| 释义 |
morality|mɒˈrælɪtɪ|
Also 4–5 moralite(e, 5 moralte, 5–6 moralyte, 6 -ytee, -ytye, 5–7 -itie.
[a. F. moralité (13th c.), ad. L. mōrālitās, f. mōrālis: see moral a. and -ity.]
†1. Ethical wisdom; knowledge of moral science.
c1386Chaucer Monk's T. 507 A maister hadde this Emperour To teche hym lettrure and curteisye ffor of moralitee he [sc. Seneca] was the flour. 1423Jas. I Kingis Q. cxcvii, Gowere and Chaucere..quhill thai were lyvand here, Superlatiue as poetis laureate In moralitee and eloquence ornate. 14..Lydg. Ball. Gd. Counsel 101 And though a man..Of Tullius hadde the sugred eloquence, Or of Senek the greet moralitee,..Yet [etc.].
2. pl. Moral qualities or endowments.
c1386Chaucer Pars. T. ⁋388 For sothe o manere gentrie is for to preise that apparailleth mannes corage with vertues and moralitees. 1581Campion in Confer. iv. (1584) D d iv, The wise men of the Gentiles did alledge their moralities as a cause of their election. 1684Z. Cawdrey Cert. Salvation 26 A person..of such eminent Moralities and Intellectuals. 1819Byron Juan i. xx, Neglect, indeed, requires a saint to bear it, And such, indeed, she was in her moralities.
3. a. Moral discourse or instruction; a moral lesson or exhortation. Now chiefly in disparaging sense, moralizing.
c1386Chaucer Pars. Prol. 38 If that yow list to heere Moralitee and vertuous mateere..I wol fayn..Do yow plesaunce leefful. 1509Hawes Past. Pleas. xi. (Percy Soc.) 39 They fayned no fable without reason, For reasonable is al theyr moralitie. 1526Pilgr. Perf. (W. de W. 1531) 5 We haue not taken theyr errours..but all moralytees and instruccyons of good maner and pollicy. 1625T. H[awkins] (title) Odes of Horace.., Contayning much morallity, and sweetnesse. 1648Boyle Seraph. Love xx. (1700) 125 The excellent Moralities, couched in those ingenious Emblems. a1704T. Brown Walk round Lond., Coffee-Houses (1709) 37 We pop'd into Old Man's just as I had ended my Morality. 1837–9Hallam Hist. Lit. II. ii. v. §58 (1854) 120 Too often he [Hunnis] falls into trivial morality. 1841D'Israeli Amen. Lit. I. 285 The Confessio Amantis..; a singular miscellany of allegory, of morality, and of tales. 1877Mrs. Oliphant Makers Flor. iii. 68 Quaint monkish moralities and scriptural quotations. 1889Ruskin Præterita III. 147 What is only a dream in Chaucer, becomes to us, understood from Scott, a consummate historical morality and truth.
†b. Moral sense or interpretation (see moral a.); also, the moral (of a fable, etc.). Obs.
c1386Chaucer Nun's Pr. T. 620 But ye that holden this tale a folye,..Taketh the moralite goode men. 1447O. Bokenham Seyntys (Roxb.) 46 Yf yt lyke on to moralyte To draw ye names of the progenytours Of marye. c1470Henryson Mor. Fab. ii. (Town & C. Mouse) xxx, Freindis, ye may find..In to this fabill ane gude moralitie. 1523Fitzherb. Husb. Prol., But who that redeth in the boke of the moralytes of the chesse, shal therby perceyue, that [etc.]. 1622Drayton Poly-olb. xxi. 197 Orpheus, whose sweet Harpe..Intised Trees, and Rocks, to follow him along: Th' moralitie of which, is that [etc.]. 1623Cockeram iii. s.v. Aglaia, The morallity of this inuention was to expresse the cheerfull conuersation which ought to be amongst friends.
c. Moral truth or significance.
1773Goldsm. Stoops to Conq. v, Tony. Ecod, mother, all the parish says you have spoiled me, and so you may take the fruits on't...Hard. There's morality, however, in his reply.
4.
