honesty
/ˈɑ.nɪ.sti/
Word Rarity
Rare
Frequency: 3.99 in modern English
13
Scrabble Score
7
Letters
3
Syllables
7
Unique Chars
Meaning
noun
Any of various crucifers in the genus Lunaria, several of which are grown as ornamentals, particularly annual honesty (Lunaria annua).
Countable
name
A female given name.
Example Sentences
- "academic / artistic / emotional / intellectual honesty"
- "brutal / devastating / searing honesty"
- "There’s no trust, / No faith, no honesty in men; all perjured, / All forsworn, all naught, all dissemblers."
- "1787, George Colman, Junior, Inkle and Yarico, London: G.G.J. & J. Robinson, Act 2, p. 45, O give me your plain dealing Fellows Who never from honesty shrink; Not thinking on all they shou’d tell us, But telling us all that they think."
- "[…] Are you honest, boy? / Then be not spendthrift of your honesty, / But keep it to yourself; in Padua / Men think that honesty is ostentatious, so / It is not of the fashion."
- "To those who knew her and to the greatly enlarged circle who were electrified by her last poems and sudden death, she had come to signify the specific honesties and risks of the poet’s condition."
Etymology
From Middle English honeste (“honour, integrity”), from Old French honesté (compare modern French honnêteté). By surface analysis, honest + -y. Displaced native Old English sōþfæstnes and non-native Middle English prodonomee, from Old French prodomie. The plant is named so after the visibility of the seeds through the translucent pods.
Origin
Word Breakdown
- Root: honeste, honesté
Regional Pronunciation
- American English: /ˈɑ.nɪ.sti/
- British English: /ˈɒn.ɪ.sti/