MORAL

Pronunciation (US):

(GB):

IPA (US):

 Dictionary entry overview: What does moral mean? 

• MORAL (noun)
  The noun MORAL has 1 sense:

1. the significance of a story or event

  Familiarity information: MORAL used as a noun is very rare.

• MORAL (adjective)
  The adjective MORAL has 2 senses:

1. concerned with principles of right and wrong or conforming to standards of behavior and character based on those principles

2. psychological rather than physical or tangible in effect

  Familiarity information: MORAL used as an adjective is rare.

 Dictionary entry details 

• MORAL (noun)

Sense 1

Meaning:

The significance of a story or event

Classified under:

Nouns denoting communicative processes and contents

Synonyms:

lesson; moral

Context example:

the moral of the story is to love thy neighbor

Hypernyms ("moral" is a kind of...):

import; meaning; significance; signification (the message that is intended or expressed or signified)

• MORAL (adjective)

Sense 1

Meaning:

Concerned with principles of right and wrong or conforming to standards of behavior and character based on those principles

Context example:

a moral life

Similar:

chaste (abstaining from unlawful sexual intercourse)

clean; clean-living (morally pure)

moralistic (narrowly and conventionally moral)

righteous (morally justified)

Also:

chaste (morally pure (especially not having experienced sexual intercourse))

good (morally admirable)

honorable; honourable (worthy of being honored; entitled to honor and respect)

righteous (characterized by or proceeding from accepted standards of morality or justice)

virtuous (morally excellent)

Attribute:

morality (concern with the distinction between good and evil or right and wrong; right or good conduct)

Antonym:

immoral (deliberately violating accepted principles of right and wrong)

Derivation:

morality (concern with the distinction between good and evil or right and wrong; right or good conduct)

Sense 2

Meaning:

Psychological rather than physical or tangible in effect

Context example:

moral support

Similar:

mental (involving the mind or an intellectual process)

 Context examples 

In as few words as possible, he began, Spencer puts it something like this: First, a man must act for his own benefit—to do this is to be moral and good.

(The Sea-Wolf, by Jack London)

Mrs. Micawber's conviction that her arguments were unanswerable, gave a moral elevation to her tone which I think I had never heard in it before.

(David Copperfield, by Charles Dickens)

I should be afraid she might overdo, if I didn't know her 'moral fit' wouldn't last long.

(Little Women, by Louisa May Alcott)

The philosophical study of moral values and rules.

(Ethics, NCI Thesaurus)

Meanwhile Clerval occupied himself, so to speak, with the moral relations of things.

(Frankenstein, by Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley)

From this way of reasoning, the author drew several moral applications, useful in the conduct of life, but needless here to repeat.

(Gulliver's Travels into several remote nations of the world, by Jonathan Swift)

In one way, he had undergone a moral revolution.

(Martin Eden, by Jack London)

I feel as if I shall need your company and your moral support today.

(The Return of Sherlock Holmes, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)

It was a picture which Henry Crawford had moral taste enough to value.

(Mansfield Park, by Jane Austen)

The moral will be perfectly fair.

(Pride and Prejudice, by Jane Austen)