demerit
Americannoun
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a mark against a person for misconduct or deficiency.
If you receive four demerits during a term, you will be expelled from school.
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the quality of being censurable or punishable; fault; culpability.
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Obsolete. merit or desert.
noun
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something, esp conduct, that deserves censure
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a mark given against a person for failure or misconduct, esp in schools or the armed forces
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a fault or disadvantage
Other Word Forms
Etymology
Origin of demerit
1350–1400; Middle English (< Old French desmerite ) < Medieval Latin dēmeritum fault, noun use of neuter past participle of Latin dēmerēre to earn, win the favor of ( dē- taken in ML as privative, hence pejorative). See de-, merit
Explanation
A demerit is a mark for doing something wrong. Running in the hall at school might get you one demerit. Running in the hall naked could get you a demerit that will go down on your permanent record. Avoid! A demerit is also a fault or weakness. If you're trying to decide which candidate to vote for, consider the merits and demerits of each. The other kind of demerit is a punishment — a negative mark against someone, especially a student or a member of the military. Your teacher might have a policy of handing out three demerits before requiring students to stay after school for detention. The Old French desmerite combines des-, "not," and merite, "merit," or "worth."
Vocabulary lists containing demerit
A Bird in the Air Means We Can Still Breathe
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Promise Boys
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Excerpt from "Speak"
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Example Sentences
Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.
Scene of the attempted break was the Detention Demerit Building, popularly known as Cherry Hill, where the prison's most unruly criminals are kept.
From Time Magazine Archive
Evil is hereby excluded, with all Merit and Demerit; and likewise all preference in the Esteem of God, of one Part of the Creation to another.
From Benjamin Franklin Representative selections, with introduction, bibliograpy, and notes by Jorgenson, Chester E.
His remarks on the sense of Merit and Demerit in the agent are trivial or commonplace.
From Moral Science; a Compendium of Ethics by Bain, Alexander
Demerit, the natural right which others have to punish us, 723-l.
From Morals and Dogma of the Ancient and Accepted Scottish Rite of Freemasonry by Pike, Albert
Of Merit and Demerit; or of the objects of reward and punishment.
From An Essay on the History of Civil Society, Eighth Edition by Ferguson, Adam
Definitions and idiom definitions from Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023
Idioms from The American Heritage® Idioms Dictionary copyright © 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.
