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(This presupposes, of course, circumstances where ordinary standards are clear. What does it mean to lose your integrity?Ī person lacks integrity if unable to appreciate the distinction between what is honest or dishonest by ordinary standards. Integrous definition (rare) Having or characterized by integrity.
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Integrious Definitions and Synonyms adjective. Rhymes Lyrics and poems Near rhymes Thesaurus. But words have been known to come back from the dead, so who knows?īuy our books at a local store,, or Barnes&. Use descriptive words a lot You can jump right to this page by putting a at the end of your search. VI (1548): “So much estemed … for his liberalitie, clemencie, integritie, and corage.”Īlas, all the old adjectives are now described as obscure and rare. This sense of the word was first recorded in Edward Hall’s Chronicle, Hen. in relation to truth and fair dealing uprightness, honesty, sincerity.” The moral meaning of “integrity” came along in the next century and meant “soundness of moral principle the character of uncorrupted virtue, esp. It’s related to “integer,” “integral,” and other words having to do with wholeness.
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The noun “integrity” first appeared in 1450, according to the OED, and originally meant the quality of being unspoiled or in an original, perfect state. … Being so integriously grounded, as it admitted no alloy or mixture with By-respects or self-interests.”Īnother adjective was recorded more than a century later in the poet Robert Burns’s first Commonplace Book (1784): “To maintain an integritive conduct towards our fellow-creatures.” “Such was their integrious candor and intimacy to me in my greatest extremes.
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The only citation in the OED is from the diary of Sir Henry Slingsby (1658): No, honesty is a noun, a singular, common, abstract noun a word for adherence to moral principles conformity to high standards of ethics (Honesty is the best policy.)The word honest is an.
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The OED also has an entry for the words “integrious” (adjective) and “integriously” (adverb). The Oxford English Dictionary has an entry for the adjective “integrous” (meaning “marked by integrity”), recorded in a work by William Morice in 1657: “That an action be good, the cause ought to be integrous.” In fact, we once had both adjectival and adverbial forms of “integrity,” although only for brief times in the 17th and 18th centuries. There is no simple way to say someone has integrity.Ī: Would you believe that this came up during a WNYC discussion back in 2004? Some of the proposals for an adjective to use in place of the missing word were “honest,” “upright,” “trustworthy,” and “sincere.” Q: I wish “integrious” were a word meaning full of integrity.
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