moral Meaning, Definition & Usage

  1. noun the significance of a story or event
    lesson.
    • the moral of the story is to love thy neighbor
  2. adjective concerned with principles of right and wrong or conforming to standards of behavior and character based on those principles
    • moral sense
    • a moral scrutiny
    • a moral lesson
    • a moral quandary
    • moral convictions
    • a moral life
  3. adjective satellite psychological rather than physical or tangible in effect
    • a moral victory
    • moral support

WordNet

Mor"al adjective
Etymology
F., fr. It. moralis, fr. mos, moris, manner, custom, habit, way of life, conduct.
Definitions
  1. Relating to duty or obligation; pertaining to those intentions and actions of which right and wrong, virtue and vice, are predicated, or to the rules by which such intentions and actions ought to be directed; relating to the practice, manners, or conduct of men as social beings in relation to each other, as respects right and wrong, so far as they are properly subject to rules.
    Keep at the least within the compass of moral actions, which have in them vice or virtue. Hooker.
    Mankind is broken loose from moral bands. Dryden.
    She had wandered without rule or guidance in a moral wilderness. Hawthorne.
  2. Conformed to accepted rules of right; acting in conformity with such rules; virtuous; just; as, a moral man. Used sometimes in distinction from religious; as, a moral rather than a religious life.
    The wiser and more moral part of mankind. Sir M. Hale.
  3. Capable of right and wrong action or of being governed by a sense of right; subject to the law of duty.
    A moral agent is a being capable of those actions that have a moral quality, and which can properly be denominated good or evil in a moral sense. J. Edwards.
  4. Acting upon or through one's moral nature or sense of right, or suited to act in such a manner; as, a moral arguments; moral considerations. Sometimes opposed to material and physical; as, moral pressure or support.
  5. Supported by reason or probability; practically sufficient; -- opposed to legal or demonstrable; as, a moral evidence; a moral certainty.
  6. Serving to teach or convey a moral; as, a moral lesson; moral tales.
Mor"al noun
Definitions
  1. The doctrine or practice of the duties of life; manner of living as regards right and wrong; conduct; behavior; -- usually in the plural.
    Corrupt in their morals as vice could make them. South.
  2. The inner meaning or significance of a fable, a narrative, an occurrence, an experience, etc.; the practical lesson which anything is designed or fitted to teach; the doctrine meant to be inculcated by a fiction; a maxim.
    Thus may we gather honey from the weed, And make a moral of the devil himself. Shak.
    To point a moral, or adorn a tale. Johnson.
    We protest against the principle that the world of pure comedy is one into which no moral enters. Macaulay.
  3. A morality play. See Morality, 5.
Mor"al intransitive verb
Definitions
  1. To moralize. Obs. Shak.

Webster 1913