From , , from , from , from mōs ("manner, custom").

• (British) IPA: /məˈɹælɪti/

morality

1. (uncountable) Recognition of the distinction between good and evil or between right and wrong; respect for and obedience to the rules of right conduct; the mental disposition or characteristic of behaving in a manner intended to produce morally good results.
   • 1840 May, Thomas Carlyle, “(please specify the page)”, in On Heroes, Hero-Worship and The Heroic in History, London: Chapman and Hall, […], published 1840, →OCLC ↗:

     Without morality, intellect were impossible for him; a thoroughly immoral man could not know anything at all! To know a thing, what we can call knowing, a man must first love the thing, sympathize with it: that is, be virtuously related to it.

   • 1910 November, Jack London, “Actors’ Description of Characters”, in Theft: A Play in Four Acts, New York, N.Y.: The Macmillan Company; London: Macmillan & Co., →OCLC ↗, page x ↗:

     Ellery Jackson-Hubbard. […] A man radiating prosperity, optimism and selfishness. Has no morality whatever. Is a conscious individualist, cold-blooded, pitiless, working only for himself, and believing in nothing but himself.

   • 1911, G. K. Chesterton, chapter 16, in Appreciations and Criticisms of the Works of Charles Dickens:

     Science and art without morality are not dangerous in the sense commonly supposed. They are not dangerous like a fire, but dangerous like a fog.

2. (countable) A set of social rules, customs, traditions, beliefs, or practices which specify proper, acceptable forms of conduct.
   • 1912 (date written), [George] Bernard Shaw, “Pygmalion”, in Androcles and the Lion, Overruled, Pygmalion, London: Constable and Company, published 1916, →OCLC ↗, Act V, page 173 ↗:

     I have to live for others and not for myself: thats middle class morality.

3. (countable) A set of personal guiding principles for conduct or a general notion of how to behave, whether respectable or not.
   • 1781, Samuel Johnson, “Sheffield”, in Lives of the Poets:

     His morality was such as naturally proceeds from loose opinions.

4. (countable, archaic) A lesson or pronouncement which contains advice about proper behavior.
   • 1824, Sir Walter Scott, chapter 16, in St. Ronan's Well:

     "She had done her duty"—"she left the matter to them that had a charge anent such things"—and "Providence would bring the mystery to light in his own fitting time"—such were the moralities with which the good dame consoled herself.

   • 1882, William Makepeace Thackeray, “Vanitas Vanitatum”, in Ballads, [https://books.google.com/books?id=0M0pAAAAYAAJ&dq=ballads+thackeray&printsec=frontcover&source=bl&ots=mSKqhYv9f6&sig=3GFG601qL1ZuGCPgPtVPzMwEdKI&hl=en&ei=hJfuSeC7M6TNlQeK3rgm&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=1#PPA195,M1 page 195]:

     What mean these stale moralities, / Sir Preacher, from your desk you mumble?

5. (countable) A morality play.
6. (uncountable, rare) Moral philosophy, the branch of philosophy which studies the grounds and nature of rightness, wrongness, good, and evil.
7. (countable, rare) A particular theory concerning the grounds and nature of rightness, wrongness, good, and evil.

• (recognition of or obedience to the rules of right conduct) decency, rectitude, righteousness, uprightness, virtuousness
• (personal guiding principles) morals
• (set of customs, traditions, rules of conduct) conventions, morals, mores
• (lesson or pronouncement which contains advice) homily
• (branch of philosophy) ethics, moral philosophy
• (particular theory concerning the grounds and nature of rightness, wrongness, etc.) ethics, moral philosophy

• (antonym(s) of “recognition of or obedience to the rules of right conduct”): amorality, immorality

• moral
• morale
• moralise, moralize
• moralism
• morals
• mores

• French: moralité
• German: Moral, Moralität
• Italian: moralità
• Portuguese: moralidade
• Russian: мора́ль
• Spanish: moralidad

• Russian: мора́ль

• Russian: нра́вственность

• Russian: мора́ль