• integrity •
Printable Version Pronunciation: in-te-gri-tee • Hear it!
Part of Speech: Noun, mass
Meaning: 1. Soundness, without any threatening flaw. 2. Wholeness, completeness. 3. Morality, a strict code of ethics which is meticulously followed.
Notes: Today's Good Word refers to a quality and qualities (tall, good, clean), usually expressed by adjectives. The problem is that our word today has no adjective where expected, "She is a very _____ person". Integral has picked up another meaning (or is it the other way around?) So we are left with using a prepositional phrase with the noun, "She is a person of integrity."
In Play: Today's Good Word refers to how things hold together in one piece, whether concrete objects: "His driving over invious terrain tested the integrity of his jeep, which held together marvelously." Or abstract objects: "His integrity was tested when he became treasurer of the club; unfortunately, it didn't hold." (That is why he is currently living furtively on an undisclosed Caribbean island.)
Word History: This very good noun comes from Latin integritas "soundness", the noun of the adjective integer "whole, complete" (another word we snitched) via Old French integrite. All these words go back to PIE *tag- "to touch, handle" which had a 'fickle N', i.e. sometimes it was *tag-, sometimes it was *tang- for reasons we don't understand. So that is it both in tangible "that can be touched" and in tactile "touchable", from the past participle, tactus of the Latin verb tangere "to touch". Now, would you believe that when the IR (UK) and IRS (US) 'touches' you for your taxes? Tax comes from Greek tassein, taxai "to arrange, assess", based on the same root. (It doesn't tax us at all to thank Susan Gillmor of Portland, Maine, for suggesting this fascinating Good Word.)
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