• (British) IPA: /ˈdiːsənsi/

decency

1. The quality of being decent; propriety.

   • Observances of time, place, and of decency in general.

     Immodest words admit of no defence, / For want of decency is want of sense.

   • 1954 June, Joseph N. Welch.

     quote en

   • 2016, John Oliver, “Journalism”, in Last Week Tonight with John Oliver, season 3, episode 20, written by Tim Carvell; Josh Gondelman; Dan Gurewitch; Jeff Maurer; Ben Silva; Will Tracy; Jill Twiss; Seena Vali; Julie Weiner, HBO, Warner Bros. Television:

     Now, what is interesting about that poem is nothing. But, what is relevant about it is that his muse is his wife, Marcela, who is 42 years younger than him. He is 75, she is 33. And I’ll say this, at least when 70-something American politicians get creepily handsy with 30-something women, they have the decency to do so with their own daughters. Have some class, Brazil! Have some class!

2. That which is proper or becoming.

   • The external decencies of worship.

   • 1667, John Milton, “Book 7”, in Paradise Lost. A Poem Written in Ten Books, London: Printed [by Samuel Simmons], and are to be sold by Peter Parker […] [a]nd by Robert Boulter […] [a]nd Matthias Walker, […], OCLC 228722708 ↗; republished as Paradise Lost in Ten Books: The Text Exactly Reproduced from the First Edition of 1667: […], London: Basil Montagu Pickering […], 1873, OCLC 230729554 ↗:

     Those thousand decencies, that daily flow / From all her words and actions.

• French: décence
• German: Anstand
• Portuguese: decência
• Russian: поря́дочность
• Spanish: decencia