Morality

How to spell morality

8 letters · 4 syllables

How to pronounce morality

Say the part in capitals loudest.

What does morality mean?

1. nounThe principles or standards concerning what is considered right and wrong behaviour.

Morality in a sentence

• The lecture examined the morality of lying to protect a friend.

• Public debate often centres on the morality of how taxes are spent.

Where does morality come from?

Language of origin: Latin

This word traces back to the Latin moralitas, an abstract noun meaning 'character' or 'manner of conduct', which was itself built on the adjective moralis. Cicero is credited with coining moralis to translate the Greek idea of ethics, and he formed it from the noun mos (plural mores), which literally meant 'custom', 'habit', or 'established way of behaving'. The sense therefore moved from 'the customs a community follows' to 'the principles of right and wrong conduct'. English took the word in through Old French moralite during the 1300s, when it often referred to the moral lesson drawn from a story. The same mos root survives in the modern borrowing 'mores' and in 'moral' itself, and remembering that family helps fix the single l and the -al- in the middle that the unstressed pronunciation tends to blur.

How the word is built

• moral (from Latin moralis: relating to custom or conduct)
• -ity (noun suffix forming an abstract quality)