# dignity
## English
### Alternative forms

* dignitie (obsolete)

### 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.

### Pronunciation

* IPA: /ˈdɪɡnɪti/
* Audio (US):(file)

### Noun

dignity (countable and uncountable, plural dignities)
* The state of being dignified or worthy of esteem: elevation of mind or character.
** 1751 December (indicated as 1752), Henry Fielding, chapter VIII, in Amelia. […], volume I, London: […] [William Strahan] for A[ndrew] Millar […], →OCLC:He uttered this ... with great majesty, or, as he called it, dignity.
** 1981, African Charter on Human and Peoples’ Rights, art. 5:Every individual shall have the right to the respect of the dignity inherent in a human being.
* Decorum, formality, stateliness.
** 1905, E. M. Forster, Where Angels Fear to Tread , chapter 7, third paragraph: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.
** 1934, Aldous Huxley, “Puerto Barrios”, in Beyond the Mexique Bay:Official DIGNITY tends to increase in inverse ratio to the importance of the country in which the office is held.
* High office, rank, or station.
** c. 1587–1588, [Christopher Marlowe], Tamburlaine the Great. […] The First Part […], 2nd edition, part 1, London: […] [R. Robinson for] Richard Iones, […], published 1592, →OCLC; reprinted as Tamburlaine the Great (A Scolar Press Facsimile), Menston, Yorkshire, London: Scolar Press, 1973, →ISBN, Act III, scene iii: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?
** 1611, The Holy Bible, […] (King James Version), London: […] Robert Barker, […], →OCLC, Esther 6:3:And the king said, What honour and dignity hath been done to Mordecai for this?
** 1781, Edward Gibbon, The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire, F. III. 231:He ... distributed the civil and military dignities among his favourites and followers.
* One holding high rank; a dignitary.
** 1611, The Holy Bible, […] (King James Version), London: […] Robert Barker, […], →OCLC, Jude 1:8:These filthy dreamers […] speak evil of dignities.
* (obsolete) Fundamental principle; axiom; maxim.
** 1650, Thomas Browne, Pseudodoxia Epidemica: […], 2nd edition, London: […] A[braham] Miller, for Edw[ard] Dod and Nath[aniel] Ekins, […], →OCLC:Sciences concluding from dignities, and principles known by themselves.

#### Synonyms

* worth
* worthiness

#### Coordinate terms

* augustness
* glory
* grandeur
* humanness
* majesty
* nobility
* superiority
* wonderfulness

#### Derived terms

* dignitude
* stand on one's dignity
* stand upon one's dignity
* undignity

#### Related terms

* deign
* dignified
* dignify

#### Translations
### See also

* affirmation
* integrity
* self-esteem
* self-respect
* self-worth
* “dignity”, in Webster’s Revised Unabridged Dictionary, Springfield, Mass.: G. & C. Merriam, 1913, →OCLC.
* “dignity”, in The Century Dictionary […], New York, N.Y.: The Century Co., 1911, →OCLC.

### Anagrams

* tidying