Morale

How to spell morale

6 letters · 2 syllables

How to pronounce morale

Say the part in capitals loudest.

What does morale mean?

1. nounThe level of confidence, enthusiasm, and willingness of a person or group to carry on.

Morale in a sentence

• Staff morale improved once the overtime pay was restored.

• A string of cancelled flights crushed the crew's morale.

Where does morale come from?

Language of origin: French

Morale comes from French, where the noun morale meant 'morality' or 'the moral faculty', taken from the adjective moral. That French word traces back to the Latin moralis, which Cicero coined to translate the Greek idea of 'ethical', built on mos (plural mores), meaning 'custom, habit, or character'. English borrowed morale in the eighteenth century, at first in the sense of moral principles, but during the nineteenth century, especially in military writing, it settled into its modern meaning of the mental and emotional confidence of a group. The kept final -e is the key spelling trap: it marks the French origin and the stressed second syllable, and it is exactly what separates morale (group spirit) from the plain English adjective moral (concerning right and wrong). Remembering that the -e was carried over from French, where it also shifts the stress to the end, helps lock in the spelling.

How the word is built

• moral (from Latin moralis: relating to character or conduct)
• -e (French feminine ending preserved in the loanword)