morality play

American  

noun

1. an allegorical form of the drama current from the 14th to 16th centuries and employing such personified abstractions as Virtue, Vice, Greed, Gluttony, etc.

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morality play British  

noun

1. a type of drama written between the 14th and 16th centuries concerned with the conflict between personified virtues and vices

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Etymology

Origin of morality play

First recorded in 1925–30

Example Sentences

See Examples For:

morality play

Turning demographic math into a morality play won’t balance the budget or expand opportunity.

From The Wall Street Journal ● Mar. 2, 2026

Possessing signifiers of a morality play, “The Lehman Trilogy” is, curiously enough, missing a moral center.

From Seattle Times ● May 7, 2024

What’s really going on here is a kind of morality play of a much larger sort.

From Slate ● Dec. 28, 2023

While it doesn’t venture far from its evident stage roots, neither does “What We Do Next,” a sinewy, tautly calibrated morality play, ever stray from the decidedly contemporary issues at its complex core.

From Los Angeles Times ● Mar. 2, 2023

Farmer listens good-naturedly, interpreting Ti Jean’s words as “a giant morality play, a commentary on social inequality.”

From "Mountains Beyond Mountains" by Tracy Kidder and Michael French