dignity

Meanings

1. 1
   noun

   the quality of being worthy of esteem or respect

   It was beneath my dignity to cheat.

2. 2
   noun

   formality in bearing and appearance

   The kindergarden class behaved with great dignity.

3. 3
   noun

   high office or rank or station

   They respected the dignity of the emissaries.

4. 4
   noun

   The state of being dignified or worthy of esteem: elevation of mind or character.

   He uttered this ... with great majesty, or, as he called it, dignity.

5. 5
   noun

   Decorum, formality, stateliness.

   The reception room was sacred to the dead wife. Her shiny portrait hung upon the wall - similar, doubtless, in all respects to the one which would be pasted on her tombstone. A little piece of black drapery had been tacked above the frame to lend a dignity to woe. But two of the tacks had fallen out, and the effect was now rakish, as that of a drunkard's bonnet.

6. 6
   noun

   High office, rank, or station.

   Note the preſumption of this Scythian ſlaue: I tel thee villaine, thoſe that lead my horſe Haue to their names tytles of dignitie, And dar’ſt thou bluntly cal me Baiazeth?

7. 7
   noun

   One holding high rank; a dignitary.

   These filthy dreamers […] speak evil of dignities.

8. 8
   noun

   Fundamental principle; axiom; maxim.

   Sciences concluding from dignities, and principles known by themselves.

Etymology

Inherited from Middle English dignyte, from Old French dignité, from Latin dignitās (“worthiness, merit, dignity, grandeur, authority, rank, office”), from dignus (“worthy, appropriate”), from Proto-Italic *degnos, from Proto-Indo-European *dḱ-nos, from *deḱ- (“to take”). See also decus (“honor, esteem”) and decet (“it is fitting”). Cognate to deign. Doublet of dainty. In this sense, displaced native Old English weorþsċipe, which became Modern English worship.