respectability
Etymology

From respect + -ability.

Pronunciation
  • IPA: /ɹɪˌspɛktəˈbɪlɪti/
Noun

respectability (uncountable)

  1. The quality of being respectable.
    • 1892, Walter Besant, “Prologue: Who is Edmund Gray?”, in The Ivory Gate […], New York, N.Y.: Harper & Brothers, […], →OCLC ↗:
      Such a scandal as the prosecution of a brother for forgery—with a verdict of guilty—is a most truly horrible, deplorable, fatal thing. It takes the respectability out of a family perhaps at a critical moment, when the family is just assuming the robes of respectability: […] it is a black spot which all the soaps ever advertised could never wash off.
  2. The class of respectable people.
Translations


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