honesty
UK/ˈɒn.ɪ.sti//ˈɑ.nɪ.sti/
honesty noun: the act, quality, or condition of being honest.
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Noun
honesty (countable and uncountable, plural honesties)
- The act, quality, or condition of being honest.
- academic / artistic / emotional / intellectual honesty
- brutal / devastating / searing honesty
- Synonyms:
- candor, sincerity, frankness, sincereness, truthfulness, veraciousness, veracity, veridicality
- Honor; decency, propriety.
- Have ye no wit, manners, nor honesty, but to gabble like tinkers at this time of night?c. 1601–1602 (date written), William Shakespeare, “Twelfe Night, or What You Will”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies […] (First Folio), London: […] Isaac Iaggard, and...
- Fellovves in armes faithfull and valiant, / I thanke you for your paines and honeſties, […]1607 February 12 (first performance; Gregorian calendar), [Barnabe Barnes], The Divils Charter: A Tragædie Conteining the Life and Death of Pope Alexander the Sixt. […], London: […] G[eorge] E[ld]...
- Synonyms:
- integrity, rectitude, uprightness, angelicality, angelicalness, angelicity, angelicness, decency, godliness, honor
- Chastity.
- […] spend all I have; only give me so much of your time in exchange of it, as to lay an amiable siege to the honesty of this Ford’s wife […]c. 1597 (date written), William Shakespeare, “The Merry Wiues of Windsor”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies […] (First Folio), London: […] Isaac Iaggard, and Ed[ward]...
- […] Oh, these vild women,
That are so ill preservers of men’s honours,
They cannot govern their own honesties!c. 1625, John Fletcher, The Fair Maid of the Inn, Act V, Scene 1, in Alexander Dyce (editor), The Works of Beaumont and Fletcher, New York: Appleton, 1890, Volume 2, p. 669
- Synonyms:
- chasteness, continence
- Any of various crucifers in the genus Lunaria, several of which are grown as ornamentals, particularly annual honesty (Lunaria annua).
- Various measures were taken to avoid it, most popular being the suspension of certain herbs and tree branches over the doorways of dwellings and stables. Commonly used greenery were tansy, honesty, garlic, St. John's Wort, mountain ash, roadside verbena.1940, Rosetta E. Clarkson, Green Enchantments: The Magic Spell of Gardens, The Macmillan Company, page 271
- She thought a minute, then stepped nimbly back into her cottage; and what she came out with at last was, a sprig of dry leaves, round as shillings, white as paper, quivering on a few thin stalks that looked ready to snap. / It was honesty.2002, Sarah Waters, chapter 6, in Fingersmith, London: Virago, →ISBN, part 1, page 156
Proper noun capitalized: Honesty
Honesty
- A female given name.
honesty meaning in Hindi, Tamil, Marathi and Urdu
honesty in Hindi
- quality of being honest
- सच्चाई saccāī
honesty in Tamil
- quality of being honest
- நேர்மை nērmai
honesty in Marathi
- quality of being honest
- प्रमाणिकता prāmāṇikatā
honesty in Urdu
- honesty; truthfulness
- ایمان īmān
- honesty, rightfulness
- اعتبار iʻtibār
- honesty; integrity; trustworthiness
- امانت amānat
More languagesFewer languages
- honesty in Bengali
- সততা, সাধুতা, বিশ্বস্ততা
- honesty in Telugu
- నిజాయితి nijāyiti
- honesty in Malayalam
- സത്യസന്ധത satyasandhata, സാധുത്വം sādhutvaṁ
- honesty in Kannada
- ನೇರ nēra
- honesty in Punjabi
- ਇਮਾਨਦਾਰੀ
- honesty in Gujarati
- ઈમાનદારી īmāndārī, ઈમાન īmān
- honesty in Odia
- ସଚ୍ଚୋଟତା
- honesty in Nepali
- इमानदारी, ईमानदारी
- honesty in Tagalog
- katapatan, onestidad
- honesty in Malay
- sathyasandhatha
- honesty in Thai
- ความสัตย์ kwaam-sàt
- honesty in Vietnamese
- tánh thành thật, tánh thanh liêm
Examples of honesty in a sentence
- There’s no trust, / No faith, no honesty in men; all perjured, / All forsworn, all naught, all dissemblers.c. 1591–1595 (date written), William Shakespeare, “The Tragedie of Romeo and Ivliet”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, &...
- […] Are you honest, boy? / Then be not spendthrift of your honesty, / But keep it to yourself; in Padua / Men think that honesty is ostentatious, so / It is not of the fashion.1891, Oscar Wilde, The Duchess of Padua:
- I admire unvarnished honesty, which is scarce.2025 February 2, Charles Hugh Smith, Begging Bowl '25: I'm Looking for Two Readers Willing to Help Me Buy a New Thrift-Store Shirt:
- […] that we may lead a quiet and peaceable life in all godliness and honesty.1611, The Holy Bible, […] (King James Version), London: […] Robert Barker, […], →OCLC, 1 Timothy 2:2:
Synonyms of honesty
- candor
- sincerity
- frankness
- sincereness
- truthfulness
- veraciousness
- veracity
- veridicality
- integrity
- rectitude
19 more synonymsFewer synonyms
Antonyms
Forms of honesty
| plural | honesties |
|---|
Origin of honesty
From Middle English honeste (“honour, integrity”), from Old French honesté (compare modern French honnêteté). By surface analysis, honest + -y. Displaced native Old English sōþfæstnes and non-native Middle English prodonomee, from Old French prodomie. The plant is named so after the visibility of the seeds through the translucent pods.
Words formed from honesty
Phrases with honesty
Questions about honesty
- What does honesty mean?
- Honesty means the act, quality, or condition of being honest.
- What is honesty in Hindi?
- Honesty in Hindi is सच्चाई (saccāī). See Honesty meaning in Hindi.
- How do you use honesty in a sentence?
- There’s no trust, / No faith, no honesty in men; all perjured, / All forsworn, all naught, all dissemblers.
- What part of speech is honesty?
- Honesty can be a noun or a proper noun.
- How do you pronounce honesty?
- Honesty is pronounced /ˈɒn.ɪ.sti/ (UK).
- What is the plural of honesty?
- The plural of honesty is honesties.
Words near honesty in the dictionary
Source and license
Adapted from Wiktionary: honesty (page history and authors); Honesty (page history and authors); اعتبار (Urdu) (page history and authors); Honesty (Bengali Wiktionary) (page history and authors); സത്യസന്ധത (Malayalam) (page history and authors); ನೇರ (Kannada) (page history and authors); honesty (Punjabi, IndicTrans2 machine translation) (model and license); ઈમાન (Gujarati) (page history and authors); honesty (Odia, IndicTrans2 machine translation) (model and license); honesty (Nepali, IndicTrans2 machine translation) (model and license). 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: en-us-honesty.ogg.
Cite this entry: “honesty.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/honesty. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.