honesty

noun

1. 1

   The act, quality, or condition of being honest.

   academic / artistic / emotional / intellectual honesty

   brutal / devastating / searing honesty

   There’s no trust, / No faith, no honesty in men; all perjured, / All forsworn, all naught, all dissemblers.

   1787, George Colman, Junior, Inkle and Yarico, London: G.G.J. & J. Robinson, Act 2, p. 45, O give me your plain dealing Fellows Who never from honesty shrink; Not thinking on all they shou’d tell us, But telling us all that they think.

2. 2

   obsoleteHonor; decency, propriety.

   Have ye no wit, manners, nor honesty, but to gabble like tinkers at this time of night?

   Fellovves in armes faithfull and valiant, / I thanke you for your paines and honeſties, […]

   […] that we may lead a quiet and peaceable life in all godliness and honesty.

3. 3

   obsoleteChastity.

   […] 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. 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, […] Oh, these vild women, That are so ill preservers of men’s honours, They cannot govern their own honesties!

4. 4

   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.

   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.

Forms

plural

honesties