moral

Từ điển Oxford Advanced Learner 8th

moral [moral morals] adjective, noun BrE [ˈmɒrəl] NAmE [ˈmɔːrəl] NAmE [ˈmɑːrəl]
adjective
1. only before noun concerned with principles of right and wrong behaviour
•a moral issue/dilemma/question
•traditional moral values
•a decline in moral standards
•moral philosophy
•a deeply religious man with a highly developed moral sense
• The newspapers were full of moral outrage at the weakness of other countries.
2. only before noun based on your own sense of what is right and fair, not on legal rights or duties
Syn: ↑ethical
•moral responsibility/duty
• Governments have at least a moral obligation to answer these questions.
• (BrE) The job was to call on all her diplomatic skills and moral courage (= the courage to do what you think is right).
3. following the standards of behaviour considered acceptable and right by most people
Syn: ↑good, Syn: ↑honourable
• He led a very moral life.
•a very moral person
compare ↑amoral, ↑immoral
4. only before noun able to understand the difference between right and wrong
• Children are not naturally moral beings.

Word Origin:
late Middle English: from Latin moralis, from mos, mor- ‘custom’, (plural) mores ‘morals’. As a noun the word was first used to translate Latin Moralia, the title of St Gregory the Great's moral exposition of the Book of Job, and was later applied to the works of various classical writers.

Thesaurus:
moral adj.
1. only before noun
•It's a moral issue.
ethical •
a moral/an ethical question/issue/problem/dilemma
moral/ethical ideas/values/standards/principles/practices
Moral or ethical? Moral is used especially about individual people's feelings of what is right and wrong; ethical is used especially in the context of business, politics or society in general. Ethical can sound more formal and less forceful than moral.
2.
•He led a very moral life.
principled • • good • • virtuous • • ethical • • scrupulous •
Opp: immoral
a moral/principled/good/virtuous/scrupulous person
a moral/good/virtuous life
moral/good/ethical behaviour/practices/principles

Example Bank:
•He's a deeply religious man with a highly developed moral sense.
•Politicians have a moral obligation to address the needs of the poorest.
•She felt she had a moral duty to look after her elderly parents.
•She's always lamenting what she sees as the decline in moral standards.
•The basic moral philosophies of most world religions are remarkably similar.
•The colonel stumped out, his face flushed with moral indignation.
•The job was to call upon all her skills of diplomacy and moral courage.
•The press whipped up a moral panic over these so-called ‘welfare scroungers’.
•We try to teach our students to be conscientious, moral young people.
Idiom: take/claim/seize the moral high ground
 
noun
1. moralsplural standards or principles of good behaviour, especially in matters of sexual relationships
•Young people these days have no morals.
•The play was considered an affront to public morals.
•The question is one of manners rather than morals.
• (old-fashioned)a woman of loose morals (= with a low standard of sexual behaviour)
2. countable a practical lesson that a story, an event or an experience teaches you
•And the moral is that crime doesn't pay.

Word Origin:
late Middle English: from Latin moralis, from mos, mor- ‘custom’, (plural) mores ‘morals’. As a noun the word was first used to translate Latin Moralia, the title of St Gregory the Great's moral exposition of the Book of Job, and was later applied to the works of various classical writers.

Example Bank:
•He has absolutely no morals, that man!
•She had tried her best to instil morals into her daughters.
•She was gradually instilling morals into her children.
•There are clear morals to be drawn from the failure of these companies.
•There is a clear moral to all this.
•Women who went to pubs alone would sometimes be assumed to have loose morals.