†a. A literary composition or artistic representation inculcating a moral lesson; a moralizing commentary; a moral allegory. Obs.
c1430Lydg. Min. Poems (Percy Soc.) 117 The moralite of the hors, the goose, and the sheepe, translated by Dan Johne Lidgate. 1599Thynne Animadv. (1875) 28 Molinet, the frenche auctor of the moralytye vppon the Romante of the roose. 1627Drayton Moon-Calf in Agincourt, etc. 176 margin, The morallity of mother Bumbyes tale. a1649Drummond of Hawthornden Fam. Ep. Wks. (1711) 140 She presented..a fair Face,..but on the other Side..was the Image of Death; by which Morality [printed Mortality] he surpassed the others [i.e. other painters of the same subject], more than they did him by Art.
b. Hist. Used by mod. writers as the distinctive name for the species of drama (popular in the 16th c.) in which some moral or spiritual lesson was inculcated, and in which the chief characters were personifications of abstract qualities.
App. adopted in the 18th c. from French literary historians; the F. moralité had this sense in the 16th c., but in English we find only moral and moral play.
1773(half-title to reprint of J. Skot's ed.), Everyman. A Morality. 1801Strutt Sports & Past. iii. ii. 113 When the mysteries ceased to be played, the subjects for the drama were not taken from historical facts, but consisted of moral reasonings in praise of virtue and condemnation of vice, on which account they were called moralities. 1858R. A. Vaughan Ess. & Rem. I. 55 In one of our old English Moralities, the seven cardinal virtues are represented as besieged by the seven deadly sins.
5. a. The doctrine or system concerned with conduct and duty; moral science.
c1449Pecock Repr. ii. iv. (Rolls) 155 Sum other vntrewe opinioun of men is such that for it her conuersacioun schal not be maad the worse moralli, or ellis not aȝens notable, good, vertuose moralte. 1605Bacon Adv. Learn. ii. xviii. §2 The end of Moralitie, is to procure the Affections to obey Reason, and not to inuade it. 1690Locke Hum. Und. iii. xi. §16 Upon this ground it is I am bold to think, that morality is capable of demonstration, as well as mathematicks. 1726Swift Gulliver ii. vii, The learning of this people..consisting only in morality, history, poetry, and mathematics. 1841Elphinstone Hist. Ind. I. 237 Principles..on which every theory in physics and every maxim in morality depends.
b. pl. Points of ethics, moral principles or rules.
1605Bacon Adv. Learn. ii. xxii. §7 Wherin they ought to haue handled Custom, Exercise, Habit, Educacion [etc.]: theis as they haue determinate vse, in moralityes, from these the mind suffereth. 1712Addison Spect. No. 447 ⁋4 If we consider attentively this Property of Human Nature, it may instruct us in very fine Moralities. a1854H. Reed Lect. Eng. Lit. xii. (1855) 405 The letters of Lord Chesterfield make a book of the minor moralities, and the major immoralities of life. 1861Mill Utilit. v. 89 The moralities which protect every individual from being harmed by others.
c. A particular system of morals.
1680Burnet Rochester (1692) 38 The two maxims of his morality were, that [etc.]. 1695Locke Reas. Chr. (1696) 271 He that shall collect all the Moral Rules of the Philosophers..will find them to come short of the Morality delivered by our Saviour. 1781Gibbon Decl. & F. xxxi. III. 261 He soon experienced, that the principles of honour and integrity, which might regulate the ordinary conduct of Constantius, were superseded by the loose doctrines of political morality. 1867Freeman Norm. Conq. (1877) I. ii. 33 The morality of the Gospel had a direct influence upon the politics of the age. 1898Westm. Gaz. 26 Sept. 8/1 In these days of lying advertisements, when ‘commercial morality’ has become almost synonymous with ordinary immorality.
d. Ethical aspect (of a question).
1869Freeman Norm. Conq. (1875) III. xii. 253 The morality of the question is easily summed up.
6. The quality or fact of being moral.
a. Conformity to the moral law; moral goodness or rightness; (of writings) good moral tendency. Now rare or Obs.
