fidelity
/fɪˈdɛlɪti
/noun [mass noun]
1Faithfulness to a person, cause, or belief, demonstrated by continuing loyalty and support: his fidelity to liberal ideals...
- The children may also feel that they themselves are demonstrating a lack of fidelity by supporting their remarrying parent.
- To demonstrate fidelity to the deceased family member, a band of wind and percussion instruments is often present to perform both traditional and popular music.
- Of the four, he is the most faithful to the values they share, but it's his very loyalty and fidelity that ultimately doom him.
Synonyms
loyalty, allegiance, obedience, constancy, fealty, homage;
staunchness, fastness
1.1Sexual faithfulness to a spouse or partner.Young women were expected to show sexual fidelity to their dating partner, but males were not....
- One area in which men and women differ is the importance of their partner's sexual fidelity.
- When was this promise of obedience and sexual fidelity made?
Synonyms
faithfulness, loyalty, constancy;
devotedness, devotion, commitment, adherence;
true-heartedness, trustworthiness, trustiness, honesty, dependability, reliability;
monogamy
archaic troth
2The degree of exactness with which something is copied or reproduced: the 1949 recording provides reasonable fidelity...
- Audio is Dolby Digital two-channel mono, with reasonable fidelity and a high degree of clarity.
- It is a method for maximizing fidelity and dynamic range for a region of interest within a digitized medical image display.
- It may even be possible for MP3 players to save energy by playing tunes at a slightly lower fidelity without a noticeable change in audio quality.
Synonyms
accuracy, exactness, exactitude, precision, preciseness, correctness, scrupulousness;
strictness, closeness, faithfulness, correspondence, literalness, conformity;
realism, verisimilitude, veracity, authenticity, naturalism
Origin
Late Middle English: from Old French fidelite or Latin fidelitas, from fidelis 'faithful', from fides 'faith'. Compare with fealty.
faith from Middle English:
Both faith and fidelity (Late Middle English) come from the Latin word fides. Fido, a traditional name for a dog, is also related—it represents the Latin for ‘I trust’. Other words from the same source include confident (late 16th century), confide (Late Middle English), and diffident (Late Middle English) which originally meant ‘lacking in trust’. Fiancée, the French for ‘promised’, which goes back to fides is related. See also infidel