entry
moral
/ˈmɔrəl/Relating to right conduct or character
From Latin mos / moris (custom).
from Latin mos (genitive moris ) "one's disposition," in plural, "mores, customs, manners, morals," a word of...
from Old French moral (14c.) and directly
from Old French moral (14c.) and directly
from Old French moral (14c.) and directly
Word Ancestry
from Latin mos (genitive moris ) "one's disposition," in plural, "mores, customs, manners, morals," a word of...
from Old French moral (14c.) and directly
from Old French moral (14c.) and directly
from Old French moral (14c.) and directly
This is a word that began as a social habit, not a sermon. In Latin, mōs meant a custom, a manner, even a person's settled way of acting — the kind of thing Romans noticed at dinner parties, in courts, and on the street. Cicero, always eager to make Greek ideas sound properly Roman, coined moralis in *De Fato* to translate Greek *ethikos*; he was basically saying, 'the manners stuff.' That's why *moral* lives so close to *mores*, and why it keeps spawning cousins like *morality* and *morale* — one about conduct, the other about the spirit that keeps people going. By the 1800s we were talking about a *moral victory* and *moral support*, where 'moral' means not legal or physical, but the invisible thing that props up character. So the next time someone says a story has a moral, remember: it is really a lesson about how to behave in the human parade.
The Story
This is a word that began as a social habit, not a sermon. In Latin, mōs meant a custom, a manner, even a person's settled way of acting — the kind of thing Romans noticed at dinner parties, in courts, and on the street. Cicero, always eager to make Greek ideas sound properly Roman, coined moralis in *De Fato* to translate Greek *ethikos*; he was basically saying, 'the manners stuff.' That's why *moral* lives so close to *mores*, and why it keeps spawning cousins like *morality* and *morale* — one about conduct, the other about the spirit that keeps people going. By the 1800s we were talking about a *moral victory* and *moral support*, where 'moral' means not legal or physical, but the invisible thing that props up character. So the next time someone says a story has a moral, remember: it is really a lesson about how to behave in the human parade.
Kin & Kindred
From 'mos / moris'·custom, manner, disposition, morals
Derived Terms
English words from this root