (τὸ γιγνόμενον), that is, inchoate existence.
