merit
nounEtymology
From Middle English merit, merite (“quality of person’s character or conduct deserving of reward or punishment; such reward or punishment; excellence, worthiness; benefit; right to be rewarded for spiritual service; retribution at doomsday; virtue through which Jesus Christ brings about salvation; virtue possessed by a holy person; power of a pagan deity”), from Anglo-Norman merit, merite, Old French merite (“moral worth, reward; merit”) (modern French mérite), from Latin meritum (“that which one deserves, deserts; benefit, reward, merit; service; kindness; importance, value, worth; blame, demerit, fault; grounds, reason”), neuter of meritus (“deserved, earned, obtained; due, proper, right; deserving, meritorious”), perfect passive participle of mereō (“to deserve, earn, obtain, merit; to earn a living”), from Proto-Indo-European *(s)mer- (“to allot, assign”). The English word is probably cognate with Ancient Greek μέρος (méros, “component, part; portion, share; destiny, fate, lot”) and cognate with Old Occitan merit.
Definitions
A claim to commendation or a reward.
- [R]eputation is an idle and moſt falſe impoſition , oft got without merit and loſt without deſeruing.
A mark or token of approbation or to recognize excellence.
- For her good performance in the examination, her teacher gave her ten merits.
Something deserving or worthy of positive recognition or reward.
- His reward for his merit was a check for $50.
- Such was Roſcommon—not more learn’d than good; / With Manners gen’rous as his Noble Blood; / To him the Wit of Greece and Rome was known, / And ev’ry Author’s Merit but his own.
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The sum of all the good deeds that a person does which determines the quality of the…
The sum of all the good deeds that a person does which determines the quality of the person's next state of existence and contributes to the person's growth towards enlightenment.
- to acquire or make merit
- At funerals, acts of sharing religious merit are central and relatives of the deceased make merit in order to ensure that the departed family member will have a favourable rebirth.
Usually in the plural form the merits
Usually in the plural form the merits: the substantive rightness or wrongness of a legal argument, a lawsuit, etc., as opposed to technical matters such as the admissibility of evidence or points of legal procedure; (by extension) the overall good or bad quality, or rightness or wrongness, of some other thing.
- Even though the plaintiff was ordered by the judge to pay some costs for not having followed the correct procedure, she won the case on the merits.
The quality or state of deserving retribution, whether reward or punishment.
- Be it known, that we the greateſt are mis-thoght / For things that others do : and when we fall, / We anſwer others merits, in our name / Are therefore to be pittied.
To deserve, to earn.
- Her performance merited wild applause.
- What other could I answer save "I come"? / I said it, somewhat with that colour ting'd / Which oftimes pardon meriteth for man.
To be deserving or worthy.
- They were punished as they merited.
- [A]nd yet he bode them do yt, and they were bounde to obaye and meryted and deserued by theyr obedyēce.
To reward.
The neighborhood
- neighbordemerit
- neighbormeretricious
- neighbormeretriciously
- neighbormeretriciousness
- neighborpromerit
Derived
badge of merit, merit badge, figure of merit, immerit, immeritorious, immeritoriously, meritable, Meritage, merit badger, merit badging, merit-badging, merit-based, merit field, meritful, merit good, meritious, meritless, meritmonger, meritocracy, meritocrat, meritocratic, meritocratically, meritorious, meritoriously, meritoriousness, meritory, meritous, overmerit, unmeritocratic, unmeritorious, merited, meritedly, meriter, premerit, unmeriting
Vish — recursive loop
A definitional loop anchored at merit. Each word in the ring is defined by the next; follow the chain far enough and it folds back on itself. Scroll to it and watch.
A definitional loop anchored at merit. Each word in the ring appears in the definition of the next; follow the chain far enough and it folds back on itself.
9 hops · closes at merit
curated · pre-corpus. live cycle detection across the full graph is the next major milestone.
sense glosses and etymology drawn from English Wiktionary · source · CC-BY-SA