Immoral

How to spell immoral

7 letters · 3 syllables

How to pronounce immoral

Say the part in capitals loudest.

What does immoral mean?

1. adjectiveNot conforming to accepted standards of right behaviour; wicked or unethical.

Immoral in a sentence

• The company was accused of immoral business practices that exploited workers.

• Many readers found the politician's conduct deeply immoral.

Where does immoral come from?

Language of origin: Latin

This word comes from the Latin immoralis, formed by joining the negative prefix in-, meaning 'not', to moralis, meaning 'relating to manners, character, or proper conduct'. The Latin moralis was itself coined by the philosopher Cicero, who built it on mos, mores, a noun meaning 'custom' or 'established way of behaving', to translate a Greek idea about ethics. When the prefix in- meets a root beginning with 'm', the 'n' assimilates and becomes another 'm', which is exactly why the spelling carries a double 'm' at the front. English adopted immoral in the early 1600s, using it to describe behaviour that violates accepted standards of right and wrong. The same mos root survives in the everyday words 'moral', 'morale', and 'mores', all circling back to ideas about how people are expected to behave.

How the word is built

• im- (not)
• moral (from Latin moralis, relating to conduct or custom)