Loyalties

How to spell loyalties

9 letters · 3 syllables

How to pronounce loyalties

Say the part in capitals loudest.

What does loyalties mean?

1. nounFeelings of faithful support or allegiance, especially several that may compete with one another.

Loyalties in a sentence

• Her divided loyalties made the family business meeting tense.

• The campaign tried to win the loyalties of younger voters.

Where does loyalties come from?

Language of origin: Latin

This word traces back to the Latin legalis, meaning 'lawful' or 'pertaining to the law', which was built on lex (genitive legis), the Latin word for 'law'. It travelled into English through Old French, where the forms loial and leial meant 'faithful in carrying out legal or feudal obligations', and the sense gradually softened from strict legal duty into the broader idea of personal faithfulness and devotion. The adjective 'loyal' was firmly established in English by the 1500s, and the abstract noun 'loyalty' followed, naming the quality of being faithful; the plural 'loyalties' came to describe the several competing allegiances a person might hold. It is worth noting that 'loyal' and 'legal' are genuine cousins from the same lex root, even though one now sounds emotional and the other technical. The spelling trap lives in the unstressed middle, where the 'oya' sequence and the soft -ties ending must be written out even though the voice glides over them.

How the word is built

• loyal (faithful)
• -ty (noun-forming suffix denoting a quality or state)
• -es (plural)