1592G. Harvey Pierce's Super. 104 Oh, that learning were euer married to such discretion;..contention to such moralitie. 1691–8Norris Pract. Disc. (1711) III. 181 The Good represents the Morality of His Nature. 1715Addison Freeholder No. 6 ⁋7 Euripides..tho' famous for the morality of his plays, had introduced a person, who, being reminded of an oath he had taken, reply'd, ‘I swore with my mouth, but not with my heart’. 1772Junius Lett. lxviii. (1820) 338 Instances..of genius and morality united in a lawyer..are distinguished by their singularity.
†b. Of a Mosaic enactment: The fact of being part of the moral law (see moral a. 4). Obs.
1656in Burton's Diary (1828) I. 25 By the Mosaic law, blasphemers were to be stoned to death. The morality of this remains. a1662Heylin Laud (1668) 124 These Doctrinal heads [of Puritanism], being ten in number, related to the indispensible morality of the Lords-day-Sabbath [etc.].
†c. The quality or fact of being a ‘moral action’ (see moral a. 6 a), i.e. of being morally either good or evil. Obs.
a1716South Serm. (1727) II. 326 Did Christ himself ever assume such a Power, as to alter the Morality of Actions, and to transform Vice into Virtue..by his bare Word? 1736Butler Anal. i. iii. 72 The..advantage in this case is gained by the action itself, not by the morality, the virtuousness or viciousness of it.
7. a. Moral conduct; usually, good moral conduct; behaviour conformed to the moral law; moral virtue. (Sometimes in contradistinction to the higher excellences of the Christian character.)
1609B. Jonson Sil. Wom. iii. i. (1620) F 2 b, Goe to, behaue your selfe distinctly, and with good moralitie. 1658T. Wall Charact. Enemies Ch. 59 It is hatred of sin makes them so malicious: It is separation from the wicked that makes them void of Christian society and common Morality. a1699Stillingfl. Serm. Wks. 1710 I. viii. 117 They [sc. the Jews in their spiritual pride] had the purity of his ordinances,..whereas all others, they thought, served God only with their own Inventions, or placed their Religion in dull morality. 1791Bp. Horne Charge to Clergy of Norwich 14 And here, by Religion is to be understood the Christian Religion; and by Morality, such good works as are independent of it. 1814Jane Austen Mansf. Park ix, We do not look in great cities for our best morality. 1824Hogg Conf. Sinner 214 The most popular of all their preachers of morality. Ibid. 216 It was easy to see that the true Gospel preachers joined all on one side, and the upholders of pure morality and a blameless life on the other. 1877E. R. Conder Bas. Faith i. 19 Justice, truth, love, duty, virtue—in one word, morality. 1878R. W. Dale Lect. Preach. viii. 243 There may be morality where there is no religion; but that there should be religion where there is no morality, is impossible. 1887Tennyson in Mem. (1897) II. 337 Evil must come upon us headlong, if morality tries to get on without religion.
b. Used as a nickname or a mock-title for one who assumes airs of virtue.
1672Marvell Reh. Transp. i. Wks. (Grosart) III. 98, I am resolved, instead of his Grace, to call him alwayes his Morality. 1806T. S. Surr Winter in Lond. (ed. 3) III. 138, I suspect that his own son, young morality, will require a little of his parental inspection.
8. attrib., as morality squad, in Canada, a municipal or provincial police unit dealing with infractions of legislation concerning prostitution, pornography, etc. So morality officer, etc.
1963J. N. Harris Weird World Wes Beattie (1964) x. 119 He called an acquaintance on the morality squad of the Ontario Provincial Police in order to get the low-down on the obscene film racket. 1967Canad. News Facts 4 Dec. 183, 18 arrested on gambling charges... Eight of the men were arrested in Montreal by the Montreal morality squad. 1970Toronto Daily Star 24 Sept. 7/5 Man appears to need some censorship to protect himself from his baser tastes. I trust the morality squad will continue its good work. 1976Globe & Mail (Toronto) 17 Jan. 12/4 Pasquale Zappia..died of a heart attack Thursday while being questioned by an Ottawa police morality officer outside a restaurant. |