Word.ws English Dictionary

ethic

/ˈɛθ.ɪk/

ethic adjective: moral, relating to morals.

Adjective

ethic (comparative more ethic, superlative most ethic)

  1. Moral, relating to morals.

Noun

ethic (plural ethics)

  1. A set of principles of right and wrong behaviour guiding, or representative of, a specific culture, society, group, or individual.
    • The Protestant work ethic.
    • I think the golden rule is a great ethic.
  2. The morality of an action.

Examples of ethic in a sentence

  • Philosophy is often divided into five major branches: logic, metaphysics, epistemology, ethics and aesthetics.
  • There were concerns about the ethics of big pharma.
  • I live by my own code of ethics.

All 40 example sentences with ethic

Forms of ethic

Adjective
comparativemore ethic
superlativemost ethic
alternative formethick
Noun
pluralethics

Plural of ethic: ethics

Origin of ethic

From Middle English etik, from Late Latin ēthicus, from Ancient Greek ἠθῐκός (ēthĭkós).

From Middle English etik, ethik, from Old French ethique, from Late Latin ēthica, from Ancient Greek ἠθική (ēthikḗ), from ἠθικός (ēthikós, “of or for morals, moral, expressing character”), from ἦθος (êthos, “character, moral nature”).

Words formed from ethic

Phrases with ethic

Questions about ethic

What does ethic mean?
Ethic means moral, relating to morals.
What part of speech is ethic?
Ethic can be an adjective or a noun.
How do you pronounce ethic?
Ethic is pronounced /ˈɛθ.ɪk/.

Words near ethic in the dictionary

  1. ethers
  2. Etherton
  3. Ethertons
  4. ethery
  5. ethiazide
  6. ethic
  7. ethic dative
  8. ethic datives
  9. ethic of reciprocity
  10. ethical
  11. ethical dative

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: ethic (page history and authors). Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws reformatted the entry and added links. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.

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Pronunciation audio from Wikimedia Commons, each file under its own free license: LL-Q1860 (eng)-Vealhurl-ethic.wav.

Cite this entry: “ethic.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/ethic. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.